June is always a very time for us in the Garden. Getting the pits ready for Papaya plants that are waiting to be planted since last one year.We transplant seedlings in poly pack and put them in green house so when they are transferred in the ground they are ready to fruit within few months. We get home grown Papaya in breakfast almost for 6 months in a year. Kay never liked Papaya in Britain and here she dont mind them eating everyday. Cheeku and Orange plants are doing well and so the Ber and Bananas in the garden.
I spent all my childhood summer vacations at my Mama's (My mother's brother) house in Mainpuri. Going to Baag (orchard) to guard Mango trees in day time and spend the day cooling off in Tube well pool and eating Water Melon's use to be daily routine. In those days no one cared for the summer temp. We were advised to eat lots of fruit and drink lots of water and dont worry about the heat. By Four o clock in the afternoon we need to reach home with a bundle of green fodder for buffalo and some Labheda in our pocket for kite repair. Labheda has very sticky juice that acts like a gum. While we were sitting our Mango trees we always dreamt of taking few Bale or Mulberry from others garden. In those days no one grew Phalsa around. It was a delicacy. So when I had the chance to plant fruit trees on my land I chose all those plants that I liked in my childhood.
For more than ten years I was chasing one after the other nursery to get Phalsa plants. Agra, Dhaulpur, Shikohabad, Firozabad and Mainpuri are the area for Phalsa but none of the nursery keeps plants. One farmer and Dhaulpur advised me to grow my own plants. It will be slow process but more satisfactory. I did that and produced more than 50 plants that are planted on the land now. Majority of them are fruiting now.
We were expecting a much better Mango crop than what we got this year. Dashahari and Langda crop is poor but still enough for us. We have 6 Dashahri and 7 Langda Mango trees. Dashahari will be dropping in few week time. We let them ripe on tree and drop. Langada needs to be picked just after first rain otherwise some Moth start laying its eggs in it. Dashahari are about 5 inches long and some, that are knocked by crows, weigh about 250 gms and some Langda even more.
Other fruit which we have best in the district is Lemon. We have only 6 seed less Kagazi (paper like thin skin)lemon plants. They grow so big in size that many people thinks it's Atarra, a variety of bitter lemon. Once one of my friend in Bhopal took me to market and suggested me tio buy a food processor. I said I dont need. No No you need it. It will help u a lot. I surrendered OK. So he chose Inalsa food processor, I paid. Now when we reached his home he gave a demonstration how to juice Lemons. Packed it back with a instruction that now you dont need to bring that heavy weight of Lemons here. Just bring few Juice bottles. His wife uses lemon juice for making Panir too. One of our friend every time he visits bandhavgarh takes lemons to his home and no one is allowed to use those lemons. My sisters teaches staff on phone how to make Lemon and Karonda sweet and Masala pickles so when they come it's all ready for them Each lemon gives about 70-80 ml juice and each tree has minimum 8-10 bamboos for support.
Fruit tree where we have failed is Cheeku. At present we have only one tree and that does not give us enough fruit. It's like our Jackfruit tree where we have no idea what to do to get better crop. We followed all the suggestions of Pro people but no results.
We are fail;ed to make any good use of Mulberry and Guava. This year Mulberry trees were full of fruits and full birds. Pick no notus (Red Vented Bulbul) enjoyed the fruit more than anyone. Munmun and Mahi' comment was It's pain to pick them up. That's because they never developed the taste for this fruit. Winter crop of Guava is dedicated to Parakeets. We can't save it from parakeet and we can't eat all those fruits so why not let them enjoy. Someone always gets a good picture of them from the garden.
Now we have so many trees in our garden that there is hardly any space left to put any new plant in it. Now I am planting all these trees again on our Ranchha land.
Hopefully things will look better there in a year or two.
I spent all my childhood summer vacations at my Mama's (My mother's brother) house in Mainpuri. Going to Baag (orchard) to guard Mango trees in day time and spend the day cooling off in Tube well pool and eating Water Melon's use to be daily routine. In those days no one cared for the summer temp. We were advised to eat lots of fruit and drink lots of water and dont worry about the heat. By Four o clock in the afternoon we need to reach home with a bundle of green fodder for buffalo and some Labheda in our pocket for kite repair. Labheda has very sticky juice that acts like a gum. While we were sitting our Mango trees we always dreamt of taking few Bale or Mulberry from others garden. In those days no one grew Phalsa around. It was a delicacy. So when I had the chance to plant fruit trees on my land I chose all those plants that I liked in my childhood.
For more than ten years I was chasing one after the other nursery to get Phalsa plants. Agra, Dhaulpur, Shikohabad, Firozabad and Mainpuri are the area for Phalsa but none of the nursery keeps plants. One farmer and Dhaulpur advised me to grow my own plants. It will be slow process but more satisfactory. I did that and produced more than 50 plants that are planted on the land now. Majority of them are fruiting now.
Now we have so many trees in our garden that there is hardly any space left to put any new plant in it. Now I am planting all these trees again on our Ranchha land.
Hopefully things will look better there in a year or two.
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