By utilizing the available vacant
land patches in our houses, it is possible to create greenery aplenty, just in
our spare times and without much expenditure. Above all, owning a salubrious home
garden, bristling with vibrant fruit and flower bearing plants with lush
foliage can, in itself, be a unique spiritual-worldly experience, per se. It
can be an extension of the world of our own, where we can create, recreate,
experiment and give shape to the sacred space we want; that is much intimate,
familiar, natural and private or personal. A home garden, when developed with
care and consideration, can be a pride possession and a place of natural beauty
in the locality. Even in a thick urban jungle of steel and concrete, and while
pursuing a very busy life; we still can have the luxury of living side by side with
nature, naturally.
When we have set up our home garden
after putting the groundwork, we can decide to grow and harvest the exotic
herbs, alluring flowers, the choicest fruits, the delicious tubers and bulbs,
the nutritious vegetables, the enchanting leaves with various magical shades
and shapes of different kinds or the life infusing medicinal species, as we
like; right in our backyard. To top it, when they grow up, we can use the
bounties real fresh, free from any harmful pesticides or loaded with any impersonal
economic considerations. This can be in a sense, a refreshing sensibility and
enjoyable experience and plenty many other things, as well!
Home gardening is an enterprising
exercise that can ensure us with rich dividends, both tangible and intangible,
in the long run. One need not be a horticulture specialist or an agriculture
entrepreneur to have a choicest home garden. Further, with nil to minimum labor
hands, time, and risk of failure, technical know-how, or cost; it is easy to
develop and maintain the bristling home garden as a pastime leisurely activity
or a participatory family endeavor. Very often, but mostly, the inputs
necessary for giving shape to the home garden are usually readily available in
and near our houses, places of residence or the cities or towns, nearby. It is
also scalable, as per our emerging needs, available time and enthusiasm. With
innovative techniques, creative planting methods and lady luck; it is also
possible at times, to break the ground and win laurels, by crafting the extra-ordinary
feats; right at our own little and cozy home garden that can qualify us for a
place in the local newspaper, TV programmed or agriculture fair/horticulture
show. As an example, perhaps, one day, the banana plant in our home garden
would reward us with fruits that are of the biggest size, anyone has ever grown
or seen ever! The home garden can throw in, many surprising results, if we are
ready to experiment with the plants we grow with love and care and a little bit
of scientific knowledge concerning cultivation process or the folk wisdom
associated with cultivation.
Home gardening is the best way to utilize
the free ground spaces in and around our house. Even if there is no ground
space available in an urban setting, still, we can create a nice home garden on
the rooftops and indoors; with stationary and perched pots and vessels, sitting conveniently in different
available places in our houses. There are various kinds of plants readily
available locally or can be self propagated that are suitable to any such
arrangements. For starting and managing a home garden, a lot of books and
manuals are available in the market that can be of much help initially. Additionally,
we can talk to and seek assistance from people who are already having their own
home gardens or farms in the neighborhoods and elsewhere, for practical tips
and exposures. Or we may perhaps pay a visit to the local nurseries for
orientation and of course, for buying few saplings or seeds for use, for time
to time to add diversity.
Home gardening can be extremely
rewarding in growing our own food (at least part of it) by the labor of care
with a personal touch. Even if it may not have much economic benefits (though,
it can have!), yet when we are the producers, harvesters and consumers of the
produces of our own home garden, it makes sense, definitely in a very different
way. It certainly would be a joy to be small producer of fresh and healthy
fruits, green leaves, vegetables, and roots, etc. just by investing a little of
the affordable things that we can spare and assemble without much fuss. If planned
properly, round the year, we can have the various seasonal produces
sufficiently grown at our own home garden for the requirements of the family
members.
When we grow and tend regularly to
the home garden with right earnest and motivation, we develop intimacy with
plants and the landscapes, the experiences can be extremely compensating and healing.
Ask any home gardener and you will come to know that it is one of the best ways
to immerse oneself in creative productive chores and relaxation, at the same
time. By using less of the agricultural implements and by doing voluntary physical
labor while weeding, digging, watering, pruning, planting, harvesting or just
for being around the garden, we can get adequate exercise needed for our age
and physical conditions. Apart from working to look after our beautiful home garden
twice, in the morning and evening, we can still find time to just sit by or
observe the plants as they grow, day after day. It ought to feel fine, as you know!
YOU AND YOUR GARDEN
Let the home garden of yours be a
sacred place where you are intimate with all the elements and know for sure
their purposeful existence. Being completely being aware of and concerned about
the cycle of life of all the plants and life forms in the garden, like the
resident insects, visiting birds, colorful bugs, hurrying creepers, fluttering
butterflies, hurried dragonflies, or the coy frogs, etc. can really make your
day ethereal, enliven and colorful. While at the garden, it is nice to be a
part of the microcosm that is in full bloom, realizing that everything is
related to that space and time. Also perceive how the components of the garden
incessantly reciprocate with each other to give meaning to their communal
existence, including the inanimate entities, for example. Throughout the year,
be in the known about the interplay of the natural forces and processes unfolding
subtly in the garden. Support and be supported by your pulsating garden by
deriving nutrition, sustenance and comfort in being an integral part of it. In
your solitude, meditate in your home garden with all your creations in
attendance, by passive observation of things around you, but only as the
extension; while walking slowly or resting quietly for a while. This will
render you peace and tranquility and the home garden of yours will turn into a
serene and beautiful place full of meanings, instantly.
Always it is better to be the
initiator, custodian, experimenter and not the master of the garden, so that
you will feel richly rewarded for your care, love and labor in myriad mundane
and mysterious ways.
Create a garden today, if you already
have not done so, and invite your friends, neighbors, well-wishers, or
relatives to be the witness, soon. Don’t forget to treat them with the fresh
harvests from your garden, to pluck a flower or borrow an extra tree or a
handful of seeds for propagation in their own patch!