23 A New Garden
One of the last things I did at Jeevana Uyana was to transplant some Atapitiya, a wildflower, to adorn the meditation path. They were a couple of months old and strong and hardy, but nevertheless when I got up the following morning, they were drooping and looking rather unhappy from the sudden change. As I sat at my desk contemplating them I could see my own fate marked out for me, as I approached the time I would be transplanted from Sri Lanka to India.
As it happened the journey went very well, and when I arrived everybody gave me enough room in order to make the adjustment and recover from the shock; one of the things that I was missing most was my garden, but within a few days I was given a plot of land to start a new garden. The land, which is alongside my kutir, had previously been used as a vegetable plot, but was presently lying fallow, so I started to clear the land once more, happy to be working with the soil again. Clearing was easier here than in Jeevana Uyana and within a week I’d raised my first bed and planted radish as a catch crop, with brinjal coming through later. I’d taken the precaution of bringing seed with me from Sri Lanka, though I needn’t have bothered – this is a farming country and seed is readily available, although it’s usually sold in larger quantities than I want.
By the end of the second week I had another bed raised and put in radish again this time accompanying tomato. It rained just after planting on both occasions but that saw the end of the rain, which is a disaster for those peasants relying on the rain for their crops. We have a bore well in the ashram, and also a drop well, so we are able to water regularly; some of the peasants who have land near the river are also able to pump water for their crops. The tube well here was the first in the area, but last year the government were drilling in the village and they came across water, so the villagers helped finance the insertion of two bore wells, so they now have their drinking water secured for the first time. For most of them that is, there is a section of the village set aside for harijans, tribals, moslems, and other outcastes, at one time there was a line connected for them, but following an argument it was cut off again. They are not, of course, able to take water from the other wells as their presence is deemed to pollute the water.
In the third week I put up another bed and planted cauliflower, and also managed to put in a few small beds of pumpkin growing between the trees in the orchard. By now the ground was being baked hard by the relentless sun during the day and was getting very difficult to work; the crops growing in the beds needed to be watered each evening or would wilt, and for the first couple of weeks it was a matter of carrying water from the well – it would take up to an hour – but eventually I was connected to the water supply which eased the burden considerably.
Trying to cut out a fourth bed as it was, was nigh on impossible so I put water down for a couple of nights and tried once more, with considerable success. After putting down sufficient manure, courtesy of our two cows, I planted sunflower. When the stalks are big enough, after a month or so, I will put in runner beans to grow up them. There’s room for expansion, but considerations of maintenance must also be taken into account. Working in the sun is becoming less and less viable as the heat increases.