‘Nature is beautiful and has energy to heal us‘. I read this in books as a child but I didn’t really understand what it meant.

I started getting crippling pains in my legs and body when my second child was just couple of months old. Life was very difficult and challenging with 2 children under the age of five and coping with Unidentifiable Pain. Walking and even driving was limited, so I had to spend a lot of time at home with my children. It was impossible to keep them indoors so, to keep them busy, my children and I started to spend a lot of time in the garden growing runner beans, sunflowers, etc. We found immense pleasure in our small garden growing fruits and vegetables and my children also got into the habit of eating the vegetables from our garden. This is how it all started.

Then as the children started growing, my responsibilities and priorities also changed but my pain didn’t go. Over the years I learnt to divert my mind from pain by being in nature and growing and nurturing the plants. It was very therapeutic for me to stay close to the nature and nurturing them. Every year I started growing new varieties of vegetables and enjoyed the whole process of life cycle of the plants.

I have seen and felt plants communicating with me. Believe it or not but “I saw my bottle gourd plant dancing and climbing up the trellis in my conservatory.” My Bitter Gourd plant in my green house doesn’t like me leaving them, so they would wrap around my hand to stop me from going out. Even though I spend a lot of my time on my own, when I am in our garden but I am never alone, I have my plants, robin, and naughty pigeons, entire Universe is with me, makes me feel very calm and relaxed. You will be surprised to know that the robin in our garden is also bilingual like my children! We take care of each other which helps me to keep going.

Nature has its own power to protect, support and and heal us. So it is our responsibility to protect our nature and wild-life so that our future generations can enjoy and get benefitted by it.

I think we have learnt a big lesson from the Covid-19 pandemic, that it is important and possible to become nearly self sufficient.

I grow a variety of vegetables in Spring to early Autumn, enough to feed our family and friends.

I grow a line of seasonal produce with a focus of my energy and enthusiasm and I make sure to get the tastiest produce from my garden. Below are some examples of the exotic vegetables and flowers!