Living where I am living at the moment has opened up many new opportunities to learn skills which I wouldn’t have thought twice about. Also one of my goals for the past year or two is to research and maintain self sufficiency, mainly in terms of food and living. The Temple next door to where I live has nice facilities (but unfortunately not used to a full extent), so to start off I’ve invested some time and a very small amount of money into creating a herb garden, as well as starting to grow some other things. Although not much, growing your own food has many benefits such as knowing where and how the food was handled, as well as saving you money.
To start off with a test run, I planted some basil. In all my efforts (cooking and gardening) I try to use only organic products. So the soil and seeds are organic. The seeds were sprouted in a… thing. Not sure the name! But it has many small pockets to get them sprouted. The stronger ones were moved into bigger pots containing organic soil and cow manure (from New Govardhana Farm at NSW). How spiritual! They were moved into the sunlight during the day and moved back inside the glass house at night to prevent bugs eating the tasty leaves.
Basil After a few weeks
There used to be a previous person who lived at the temple who inspired the gardening project, while he was here he planted some things. He left though, it’s a long story. But mainly what I was interested in was the herbs! There was some wild oregano as well as some sage. The oregano was going great even without attention, but the sage had seen better days. So I decided to cultivate the oregano too. I was surprised at the amount which grew in such short time, high yield and low maintainence!
Sage seeing better days! Nothing could protect this from attack.
Oregano going wild!
Also there are other things growing. The pineapples will take another 20 months to bear fruit. The tomatoes I kind of have stopped looking after, but still they are providing something. Check them out!
Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?
People steal these once they are ripe!
With daily watering, maintenance and some patience you can get the plants to a point where they are ready to be HARVESTED. During this time though, the basil needed to be help lined with a ‘plant trainer’. Other then that, the watering and caring is pretty simple and doesn’t take too much time.
The oregano harvested
Few weeks more. This is the glass house they are kept in at night.
Oregano hanging out to dry
More hanging action
Basil as of a day ago, pretty huge!
So, this is just the basil and oregano. The basil will be used as fresh leaves, but because the oregano is abundant, I was going to dry it out and store it later for use. It is pretty simple, just get some string and tie bunches of it together at one end, then leave it out to dry! It may take a few days, but you will know once it’s done. It has to be completely dry to prevent mold. So far the basil has being used, and this is awesome. It turned out nice.
The basil is currently being used too by the temple and I’ve given it to some devotees as a gift. Someone even took a whole plant. ;o
But this isn’t the end, there are still some other things I’ve put together. Today, Prema Yogi gave me some seeds! Awesome. Check them out.
SEEDS SEEDS SEEDS
This is what you use to sprout them in, it is pretty cool
Of the seeds, I decided to plant the three. Rocket, two types of lettuce and some weird bean things. I would have wanted to plant them all, but I can only cater to the seasons. Well, this sums up the past month or two of the gardening aspect I have taken upon. Except some updates in the future. 
Also stay tuned for the other part of what I do to maintain the temple! If you have any questions or suggestions, please ask! Take care.
Sage seeing better days! Nothing could protect this from attack.Sage seeing better days! Nothing could protect this from attack.
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