Life with the Hyde's in India.

 The great Vegetable garden experiment.

We have decided to focus these blogs on what we are doing and our life in general out here, we hope you like the new approach.

When we first moved into this house we had to completely rethink how we gardened, in particular vegetable crops. We are incredibly fortunate to have found a landlord who only uses the house as long term security. He used to rent to short stay Indian tenants (generally about two years) but that led to all sorts of problems. Then we came along, he is very happy man, loves what we doing to the gardens and is totally 100% in favor of staying as long as we want to.

 The three Hyde's!

There is no suitable area other than the front rock garden we have built with our fish pond and fruit trees. It’s where we sit on the swing some evenings with a glass of wine or a beer and chill! No way were we altering that. If we can’t move the garden so we wondered (perhaps because of the wine!) What we could do about moving the climate thus started two years ago an experiment to change the climate in our very back garden.

When we moved in it was simply a solid slab of marble. A back yard which was of no use other than storing the inevitable junk we all collect. We built four raised beds and installed shading. The garden here only gets full sun for about three hours per day, but is gently sunlit by reflection from surrounding walls and buildings that are all painted white most of the day. Which reminds me we have to paint it again it’s looking a bit drab and doesn't reflect the light as it once did.    Later..Painting with what white we had.

After and before the paint

Our first year was surprisingly successful. We grew a good range of salad crops but things like lettuce and radish bolted really early in their life-cycle. Because they are raised beds, basically big containers watering proved to be a problem as they dried out very quickly, despite being 4’ x 6’ x 18” deep. Cabbage grew well but didn’t really enjoy it. We initially installed a drip feed system that was a complete waste of time. We spent more time cleaning out the drip feeders than we did actually watering. That year 90% of the watering was done by a hose pipe, not very efficient and certainly time-consuming when having to water twice a day. The shading fixed across the top of the garden really makes a noticeable difference to the temperature. It is significantly cooler in the back garden with the shading on than it is anywhere else in the other gardens.

Year two we had learnt a few lessons. We built and installed an overhead sprinkler system using bits and pieces of various projects we had laying around. All we had to buy were the sprinkler nozzles and an on off tap. We fed it from our underground pump (bore well) and after a few bits blew apart we got it to work amazingly well. 

That year we grew some fantastic crops, carrots, leeks, celery, long white radish, lettuce and a selection of herbs. Our carrot crop was amazing, five KG of beautiful sweet English carrots from 24 ft², now in the freezer.

The wine that started it all!!

The beans that didnt  

We grew the best crop of leaks we have ever have, deep home-made compost chicken and cow manure fed them wonderfully. Normally our leaks have to ensure a very short growing season. With the shading and the overhead watering we have extended the growing season by at least six weeks. 

We don’t get the big fat leaks you can grow in England but we do the diameter of a thumb, six or 8 inches of white flesh and really sweet half the bed was used for this experiment, six KG of really lovely leaks. The leaks by the way were Christine’s project from beginning to end. Her father used to be a great leak grower in her village and taught her how to grow… He did a great job, nice one Christine. Full bed next season!

    

We also had problems! 

Damp still air leads to mould*, good bye cucumbers (sad, I was looking forward to home-grown cucumbers) and beans. To be fair the beans were also attacked by a horrible bug that nothing we had (unless we resorted to chemicals) would touch them. We also grew lots of different crops in big grow bags some successful some not so, the watering problem again. We really cant describe  how fast things dry out here, not watering one evening can kill an entire crop.

This is year three. We are still learning. It is now mid April 96°F and we have lettuce and Chinese cabbage growing away happily in the back garden and would you believe it beetroot, it’s an experiment (yes another one) to see if we can grow them for pickling, too early to say yet if it’s going to be a success. 

Lettuce and young Chinese cabbage

Also a tub of carrots that belong to Geeta, a tub of red and a tub of green spinach and a bed of spring onions that we have just harvested at about 2KG, pencil thickness for freezing. Also herbs that Christine grows, she makes her own stuffing, pickles shallots red cabbage and mint sauce. (We also make home-made fruit wines and bread) we have some capsicum plants that are struggling but appear to be pushing up new growth after having been cooked by the sun we transplanted them just to see what would happen! Nearly forgot the celery, they have been growing for two years now in bucket pots standing in 30 cm of water. Continuous production of small half inch diameter 12 inch stalks, a bit stringy (we have been told it’s probably the high temperatures) but great for soup, we both love celery soup! Celery as a perennial!

Summer temperatures here can reach 48°C that’s 119°F sometimes higher. It will be interesting to see what it can and cannot cope in the new back garden.

The success of the overhead sprinklers experiment has impressed us both, we use less water because it goes where it’s needed and because the actual time spent watering is practically nothing. Reason enough we thought to replace it with something a little more substantial. We have used plastic plumbing pipe which is much more rigid and far less hassle. 

The black pipe is for individual
feeds to tubs to branch
off from, bits from the
drip feed watering system
again, nothing gets wasted here!

Amba, our Rakhi sister, I'm sure she thinks we are crazy

We have also taken a feed to the new raised beds 2 in the driveway and fitted sprinklers. 

Before

After building the bed, no auto water pipe yet

In these we intend growing tomato and chili Peppers and other sun loving crops. The tomato plants are this year’s seedlings that grew between our main tomato crop plants which have now finished because of the strong sun, the young seedlings are presumably from fallen tomatoes. We had the space so we have planted them in one of the new beds in a more shady location than the others and we will see what happens, some also went to a bed in the back garden so far they are looking very healthy and putting on good green growth. We will shade the tomato plants in the side beds but probably leave the chili Peppers (in the other new raised bed) to see if they can cope with full summer. If we have time we are going to build another raised bed approximately half way between them where the dog cage goes on the drive between the two new beds. We intend to try melons next season! We are also planning to use the plastic plumbing pipe to make a shade for the tomatoes that we can lift easily on and off the bed. This has always been a problem if you build a frame and put shading on it then makes getting to the tomatoes a complete pain! Hence the plan.

Our very front garden has also been a great success growing cabbage cauliflower red cabbage broccoli and Kohlrabi. This garden is also fed from our pump via a pipe that terminates in the front garden and has lots of holes in it. The pipe is fed between the rows and does a really good job of watering. 

We have shaded around it with a 4 feet high shade net, that and the trees provide lots of shade and mulch but allow sufficient sun for all our brassicas. This watering system saves hundreds of litres of water that goes where it is not needed, with this the plants are watered not the entire garden.

A while ago we made a small greenhouse for starting our seeds in. It was quite successful so we rescued it after storm damage but have not used it for a couple of years. We have refurbished it and it is going into the back garden in a semi-sunny spot to be put back into use this monsoon! We are going to try and get a head start with seedlings by sowing in trays late monsoon before winter when they can grow on in the cooler weather. We hope in this way to get the advantage of sowing early without the disadvantage of trying to get tiny seedlings through the monsoon rains and winter storms.

 

*Now the problem of mould. We have decided to scrap our old evaporative cooler. The motor (fan) now only works one speed it leaks a bit which is not helpful when it’s in the house, the pump is okay but that’s about it. The pump lifts water to three straw mats, air is drawn through these mats cooling it then blown out through a grill by the fan, it does however produce moist air as it evaporates water from its supply tank so it is best if running one indoors to have windows open to allow the moist air to leave. Very cheap to run (one fan, one tiny fish tank pump) nowhere near as good as AC** but nowhere near as expensive! We tend to use ours with doors and windows open during the day to keep the main room cool. As yet this year we have not used our AC and the temperatures have been high 80s to 90sF. But it is getting old and tired. (No jokes please) We have decided to put it in the back garden (okay you can laugh). Remember it is enclosed on four sides and has shade netting over-the-top. As stated earlier our problem has been with still moist air causing mould. I’m going to fit the pump with a timer so that it only lifts water during the heat of the day, the fan will run continuously keeping air movement going within this space. A fan and a cheap pump! Let’s see what difference it makes.

Three bags of gravel...it works. The bungee
is holding the sides on, they fall off and
drown the floor if left. Another reason
it had to be retired.

** We have invested in a new chiller (desert cooler). Our original was nearly 8 years old and getting cranky. The new chiller which incidentally we got in an online sale and in fact cost less than the first one is amazing. Things have improved tremendously in their design. In particular the aero dynamic curve on the fan blades. The room to a comfortable level we put it on speed two of three speeds, we have now turned it down to speed one, as good as the AC? Definitely. We are both completely amazed at how efficient they have become, it is quieter, more air and even has a fitting for it to stay topped up. It also can be fed from a plumbing junction (we had one available) so we don’t even have to top up the water level… Cool eh. (Pun intended).

The blue tub is fed from the waste water of the reverse osmosis drinking water supply which would normally be allowed to run to waste. We however try to waste nothing so use it. Christine puts a bag of chicken poo suspended in it and makes a liquid feed for the gardens. The chickens also contribute to our compost bins, as well as being friendly little things they give us wonderful brown eggs.

We have decided if there’s any interest in this blog we will be doing an irregular focus on different parts of our garden and life in general and what if anything we are doing that might be interesting, such as rebuilding Betty the motorcycle and sidecar we have. Christine’s preserving and pickling, the solar hot water system, winemaking… Who knows what?

We have also written the first part of an ongoing blog about Geeta, what has happened since she came to live with us. We call it Geeta’s story. Same blog address as this blog number 100.

Take care and God bless you,

Chris, Kris and Geeta    

And a host of others, dog’s chicken’s fish gecko’s lizards snakes monkey’s hawks and a multitude of nasty little pests that eat our crops.

ETC. ECT. ECT.

Update. 

Geeta has been talking about getting a 'bunny' for ages now, ever since Kris said no to a goat! It turns out that rabbits and chickens get on very well together as long as the rabbits have a separate hutch in which to sleep. Interaction between both is fine as long as we get a female, maybe two, a male tends to jump everything in site which really upsets the hens! So watch this space!