THE GREEN NEW FEEL

Gardening has become a rescue route for many ever since the pandemic hit the world

- REKHA DIXIT

Shilpa Kapoor had barely moved into her new house in Port Blair when the lockdown was announced. The gregarious Kapoor found herself all alone, her husband had his duties, she had nothing to do. That is when she took another look at the garden adjoining her house, a neglected space, and turned her attention and energies towards it. “I have never had a plant with me, not even the customary tulsi. It had never occurred to me that plants would come to my rescue,” she recalls.

Kapoor began with a cutting of morning glory in a pot. As she watched it grow and flower, her fascination with green life took root. A total garden illiterate, she experimented freely, taking help from the internet occasionally and finding her way through trial and error.

Given the shortage of vegetables on the island, she thought it would be a good idea to grow them; and she grew little saplings from seeds collected from vegetables. Then, she realised the island soil was not very nourishing, and she dug a compost pit. Once, she saw her bell pepper saplings infested with ants. Taking an internet tip, she sprayed them with a cooking soda solution. “I may have gone wrong with the concentration because the leaves turned brown at the tips,” she says, recalling her rescue mission. She fed the plants with rice congee, a powder of discarded multivitamins, and whatever she could think of. As she looks with pride at the little peppers growing, she knows that she did something right, finally.