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 😉
Wonderful post, wonderful amma, wonderful pictures..
lovely post naags, trust me i only read your posts cos i dont see any pics. so for me reading about your backyard and not seeing it was like reading a book and letting your imagination take you wherever it wanted to go. and trust me it was a nice place 🙂
Aparna, I was referring to me and my family as pseudo mallus. We are not actually Malayalis 🙂 Read my 'About Me' section to learn more!
Rajani, I can send you pics anytime you feel like seeing them, just don't want to spam you 🙂
Mallugirl, yes I did 🙂
Shyam, yes I knew you meant that 🙂
Sakshi, weren't you just in India girl?! I missed you around btw. And I am so sorry TMD turned up such a disappointment to a lot of people. I will make it up to you, I promise 🙂
Thanks to everyone who appreciated and wished my mom. I will surely pass on your wishes! 😀
sigh!! did u take these pics? beautiful.
Huge wave of nostalgia; a snapshot of our own small window's across the oceans! Happy Weekend!
I meant "black thumb", but you knew that, right Nags? 🙂
I love plant and garden photos and stories because I'm such an erratic gardenen with a black thumg (the opposite of a green one). Your mother is so very lucky, and so are you when you go home… 🙂
but oh HOW I wish you hadnt described that "picking leeches off with her fingers" bit because now I'm probably going to be throwing up in my nightmares! Leeches give me the creeps. 🙁
Mallus (think I'll call them naturalised not pseudo!) and their coconut trees! LOL
The papaya and betel leaves reminds me of my home in Cochin.
belated wishes for a wonderful New Year.
Nags,
Lovely shots. Loved so much green in just one page. My mom and dad are both fond of gardening, and wherever my baba gets posted there's always a little green patch. We live in a police quarter so there's nothing much we can do except for some potted ones.