I have some few sq feet land around home and initially I had thought I could grow some vegetables etc there. Over last five six years I have now learned that land is filled with small bricks pieces and stones, it has termite and/or termite like thing that I think doesnt allow some of the things to grow, if something still manages to sprout, my dear Mor finishes it off diligently and just in very rare case something grows to be few inches tall, its likely to be run over/damaged by dogs, humans. Combine these conditions with my complete disconnect with soil - I do things like planting few years old seeds, do it in random season, have no clue of soil or water requirement of anything I try to grow etc. and I am so settled with my ignorance and failures that it just doesn't occur to me that there is an option to try to improve, to learn.
All these however, doesn't always discourage me from randomly wanting to grow something or other. To not unnecessarily waste my energy, early last year I started to put all the seeds in one or two pots and water them randomly thinking if something does come up, I will re-plant.
Around late June/ early July there were lots and lots of yellow rain lilies around. I simply love those flowers scattered on the ground. I went around collecting seeds - timing was perfect and I managed to get hundreds, actually thousands of them. I added as many possible to a pot and scattered remaining seeds all around. it rained everyday after that so watering was not an issue. A week later, while inspecting pot surface with my unaided eye (which had advantage of built in +9 dioptre magnification given my myopia), I saw some sprouts coming up. over next two weeks, Hundreds of young rain lilly plants were growing in the Pot as well as all around. Just as I declared it a success story, plants on ground started disappearing - I still dont know what happened to them but within days, the pot was the only place they still had survived. - yet another failed experiment..
Anyway, while collecting lilly seeds, I had found dried out fruits of Rose on a big Rose plant and took one or two home out of curiosity and also try to plant it. Mom turned out slightly less ignorant and told me that you don't plant rose seeds. I google and find it true - except that someone had given elaborate process if you really wanted to grow it from seeds. I do the first step or half- sock the cleaned seeds for some two hours in some hot or cold water, and then put them in my two pots standing under the Sun of July, Pots had, true to the season, managed to grow some fungus at that time. Rose growing tips I just read said how important it was to protect rose seeds from fungus, keep it in cold etc and still it gave very low probability that it will sprout..
Next month, I add some papaya seeds, then some other seeds, then Karela seeds, etc. in same pots, all the while keeping a watch if something does grow - but all I found growing occasionally was one or the other weed. and then, something changed. Two young Karela plants had come up. I replanted both, and both survived. After some more time, there were half a dozen Papaya plants growing in those pots. also re-planted and survived.
Encouraged, I put what I hoped were Gotu Kola seeds. I was very eager to see the herb growing and everyday kept looking out for any signs of it growing. One day, I see something that was different from weeds I had seen before. - they were two of them. Didnt look like Gotu Kola mature leaves but probably first young leaves could be different? I started watering it everyday - Gotu kola needs lots of water. More leaves.. but leaf shape didnt show any convergence to Gotu Kola. It certainly wasn't Gotu Kola and I was disappointed but still confused. what was it?
Defying all odds against it, including the fact that it was me who was trying to grow it, those two plants were of Rose. While I was still celebrating them, there was a third one coming up in second pot.
and meanwhile, I am actually happy that I could grow nearly nothing on the land as per my will. as now, I have come to recognise some of the weeds that grew on its own. Bhringraj, Bhumi amala, Punarnava, Mahabala.. I actually needed all these and had no clue that they were chasing me all these years. and even if I didnt think I needed those, just knowing how wonderful herbs they are and that I somehow managed not to contribute to their destruction from their land is reason enough to be happy about it. and even more importantly, I have started seeing beauty of land with her own plants growing happily, supporting all the insects, birds and other life.
Also what I learned is, right way to live with plants and soil is no different from that of living with my other friends. (Don't ask me why I might have thought it to be any different in first place - I don't know answer to that.) I mean, when I say 'my babblers', 'my Mor', 'my squirrels'.. what I also mean is babblers, Mor, squirrels who call me 'their human' and that's the key to our connect. so if I happen to report a success story wrt to plants and soil in coming time, it will be success story of the plants and soil, not mine.
