Gardening

Setting up my little garden

Green Essence was the final choice for setting up my garden because they were cheaper than the others. And also because the owner was very enthusiastic. But this is India. Nothing happens on time, nobody rendering services turn up on time. After a lot of waiting and following up and getting mad enough to pull my hair out, things started happening slowly… very very slowly.

The pots came.

Pots for the garden

There was this ONE sincere guy digging away, setting up a small water lilly pond in the center.

Digging for the lilly pond

The pots started filling up.

Garden getting some shape

The stepping stones were set in place.

Stepping stones in place

The lilly pond came alive.

Lilly pond

And voila! the little garden is ready….

Garden is ready!

The seedlings were green chillies, brinjal or eggplant and cabbages. There were seeds of bitter gourd, fenugreek, cucumber and bottle gourd. Now we just had to wait for them to grow.

Gardening

Searching for a garden designer

We didn’t need anybody to design the garden. I had a fairly clear idea what I wanted to do. I cannot post my design here; but here’s what Seby, my encouraging and creative husband made based on my explanation.

Initial garden design sketch

We needed somebody for initial set up. And I started researching for

  • terrace gardens bangalore
  • garden landscaping bangalore
  • garden designers bangalore etc.

It was easy to shortlist a few, but tougher to get them to actually come and have a look. Many didn’t pick up calls and many didn’t call back after my initial call. These are the three that I finally zeroed in on.

Xanadu Organic Gardens  – They gave me an initial quote of over 1.5 lakhs and that was enough for me to say no. They charge Rs.2000 for an initial visit. And then sent a fancy PDF proposal.

Mydreamgarden – I love these guys. They have a very nice terrace garden near Banaswadi. They promised to give materials, but no delivery and no setup. So that didn’t work either.

Greenessence – Christopher from Greenessence was very prompt, very enthusiastic. And gave me a very reasonable quote. So Greenessence it was. But the set up is yet another story, for yet another day.

Green Essence

 

Gardening

Trying to set it up myself

My daughter Nina has been with me from day one. So there’s another post dedicated to her. Nina and I initially thought that we could do it ourselves. But some digging up with rudimentary tools after watering the rock-hard mud, was enough to convince me that I had to get somebody specialized in terrace gardens.

The owner cleaned up the weeds before we moved in. And I started watering the garden profusely in an effort to soften the mud.

Garden

That’s Nina and I digging away. Well, I’m on the phone and she’s digging!

Digging up the garden

Musings

Obligations

They may not be fun
But they must be done
Where you are young or old
Shy or bold!

When you were a kid
There were the chores you did
Relatives you smiled at
Functions that made you fat!

You grew up and you thought
That a relief from obligations should be sought
But no matter how much you try
They would always be close by.

Parents, kids, relatives, siblings
Baptisms, birthdays, betrothals and weddings
Smile and go through all of them
For there are so many yet to come!

Online Marketing

Google Contributor – Ain't Google smart

Surprise! Now you can pay Google to not show you ads on websites that you visit. First, there were no ads. Then Google introduced Adsense and started bombarding you with ads wherever you went. And now, you can be ad-free again, but paying Google a fixed sum of money. This money funds the websites which you visit, to not show you ads.

So here is how it works:
1. Visit Google Contributor
2. Register and select the monthly contribution you want. For $2, you see 5-15% lesser ads. For $5, you see 15-25% lesser ads. And for $10, you see 25-50% lesser ads.
3. When you visit sites, you would see lesser Google adsense ads depending on the plan you chose.
4. You can choose what to see instead, like scenery or patterns.

Voila! Another innovative method devised by Google to put your money into their pockets. Go contribute.

Musings

Money can buy happiness

Actor Varun recently published a video about how Money can buy happiness, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT4iEH9viCs. He takes Rs.10,000 in ten notes and gives it to 10 people who are selling stuff like tea, cotton candy, bubbles etc. in the streets. The joy on the faces of those people is amazing. In fact, I am also amazed at this person, Varun Pruthi who has published multiple videos like this, the earlier one, where he acted like he was injured on the road and begged passing vehicles to stop and help him. Actually, nobody stopped, even though he fell down on the road and acted dead, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5GMWJmrR0LDUQ8MojJyXEQ.

Varun, a beautiful attempt at creating social awareness of highly pressing issues! Hats off to you!

Online Marketing

Content writer hunt

The web designer is in, and settled in his job. So now I have to hunt for a content writer. There are too many resumes online, but not the right candidate. Few don’t even pick up the phone, few don’t send back the writing sample you asked them to do, and few just can’t write well.

There are websites like Elance and Skillpages that I should be using, just hasn’t gotten around to doing it. Skillpages is the Indian version of Elance and has many content writers. Just need enough time and patience to evaluate their writing and zero in on a few who can write well.

The hunt is still on!