Enjoying Tindora / Ivy Gourd Cultivation During Free Time
Doing some part time and small scale agriculture is something that helps you keep happy and engaged when you are having an off day. Even if you are not a expert farmer or agriculturist, there are several ways to do small scale vegetation and reap the output with high satisfaction. You will always feel a sense of satisfaction when you pluck some vegetables from your own backyard and prepare dishes for your breakfast, lunch or dinner.
I do have a busy office life and in the week days I rarely get any time to look after my house and its surrounding, but in the weekend I really manage to get engaged with my house, family and surroundings. I try a lot of small scale vegetation and one of the best yielding vegetation that I have tried very recently is Tindora cultivation. Tindora (called as Kovakka in Kerala, India) is one of the most delicious vegetable that can be used in our daily diet and holds a very high medicinal value. It is also commonly known as ivy gourd.
Tindora is also known by other names such as baby watermelon, little gourd, gentleman's toes, gherkin and its biological names is "Coccinia grandis". Tindora can be seen in countries such as Philippines, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, eastern Papua New Guinea, and the Northern Territories, Australia.
Ivy gourd is also known as the nature’s insulin, as it is considered as a best vegetable for those suffering from diabetes. Ivy Gourd helps in regulating the sugar level in the blood and it is highly recommended to be taken by diabetes patients. It can also be eaten raw and it will be better if you eat it along with some salt and chilly powder.
I got a stem of ivy gourd from my ancestral home and I just gave it a try at my new home and to my surprise it grew beyond my expectation. It started to produce flowers and later ivy gourd, which took me to real surprise. Even in my ancestral home, it did not have any history of sufficient ivy gourd production, but it seems that the components in the soil at my new location is perfectly suited for ivy gourd or Tindora vegetation
During the weekends, I usually spend my time at the Tindora plant, plucking the ivy gourds which are mature enough to be prepared. During the initial days I used to get 5-10 ivy gourds during the weekend, but after 1 month I started getting around 3-4 kg of ivy gourds during the weekend which was really too much for my use. So I started distributing it to my neighbors, which gave me more satisfaction. I expect the quantity to increase in the coming days and once the monsoon season arrives, it seems that the Tindora plant will not be able to produce the product in an efficient manner.
To my surprise, I have not used any kind of chemicals or manures for my Tindora plant; rather I just manage to water it daily plus some light food wastes. The wastes of tea, coffee etc are dumped to the root area of the plant and apart from that I have not tried any sorts of manures.
In the next season I hope to expand it to the other corners of my house and you since it is a spreading plant species, you just need to provide an area for the stems of the Tindora plant to spread along. You can tie a string from your roof top to the Tindora plant and it will start spreading along the string to your roof.
Tindora plant do not require too much of ground space and it is very easy to plant it. If you have some small ground space at your home, and if you want to engage in small scale vegetation, then it is better to try Tindora plant and start spending your off time in a useful way.