Backyard of Oleander 129

We could find almost all the required vegetables & spices here in Pekanbaru except two items: the curry leaves & coriander leaves. Curry leaves are not seen anywhere here, however, sometimes we could find corriander leaves in traditional market in Pekanbaru. Couple of times we bought Parsley leaves thinking that it is coriander. Both are so identical. Once we thought we will tell our maid (Ibu Ema) to bring coriander leaves since she know the place well. We often tell her to bring fresh grated coconut, which is not available in any supermarket. We showed her few coriander leaves previously we bought from traditional market & asked her to smell it so that she will not mistaken it for Parsley. She nodded her hed confidently that she could find it. Next morning, she came home with a big smile on her face & a big bunch of Parsley in her hand.

Tired with all these, we decided to grow corriander on our backyard. We knew that monkeys won't eat coriander leaf. I bought a bag of compost from Makro & spread it over in backyard & sow the fresh coriander seeds. Adi & Vrush watered it daily. I was confident, the seeds will sproute in 3-4 days & plants will evolve in the soil in a week. Nothing happened. Adi & Vrushed stopped watering after 15 days. We thought may be the seeds were too old.

I took this as a challenge & searched internet on how to grow coriander. It was easy & no different than what I did, except, some people suggested to sow the coriander after breaking it by gently rubbing by hand. It was interesting comment by one guy, that growing coriander in house will lead to unhappiness & fights in the family.

This time i tried to grow it again, as per the instructions from web & with brand new seeds. However, Vrush did not show much interest this time. She was happy there was no signs of coriander plants even after 10 days.

As our last try, I planted the fresh coriander plant which we bought from traditional market. It did not survive.

Finally we gave up our plan to grow coriander & decided to grow something else. Friend Mila sent some seeds of vegetables from Jakarta. We sowed them again in the same place. Unfortunately, it rained heavily that night & continued to rain for next 4 days. We thought everything washed away in the rainwater. To our surprise, we could see few small chilly & tomato plant emerging out of wet soil. We carefully took them out and planted in two different pots.

The plants grow fast as Adi watered them daily. The first flower in tomato plant was so exciting for him. Within few weeks, a smally chilly appeared in chilly plant too.