I have a kitchen garden. Actually, "garden" is possibly a gross exaggeration because these are really eight pots at the corner of my kitchen, beside a sunny door where I grow, basil, aloe vera, thyme and four pots of hardy twenty-year-old karipatta (karuvapillai) treelings that are regularly harvested for garnishing foods, ranging from sambaar and upma to vermicelli and sharp chutneys. As any passionate cook would aver, there is really no substitute for fresh herbs, and I try to keep my herbs organic, by feeding them used tea leaves and coffee grounds as manure.
When tall houses sprung up and blotted out a fair share of sunfall, a three foot high sandstone ledge began to house the kitchen garden pots. The karipattas stretched and flowered in endless sunshine, but also drew the attention of large black ants, which attracted by the moist pots, built their nests under them and around the roots of the plants. This was not a very happy situation, since ant colonies tend to be persistent. However instead of bringing out the gamaxine and malathion I tried using simple solutions like detergent water and turmeric powder to discourage the ants. The black ants were willing to relinquish the kitchen to me since they didn't particularly care for the turmeric boundaries I had drawn, but the karipattas remained a favourite haunt, over the last couple of years.
In fact, the ants felt so much at home that they took to farming woolly white aphids all over the karipattas. Eventually, white aphids, in some stage of evolution clung to all the stem nodes . While aphids hosted on karipatta stems, the kitchen garden territory became a confrontational space between the black ants and their aphids and me. Things got really sticky at this point. Sticky in fact is the operative word as far as aphids are concerned. They secrete a sweet fluid which the black ants harvest off their bodies and distribute to the entire ant colony. Meanwhile, the aphids feed off the plants where they are housed and stunt their growth, eventually damaging the plant all together. It is extremely difficult to get rid of aphids and doing it manually is cumbersome and unattractive. Divesting sticky cocoons from the interstices of stems, is a messy business and the goo clings forever to the fingers and the leaves. Operation Black Ant grew in prominence and I resigned myself to the gradual withering away of the karipattas.
I had however reckoned without the spirited sparrows who lived in the nearby bougainvillea bush. They developed a taste for the aphids and made flying visits to the karipatta source several times a day. Very soon, the aphid plantations were wiped out since what was intended as ambrosia for the ants was transformed into choice meat for the sparrows. So one fine day, the karipattas were free of aphids and the black ants relinquished their hold on the karipatta territory by abandoning the colony site that had begun to demonstrate signs of active hostility.
The karipattas grew back to their full glory,and played their stellar role in culinary achievements but this year has brought in new contenders for the karipatta's favors.The sparrows nest in various niches occasioned by the backyard and in the spring they are busy building nests. They have taken to lining their nests with karipatta stems and leaves. So most tender stems are jabbed at by sparrow beaks and hacked from the plant. Some of them are picked up and transported to the nest. I would have thought that the karipatta wasn't exactly brilliant nest-building material, from the sparrow's point of view, but possibly in the absence of alternatives, the fragrant, quick drying karipatta has its uses. Perforce I wait for the sparrows' nests to be completed and the eggs to be laid before I can claim the karipattas as my own.
These days, I have a regular morning engagement, that of reclaiming all the fresh karipatta leaves lying in my backyard once the charge of the sparrow brigade is over. I use these intercepted leaves to garnish my cooking. A small price to pay, as were it not for these feisty little birds, there would be very little karipatta aroma in our lives. I accept with grace that this hands-on training of retrieving karipatta leaves, has reconnected me to the values of conserving and sharing local natural resources equitably.
When tall houses sprung up and blotted out a fair share of sunfall, a three foot high sandstone ledge began to house the kitchen garden pots. The karipattas stretched and flowered in endless sunshine, but also drew the attention of large black ants, which attracted by the moist pots, built their nests under them and around the roots of the plants. This was not a very happy situation, since ant colonies tend to be persistent. However instead of bringing out the gamaxine and malathion I tried using simple solutions like detergent water and turmeric powder to discourage the ants. The black ants were willing to relinquish the kitchen to me since they didn't particularly care for the turmeric boundaries I had drawn, but the karipattas remained a favourite haunt, over the last couple of years.
In fact, the ants felt so much at home that they took to farming woolly white aphids all over the karipattas. Eventually, white aphids, in some stage of evolution clung to all the stem nodes . While aphids hosted on karipatta stems, the kitchen garden territory became a confrontational space between the black ants and their aphids and me. Things got really sticky at this point. Sticky in fact is the operative word as far as aphids are concerned. They secrete a sweet fluid which the black ants harvest off their bodies and distribute to the entire ant colony. Meanwhile, the aphids feed off the plants where they are housed and stunt their growth, eventually damaging the plant all together. It is extremely difficult to get rid of aphids and doing it manually is cumbersome and unattractive. Divesting sticky cocoons from the interstices of stems, is a messy business and the goo clings forever to the fingers and the leaves. Operation Black Ant grew in prominence and I resigned myself to the gradual withering away of the karipattas.
I had however reckoned without the spirited sparrows who lived in the nearby bougainvillea bush. They developed a taste for the aphids and made flying visits to the karipatta source several times a day. Very soon, the aphid plantations were wiped out since what was intended as ambrosia for the ants was transformed into choice meat for the sparrows. So one fine day, the karipattas were free of aphids and the black ants relinquished their hold on the karipatta territory by abandoning the colony site that had begun to demonstrate signs of active hostility.
The karipattas grew back to their full glory,and played their stellar role in culinary achievements but this year has brought in new contenders for the karipatta's favors.The sparrows nest in various niches occasioned by the backyard and in the spring they are busy building nests. They have taken to lining their nests with karipatta stems and leaves. So most tender stems are jabbed at by sparrow beaks and hacked from the plant. Some of them are picked up and transported to the nest. I would have thought that the karipatta wasn't exactly brilliant nest-building material, from the sparrow's point of view, but possibly in the absence of alternatives, the fragrant, quick drying karipatta has its uses. Perforce I wait for the sparrows' nests to be completed and the eggs to be laid before I can claim the karipattas as my own.
These days, I have a regular morning engagement, that of reclaiming all the fresh karipatta leaves lying in my backyard once the charge of the sparrow brigade is over. I use these intercepted leaves to garnish my cooking. A small price to pay, as were it not for these feisty little birds, there would be very little karipatta aroma in our lives. I accept with grace that this hands-on training of retrieving karipatta leaves, has reconnected me to the values of conserving and sharing local natural resources equitably.
