LIFE IS GREEN

Homemade Pesto from homegrown Basil - its perfect

2008-03-13T21:04:00.006-04:00

I have expressed my pleasure in seeing the little green leaves appear in winter over my basil plant. I have to now express my pleasure in actually making my first pesto with the basil on my windowsill. Over the last several months I have pruned my basil plant incorrectly but the plant has sustained my torture.

The right way to prune your basil for a fuller plant:
Don’t just pluck the leaves from the top, cut off the top 4 leaves with the branch right above the next potential growth node. If you don’t you shall experience something I did. A taller less fuller growing basil.

Storing Basil:
Unlike rosemary or lavender you cant really dry and store basil. You have to take the opptosite route. My personal way of preserving my growing treasure was to coat the leaves in olive oil and freeze it in a container. After about 3 months of growing and harvesting my produce I had about 3 cups of basil leaves. I was waiting all these months to make my own fresh pesto. And trust me it tastes amazing.

My amazing pesto:
So I referred to several sites to get my perfect recipe. I found a great blog on how to make Pesto like an Italian grandmother. I knew it then, that this would be it. The ingredient list:

Ingredients:
1) 3 cups of frozen and some fresh basil
2) 1 or 2 cloves of garlic (when stored in olive oil, the garlic flavor tends to become much more stronger than anticipated, so be careful)
3) 2 tablespoons of roasted pine nuts (substitutes: macademia nuts, walnuts or almonds)
4) Salt
5) Olive oil
Note: I choose to leave out the cheese as without it you can store your pesto in the refrigerator for a longer time (5 days or more vs. having to consume it in 3 days).

Process – as per the Italian Grandmother: As our Italian friend mentions in her blog: http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/001570.html
"Most of the pesto you encounter here in the U.S. is different for a few reasons. First off, most of what you see here is made by machine, usually a food processor or hand blender. This holds true even if it is homemade. Don't get me wrong, it usually tastes good, but because the ingredients aren't hand chopped you end up with an texture that is more like like a moist paste and there little to no definition between ingredients.
During my lesson I quickly began to realize chopping all the ingredients by hand and not blending them is key because this prevents the ingredients from becoming a completely homogenized emulsion or paste. When you dress a pasta with a pesto that has been hand chopped the miniscule flecks of basil will separate from the olive oil in places, you get definition between ingredients, and bright flavors pop in a way they don't when they've been blended into one ."

.......Gardenias and me live happily every after.

2008-01-27T14:53:00.000-05:00

I grew up in Mumbai, India, in one of its very prominent suburbs called Parle. Near our house was the Parle Biscuit Factory that added a sweet fragrance in the air every now and then. Most of the dwellers in the apartment building were the perfect example of the growing middleclass population in Mumbai. We had a great playground in the building with a large palm tree, two mango trees, a chicku tree (Sapota) and then the branches of the gardenia just crossed into our building walls from the neighbourhood.

The gardenia was a mystery. It grew in the sewer running between the two walls of the neighbourhood, but it still grew the most amazing fragrant white glossy flowers. They grew in large numbers on the large bush. The old lady living in a hut next to the plant (more than a shack) seemed to have taken the sole ownership of the it. She would not let anyone pluck flowers or touch the branches without her clear permit. At times my maid would stretch his arms to get me the flowers, sometimes I walked up to the old lady with a sweet smile to request one. She was mean, but she was kind at the same time. I often took the flowers for my teachers, who loved them, but didn’t care for them as much as I did. I still took, them, to show my respect. I was a good child, don’t you think? I moved out of this apartment building after 14 years of living there, but I remember every year, there were always a bounty of flowers on this plant and they seem to have increased in fragrance every year.

This is the sole reason I grow gardenia’s in my New York apartment, it brings back those wonderful memories, of the old lady, of my childhood. Some great memories they were!

Taking the fuss off the equation

2008-01-19T09:05:00.000-05:00

How many of your friends have admitted to killing plants in the past and to never venture on growing indoor plants again? Most of my friends have. So this article is for me, you and our friends that cant seem to keep up with regular watering. I cant blame them, life is too fast and too short to keep up with everything.

So my friends, here is a tool that seems promising. I haven't used it, but I plan to. Its an automated watering system. It holds one quart of water and can water your plants for 3 weeks. You can also add some fertilizer in there if you like and it will be a regular source of feed for your plants. The pitcher is in turn connected to specially designed ceramic pointers that go into the soil near your plant. As your plant / soil requires more moisture the Senson pulls the water from the picture.

You can buy this tools at WindowBox.com - a great store to find containers and tools.
http://www.windowbox.com/store/product/Watering/W0054.html

Why AeroGarden is not for me?

2008-01-17T21:45:00.000-05:00

When you are searching for information on herbs online or shopping for goods on online gardening store, it appears in front of you. An answer to the most successful growing of herbs indoors. The AeroGarden or rather the NASA – tested Aeroponic Technology which could be just great for growing plants in artificial environments like space stations or growing plants on Mars, it just doesn’t work for me.

As a plant enthusiast most of us enjoy every moment involved in growing a plant. Whether we germinate a seed using our little pellets and finding that warm dark spot to let is sit till we see the tiny little leaves pop up or we buy cuttings that we sow to see roots develop or we just buy the 3” plant where we wait to see the new growth happen. There is something emotional about these processes.

As per an article published on LiveScience.com in April 2007, Melinda Wenner studied the power of indoor plants. She referenced a study done by Clas Bergvall, an ethnologist at Umeå University in Sweden, who wanted to know what indoor plants did for people emotionally. For one thing, plants seem to make people more contemplative and self-reflective, Bergvall told LiveScience. Plants are often linked to people, places and memories—they are often given as gifts from close friends, for example—so having them around helps people snap out of their busy lives and think about things that are important to them, he said. Plants also remind people of the passing of time. They often look different in the morning than they do in the evening, said Bergvall, and this can keep people in tune with changes in their surroundings. And perhaps most importantly, plants bring people closer to nature, said Donna Lynn Sidhu, a plant enthusiast and landscape designer in Santa Barbara, California. “Plants are an expression of nature’s beauty,” she said. They help people incorporate the natural environment into their chaotic lives, and their influence can go as far as to be spiritual, she said.

(Source: http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/070416_indoor_plants.html)

I agree with these view-points and there is a real sense of adventure in growing plants and taking care of them yourselves, it provides a sense of fulfillment when you get that first perfect gardenia flower. You feel that you did something right, you could help create something so beautiful. You provided it the right mix of ingredients for it to bloom and blossom. Its like running a software program and getting the results on the first run. You just have to be a little more patient with plants, there is no instant gratification.

My biggest lesson from growing my plants has been that of “Patience”. Being born in Mumbai – a chaotic city and then moving to New York eventually, my patience tolerance for anything in life has been very low. I carried the same attitude when I sowed my first set of seeds in the little pellets. I checked everyday to see little leaves show up. But I had to remind myself that this was a 2-4 week process. This reminding, has helped me cultivate patience as a virtue in my other walks of life as well. I think better, I think more wisely and react only after I have given myself the time to reflect.

I thus believe that one should enjoy all the little pleasure that come along with growing plants indoors. Its not about having the perfect plant, its about perfecting our lives and this precious lesson is to be learned in the process and not in the results. So forget the AeroGarden my friends, you can have a teacher in your house and lots of joy, why give this up for a perfect kitchen top herb center?

Modern Home Gardening Accents

2008-01-16T11:08:00.000-05:00

If you live in a minimalist house and are a gardening enthusiast, you want your plants to look good. You want your plants and planters to accent your home. There are several designers that create a modern collection of gardening tools like planters that are dont only look beautiful but are highly functional for a modern busy lifestyle.

One of my favorite designer firm is Eva Solo, an offspring of a 60 year old Danish company. Check out their "take away" bird feeder:

For your plants, her self water planter looks exquisite in your modern home settings. This is an example where form and function combine.

The planter reservoir at the bottom can hold enough water to where you have to water your plants once a week and even less based on the season, flowering period and type of plant. You will immediately know that your plant is thirsty as you see the water level bottom in the transparent reservoir.

Check out product video for this self watering planter at: http://www.evasolo.dk/products-videocenter.html

If you live in the US, you could buy these products on Amazon. Link:http://www.amazon.com/Eva-Solo-Planter-Vase-Frost/dp/B0002RSY18

Plant Diagnostics

2008-01-15T23:16:00.000-05:00

As an analyst I like working with data, I love collecting and reviewing data to help make critical decisions. I decided to do the same for my plants. While there are lots of online sources that provide you broken, unclear and sometimes inaccurate information important to grow and maintain healthy plants, I decided to put together a database that could define all critical details about plants I grow at one place.

The following excel file has details in relation to:

Scientific Name
Common Name
Exposure
Light Requirements
Soil Type
Soil pH
Watering Specifications
Fertilizer Balance

It is available for the following plants: Gardenia "Four Seasons", Gardenia "Prostrata", Jasmine "Flora Piena", Night Blooming Jasmine, Day Blooming Jasmine, Curry leaves, Holy Basil, Sweet Basil, Rosemary and Nasturtiums.

I cant believe that I have gathered 11 varieties of plants in my tiny New York apartment.

Link to file: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pI_VKJninvUMzkcnUIykdZw

Over watering your plants?

2008-01-15T09:00:00.000-05:00

I bought started growing gardenia as a houseplant 3 months ago and while two of the shrubs have done well, one of the shrubs is not showing any new growth and its bottom leaves are turning yellow. The same with my rosemary where my tiny green leaves are wilting away. And I realized that the issue was that of overwatering. Everytime I left for a trip I overwatered my plants, I water them every other day even though the soil is moist at the top.

In terms of providing an example, you can see how my plant has lost leaves at the lower level of its stem, the second pictures shows you another leaf that has turned yellow and the third picture shows you the leaves that have turned yellow and fallen. I am hoping that I will be able to turn this plant around.

To address the issue, I read up on it and found a great article on signs of plants affected by too much watering. The link for the article is as follows:
http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/problems/signs-of-plants-affected-by-too-much-water.htm

Another article around watering indoor plants, quiet helpful published by Clemson Extension school: http://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheets/HGIC1459.htm

Also as per my prior blog use a soil moisture meter to check the moisture level and water accordingly.

Happy Planting, stop over watering.

New Year, New Tools, Better Indoor Plants

2008-01-14T08:27:00.000-05:00

Happy New Years to my readers and hope that everyone had a fantastic holiday. As we enter the New Years and having spent around 3 months cultivating my houseplants and I am now a proud keeper of Gardenia, Basil, Rosemary and Nasturtiums. I have just sowed seeds for Cilantro and Jalapeno Peppers and I will keep you updated on the progress on that.

Here is the status report on my plants:

Basil continues to grow well in my South East facing window and growth has propagated beautifully. I have not added any compost or fertilizer to it so far. I continue to prune the second set of leaves (from the top) which seems to have helped drastically.
Rosemary does not seem to like being on the window much and might not be liking the cold weather, I will update you more on issues with this.
Nasturtiums have grown as well or better than Basil. The leaves are looking beautiful and it just had a a flower bud appear.
Gardenias: There are so many varieties of gardenia's and the one that has been easier to handle is Prostata but the Fortuina have the largest flower and strongest fragrance. I have to admit that I have been overwatering these plants.

New Tools for the New Years.
When you grow plants indoors you realize that its probably not the best environment for your plants as they should ideally be grown outdoors. Living in New York City this can be wishful thinking for the keeper, so while we cannot control this, we can provide other most conducive environments in terms of conditions of the soil pH, soil moisture, light intensity, and total combined nitrogen and phosphorus and potash levels (NPK). While this can be time consuming if you live a busy life like most New Yorkers, there are tools you can use that can easily help you determine this in a few minutes.

Where to buy it: Electronic Soil Tester for Garden Plants
eStore link: http://www.cleanairgardening.com/soiltester.html

If your plants are not doing too well make sure you use the tool above to check your plant condition before you go making any behavioral changes as a keeper. I just bought this tool and will get it by end of next week. I will upload the conditions of my plants vs. the ideal conditions as per several sources online. It will be a great test.

Introducing a new herb on my window - Cilantro

2007-11-30T11:07:00.000-05:00

As my Basil continues to grow happy and wild, I am introducing a new herb Istarted growing around the same time. Its called Cilantro if you are fromthe west and Coriander if you are from the east.If you come from any Asian, Middle Eastern or Latin American country, youknow what I am talking about. Cilantro it looks a bit like Parsley buttastes much sweeter and is used extensively in cooking in India, LatinAmerica, China and Thailand. I haven¹t seen it used much in Korean orJapanese food so far. Better known in Southwest Asia as ³coriander², itderives its name from Latin term ³coriandrum². It tastes great in soups,salsa, guacamole and is sprinkled on top of most curries in India for itsflavor and sweet smell.While the delicate and ornamental plant is completely edible, the freshleaves and dried seeds are most commonly used in cooking.

My experience with growing Cilantro indoors:
Just like I started growing Basil, I used some dried coriander seeds (easilyavailable in bulk in a any grocery store, as it is extensively used incooking) and sowed them in my Jiffy Pellets. Unlike the Basil, my cilantroseeds did not show a lot of promise right away. Till date they have grown alittle, but not as fast as Basil. It could be wrong time in the year for it.But I think its more to do with the fact that I sowed around four to fiveseeds in 1 inch diameter, this could have too little space that hasconstrained the growth.To experiment when I transplanted my plant (in the Jiffy Pellet) to a pot, I sowed some seeds independently in the soil, just to compare. The seeds I sowed separately have shown tremendous growth right away, because they werewell spaced. The seeds sown separately germinated faster (keep the soilmoist at all times) with little care and today I have seen signs of theactual cilantro leaves getting produced. It¹s a very happy moment ascilantro leaves are very beautiful in shape and delicate in form.

Tips on growing cilantro seeds indoors:
Use a 5² diameter pot, add well drain soil and sow dried cilantro seeds 1.5cms below surface. Add lots of water and make sure it drains out. Cover thepot with a shrink wrap and leave it in a dark cool corner of your kitchencounter top. Keep a watch and add water every other day to ensure the soilis moist. Soon you will see the little pointed green leaves appearing. Oncethese surface, remove the wrap and move the pot to a sunny window. Watereveryday.

Growing a fuller basil plant

2007-11-19T13:05:00.000-05:00

Many times when you use the pellet, you realize that most of your seeds germinated and grew as a bunch from the center of the pellet. In this case, the leaves that are taller have a splendid growth at the cost of the smaller, shorter shoots that dont get the same amount of exposure to sunlight. To solve this problem, I used a pretty rudimentary tool to pull back the tall leaves so shorter leaves could move out of the shadow. I used french hair pins, the ones that you use to pull back extra hair in your bun. You can buy a 100 pack of these on Amazon for a mere $1.16. I could pull back the taller leaves by using very small and thin hair pins to delicately position the leaves. A very simple process, just be very gentle and soft to not damage the stems of your plant.

This process will ensure that you have a fuller, healthy plant where every shoot gets complete exposure to sun. Here is a picture of my fuller basil which has been harvested several times already:

Urban Garden

2007-11-14T19:25:00.000-05:00

For all who live in compact apartments know that growing plants takes up too much space in terms of where do you put the 2 quarts of soil, fertilizers, pots etc. I found some great ways to get started in a compact way.

Compact Greenhouse:

Jiffy International a Norwegian company makes a great product to start your compact greenhouse. I used the little Jiffy pellets to start my seeds. Get the Jiffy-7 5710 Mini Greenhouse 12 Peat Pellet for a mere $3.08. Just add water to the pellets that expand, dig a tiny hole and add one to three seeds, cover them back up with some peat. Set these in the greenhouse and store it in a dark warm place. I put the greenhouse in the oven and it worked great. Once the "true leaves" appear transplant the whole pellet into a pot. Its that easy!

Wonder Soil:

For soil I got the Wonder Soil. Wonder soil is an expanding potting mix that comes in 1/2 inch wafers. Just a cup of hot water, and one soil wafer expands to 14 times its original volume. Great for transplanting your jiffy pellets, one wafer fills a 4-inch pot. Or add water to all 18 in the 1-pound tube and you'll have the equivalent of a 10-pound bag of regular potting soil. This lightweight, soil-less medium is made of coconut coir, peat moss and water-absorbing polymers.

Whats more, this is a true international product, it is distributed from Mexico and actually made in Sri Lanka.

Watch the video on how it grows, its a true wonder:

My first leaves of Basil after two weeks of starting my seeds in the pellets:

The first leaves on all plants look the same. Little eyes looking out at you from the soil. I have already transplanted the pellet into the pot using the wondersoil potting mix. The "true leaves" are the little leaves you see in the midst of the first set of leaves. The true leaves look like basil leaves vs. the first leaves.

After one more week, this is how my basil looks:

So all I have to say is that my experiment has worked. I have a healthy basil plant in the midst of November and I am hoping that this plant continues to grow for the rest of the year. Will keep you updated on the progress.

Good Night and Good Luck!

Growing plants in your NYC apartment

2007-11-12T18:52:00.000-05:00

I love plants and I live in an apartment in New York. So when I moved to the city in June of 2007 I knew that I had to figure out a way to make plants live in my NYC apartment environment. New York is a Zone 6 and the first frost date is 4/13 and last frost date is 10/27. I knew I was late but I had to bring in some plants. I love growing herbs as it has a real utility besides looking pretty and smelling great. Having bought herb plants before and not succeeding at keeping them alive indoors, I knew that growing from seeds was a better option. I bought the following seeds:

1) Basil
2) Coriander
3) Mint
4) Calendula
5) Lavender

I planted them in October around the frost date and I was expecting very little success. But surprisingly Basil grew fast and has had a healthy growth since. Calendula seems to not be getting enough humidity indoors, so while it germinated fast, its leaves have had a very short life. The others are not doing that well, but there is some progress in terms of germination, the growth has not been as sporadic as Basil. So New Yorkers, get some Basil seeds and some jiffy pellets and get to enjoy fresh basil year around.

* Click here to check your frost date: http://www.victoryseeds.com/frost/ny.html