Gardening in India

The Prem Nivas gardens, which the older children have planted with aubergines, lady's finger, spinach, tomatoes and coriander, have come on very well since I left for my visit to friends in North India. We have all now eaten coriander and the spinach from the children's gardens.

Sai's garden was one of the best

Santosh's spinach was the first that we all ate

The children compared their plots and could see that in some the plants were small because they had not had enough water, or because the seeds were sown too close together. They could also see that some of them had  weed free plots and others were overrun with grass because they had not done enough preparation.

Hari, Janaki, Sai, Sampath and Ashok have the best kept gardens and healthiest plants..



The spinach is not the perpetual variety that we have in the UK,  it is pulled root and all, so it is much smaller and more tender. It takes 4 rows to feed 36 children and staff, so I have sown the children how they can plant a lot more of it by intercropping between the aubergines and tomatoes before they get too big.

The first flowers are appearing on Sai's and Sampath's tomatoes.  I will take some of the smaller tomato plants down to Shanti Nivas when I go there tomorrow afternoon to see how their garden is coming along.






The children call the garden nearest the kitchen my garden because I dug and planted it.
I sewed beetroot for the first time, along with tomatoes and coriander, in my partially shaded area.
Some plants are ok,others, such as the tatakora, which I am assured is an edible leaf, seems stunted.




Our beans are up but not climbing yet..Ashok has planted more coriander for me because I said I liked it.

We have postponed the Seaside Picnics

Director Madam Mary's mother sadly died last week and Victor's mother is very ill so we have postponed the picnics for a week or two. They will take place before I leave Brighter Future India at the end of February.

The Prem Nivas Vegetable Garden

Chinnam and Sai use paras to dig their plot.

Prem Nivas is an area with water retentive clay soil suitable for rice growing. (Rice 'paddy' has to spend three months growing standing in water).To convert it to a vegetable growing medium meant a lot of hard digging and weeding by the children. They use a 'para' to dig with - a spade shaped blade at right angles to the short wooden handle - and bent double they hack at the dried up mud to break it up. We added water to help the digging. I can't do this kind of digging any more and have to keep encouraging the older children as they work on their 10ft square plots. Younger boys help dig out the weeds and smooth the surface with a 'panja' ready for seed sewing.  Hari told me that the girls do the weeding of the plots later on in the growing season.

Hari uses a triangular bladed tool to make the seed drills.

 The children were asked to plant spinach, aubergines and lady's fingers and some wanted to plant tomato seeds too. Two children decided to forsake the straight lines and made patterns with their seed sewing. I showed the plot owners how they could alternate the plants to give each large plant more space. Some remembered!

Santosh recruited Bhagwan to clean his plot!

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Durga uses an iron pole to break up the hard soil on a new plot for spinach.

Giri is the best of the younger workers, he used to go with his father to work as an agricultural labourer.

 In the previously uncultivated land we made a 30 ft.long bed exclusively for beans, of which we had three kinds. All grow upwards but are of differing colours and shapes. The boys made a little ditch on each side of the bean bed that could be filled with  water from the nearby new hand pump bore well. This ditch was also used to water the four banana trees that were growing nearby.  There are several newly planted fruit trees in this walled garden area.

Govind is also a good worker and helps his brother Ramesh.

The garden area nearest the kitchen was selected to grow coriander and tomatoes, plus some beetroot.

Everything should be up by now so I hope the children are remembering the watering!

The Christmas Party

 The children from Karuna Nivas came to Shanti Nivas for the Christmas party the evening before the event, as they had to travel more than 100 km. The Prem Nivas children arrived on the 22nd, an exciting trip in hired taxis. The older boys were hoping to be able to have a game of cricket before the function began but found themselves involved in helping with the arrangements, putting out the chairs, building the bonfire for later in the evening and generally being useful.

The new Christmas tree, which I had brought from England, was put together and the lights were wound around it. The primary aged children each hung a red or gold bauble on it and photographs of each child were taken.The children played on the slide and swings, danced to music from huge speakers and played games until the sun became too hot for them to be outside.They transferred to the inside of  Thompson House and played with the board and construction games until it was time to gather under the shade of the mango and cashew  nut trees to have their lunch.

The children sat in circles on the ground and were served by staff and volunteers from among the senior children.

After a rest time for the little ones all took their seats , along with hospice patients and staff, under the shade of a shamiana for the formal opening of the Christmas Party.

Prayers from two Pastors, a bible reading by Vasavi, one of our college students, and speeches from invited guests, were followed by the long awaited distribution of Christmas gifts to everybody.

The children each received a new set of best clothes  - designs for boys and girls, chosen by Mary Madam Director, as well as a suitable toy.  The children quickly ran to put on their new clothes and the evening entertainment started.

Each home had prepared a programme of songs, dances and drama. The dances were sometimes to religious hymns and some were to film music.  The dances of DMC and the Rainbow boys home were very popular, the children cheering and clapping along with the music.

Arun was dressed as the Christmas Father and he threw sweets into the audience for the children. He ran in and out of  the dancing in a funny way much to everyone's amusement.. The younger children were very cute and sweet to look at as they sang their songs and danced.The entertainment concluded with the cutting of the Christmas cake and Silent Night sung  by all,  the older children holding lighted candles.







The hospice patients were part of the celebrations and enjoyed the event, the dancing and the lights
strung up on all the buildings.








Dinner was served in the dining hall and outside around the bonfire area.Chicken biryani, sweetmeats, bananas and as much as they liked to eat!

It was nearly midnight by the time the children were packed into taxis and rickshaws to go back to their respective homes as they had to go to school the next day!







         Happy New Year to everyone!

from Manya, Victor and Mary, staff and children.

More photos in a few days time!