My mom has a green thumb. She loves plants and plants love her. I remember the days we used to have dinner on the terrace of our old house and her picking out the leeches from the orchid plants with her bare fingers and dropping them into the coconut shell with rock salt in it. Did I mention with her bare fingers? Yeah, that’s how she rolls. While we never had a large edible garden in our balcony, she always had some herbs, okra, brinjal, curry leaves, and green chillies sown somewhere around.
Now we have very little space around our house in Kottayam but she still manages to squeeze in maximum stuff. The plot is only 8 cents (that’s how we measure in Kerala) including the area the house is on, half of which is tiled, so there’s very little soil area.
Yet, she has green chillies..
There’s nothing like the flavour of fresh green chillies. Nothing! Ok, except fresh coriander leaves. But that’s the only exception, really.
She has tomatoes. Whenever she makes sambar, she just steps out of the house and comes back with a fresh tomato in her hand to drop it in. Oh man! Check out her fenugreek leaves sambar in which she used freshly picked cherry tomatoes from her garden.
Any self-respecting malayali (aka mallu), even pseudo ones like us, has to have a coconut tree in their backyard. So we have one too. Just one, but it’s more than enough as you can see. Many of these coconuts will end up in mom’s popular thick coconut garlic chutney that goes really well with her adai dosa.
This papaya plant has a story behind it. Long (a bit longer than I’d like) back when I went on a college trip to Ooty, I brought back some seeds from a roadside seller. That’s right, papaya seeds. He claimed its for seedless, hybrid, short papayas that are red inside and I, of course, believed him. Although it turned out nothing like he described, Amma swears they taste “different”. She loves me, that mother of mine!
Bananas! But of course. This is njaali poovan. And I am too lazy to find out what its called in English.
Bougainvilla. I hear that these days, bougainvilla are no longer considered fancy. But I love them. Amma says if you give them some good dried cow dung, lots of sunlight and enough water, nothing is as low maintenance and they are so pretty. Sadly, she only has about 4-5 pots now and this orange is a rare colour.
Ah. Drumstick leaves. They are painful to prepare before cooking and smell horrible when raw (or is it just me) but you gotta love them drumstick leaves. Check out this drumstick leaves rasam recipe to see what I mean.
Betel leaves aka vetta. Although we don’t have any ‘chewers’ in the house and we are not very religious back home, amma loves having this around. That’s the base of the coconut tree, btw, next to which she also has curry leaves.
These are my doing, these basil shoots. Thanks Deeba! Amma is helping me take care of them because I knew for a fact that without sunlight, I’d kill all the ones I try to grow in Singapore.
Any self-respecting malayali (aka mallu), even pseudo ones like us, has to have a coconut tree in their backyard. So we have one too. Just one, but it’s more than enough as you can see. Many of these coconuts will end up in mom’s popular thick coconut garlic chutney that goes really well with her adai dosa. 
This papaya plant has a story behind it. Long (a bit longer than I’d like) back when I went on a college trip to Ooty, I brought back some seeds from a roadside seller. That’s right, papaya seeds. He claimed its for seedless, hybrid, short papayas that are red inside and I, of course, believed him. Although it turned out nothing like he described, Amma swears they taste “different”. She loves me, that mother of mine! 
Bananas! But of course. This is njaali poovan. And I am too lazy to find out what its called in English. 
Bougainvilla. I hear that these days, bougainvilla are no longer considered fancy. But I love them. Amma says if you give them some good dried cow dung, lots of sunlight and enough water, nothing is as low maintenance and they are so pretty. Sadly, she only has about 4-5 pots now and this orange is a rare colour.
Ah. Drumstick leaves. They are painful to prepare before cooking and smell horrible when raw (or is it just me) but you gotta love them drumstick leaves. Check out this drumstick leaves rasam recipe to see what I mean.
Psstt.. this is our neighbour’s tree. But they share. In fact they insist we share. True story.
Betel leaves aka vetta. Although we don’t have any ‘chewers’ in the house and we are not very religious back home, amma loves having this around. That’s the base of the coconut tree, btw, next to which she also has curry leaves. 
These are my doing, these basil shoots. Thanks Deeba! Amma is helping me take care of them because I knew for a fact that without sunlight, I’d kill all the ones I try to grow in Singapore. 
Happy weekend y’all 😉
Back home, even Amma has a beautiful Garden. It seems like ages since I have seen it..Huh… Though I don't have the Green thumb I manage to grow the curry leaves in a small pot 🙂 The lovely flower pots my hubby bought is lying outside in my patio in this snowy weather(how cruel I am). Couldn't bring them in as they brought lots of insects home :-(( SOBS…..
First it was your jackfruit recipes that made me half mad and now you had to post a pic of those njaali poovans??
After coming to US, I discovered that I had inherited the green thumb from my granddad but unfortunately I also married a person who thinks plants should be in the balcony even during Boston winters 🙁
what a lovely post!!, bringing back lot of memories, feel like crying, I can never think of growing anything here!!, I am trying to save my curry leaves, which becomes dormant and has to stay inside the house and takes the warmth from the heater!!, scared that it might die, and the same story with my hibiscus, and my doddapatre died, I wrote sushma about it, thanks for this lovely most, it brings back lot of things.
Ente kannu niranju,me too had taken some photoes of mom's garden, but didn't get chance to post yet.. Love u Nags..
Wow! Ur Mum sure has a fab garden, small or big, what matters is the love that u put into tending it! ur Mum is doing magic in there!
I am NO gardener, I systematically murder all my plants:( but I love to see how well others handle it.
Thamburati – your next post should be on how to make those coconut candies to suck while reading such posts! Not fair that only you get to eat them.
This is so lovely – I was never into plants and trees much before we bought our house last year. We have a huge guava tree in our back yard and had about 350-400 guavas this season – I distributed it to everyone I could think of! Got some more on my counter right now! We planted a few more trees and are taking care of those like my other kids now.
Good luck on your basil shoots! I hope they grow big and flavorful and you can make some basil pesto and I can drool at it!
i would do anything to drink tender coconut sigh 🙁
Aw !!! Now you made me want to grab the candies and hit the bed !!!
My mom has the green thumb too…. and all my summer vacations were in Palakkad where there was even barely any electricity…. Love those times…
Thanks for a lovely post Nags !!! 🙂
xoxo
Mala
Beautiful post Nags…Reminds me of my grand aunt place in Mangalore…They sold it all and moved to Bangalore…Cant imagine how she must feel..They had about 30 coconut trees, betel, papaya, chickoo, cashew, chillies, everything…Love the pics, especially the banana one…Have a great weekend !
There is nothing like plucking fresh veggies and slice into it ever!! Have a great weekend Nags! 🙂