The Greenhouse Effect

In the past week or so we harvested these

vegetables from our garden.

Above are bitter gourd and eggplants.

The bitter gourd is the from the Pastor 's garden.

Ours did not do very well.

These are snake gourd or ninwa.

They are like zuchini.

We Cook them with cumin and onions

tempered with dried red chili

The neighbourhood boys broke

our banana branch.

I did not have the heart to throw the small green

fruit. So I made cooked them twice.

I like banana sabzi.

The is what we call a soop.

Its a grain-tossing tray.

You put your grain, pulses or spices in it and toss it to separate the dirt.

Its an ancient utensil

and found in most Indian homes, even the most

modern ones.

This one belonged to my grandma.

Its pretty old and worn out.

It is made of reed sticks.

These are greens called poe-ee.

I cooked them with channa dal. (pulses)


These are parwals.
The fruit of the betel vine.
This one is from the bazaar.
It is difficult to grow these in the garden
as it requires extra skill and care.
Many of these vegetables my Mom does not eat
I buy her vegetables
and cook the common ones from the garden
for myself.
Food prices are doubling.
Things we did not care for earlier
have assumed a great value.
This is a newspaper report.

NEW DELHI: Even as India's economy is said to boom, millions of its citizens are groaning under soaring prices of vegetables and food grains and

wish the government would do something about this, reports from across the country say. From Chandigarh in the north, to Ranchi in the east and from Bhopal in central India to Kerala in the south, a cacophony of voices has been raised against the relentless price rise, with the common man wondering when things would return to normal. While the poor have been worst hit, the middle class is also feeling the pinch. Tomatoes are selling at up to Rs 50 a kilo, cauliflower at Rs 42 a kilo and chillies at Rs 70 a kilo, playing havoc with household budgets and forcing people to drastically scale down purchases of non-essential commodities. Finance Minister P Chidambaram, at a news briefing here Thursday, made a passing reference to rising prices of vegetables, even as he focused on steps the government was taking to control the prices of food grains. But, even more than wheat, sugar and pulses, it is the rising prices of vegetables that have hit the common man the hardest. The national capital is no exception to the rising trend, with tomatoes costing over Rs 40 per kilo against Rs 15 a couple of weeks ago, cauliflower at over Rs 42 per kilo and okra at over Rs 22. Among pulses, moong dal is selling at Rs 60-70, an increase Rs 3-13 against a week ago. "For the past two weeks the prices of vegetables are affecting our budget. Looking at the high tomato price, we have curbed its use," said housewife Romi Dash. "Earlier we used to consume over three kg of tomatoes every week, but for the last two weeks we are managing just one-and-a-half kilo," Dash added. Traders said that while un-seasonal rain and a severe heat wave had affected production, the hike in fuel prices was also responsible for the rising prices. "Low production coupled with high transportation costs due to the fuel price hike is the main reason for soaring prices," said Praveen Khandelwal, secretary general of Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT).