Vegetable Garden-1

Its a totally new venture for me.  All the episodes started when the children had got two packets of seeds from the school. That was a compulsive start up for me.  Its too hard to work in the soil because of the hot season.  Anyway I had made the patches and sowed the seeds.  Its an immense joy to watch the upcomings every day.  I feel great pleasure to see the leaves of life emerging from the soil with great vigour.  Seeds include Spinach(cheera),  ladies finger(venda),  peas (payar) and Brinjal(vazhuthina).  I will post the pictures soon.  My boys are also eager to see the developments and they are also interested for the watering and other works.
When we work in soil it soothes our mind.  Whenever you need a diversion its a nice suggestion to have some gardening.  It gives colourful and fragrant hope for tomorrow.  Now these days whenever I get time I will go into these small patches and watch quietly what is happening there.  After sowing these seeds I had noticed that most of them had eaten by ants.  After calling some veterans I had got the tips that when we sow the seeds we have to mix it with some rava then the ants will take the rava and thus we can save the valuable seeds.  Its a smart tip for vegetable gardeners.
Vegetable and Fruit Promotion Council had arranged these seeds for the students.  Its a green attempt from the Government.  We have to cultivate the attitude to love the nature in our children.  They are always exposed to the consumer world around us.  I have a dream to plant some trees including Mahagony,  poovarasu and plavu.  For that I have to purchase the land first.  These ideas are also like seeds in my mind. All these have to be materialised in some years.  Wishing you all a nice day.

Sambar Cheera

Sambar Cheera

Cheera with more water content. It can be added in sambar which will give a thick gravy. Flowers are of violet colour. Its leaves and stems are used to make sambar and thoran. Locally its called 'Sambar cheera'.

Cheera

Cheera, I had done some earlier posts about it. As a house wife I am more concerned about the health of my family members, as a nature lover I am keenly observing the wonders of nature and as a blogger I am curious to find new interesting topics to discuss. So I am repeating the cheera post:)
Yesterday I had purchased some cheera stalks from a vendor. Here almost all cheera vendors are ladies I don't know the correct reason behind that. We can have cheera from the vegetable shops but I opt for the lady vendors because it will be fresh from the field. Whenever I purchase cheera, there will be a confusion of colour purple or Green. I had learnt from net that green is always better than others but mostly I opt purple because I need to add more colour to my life and my children love the purple colour:))
From my fellow bloggers I had learnt that the purple cheera is available only in Kerala. Then we have to be proud of our ethnic colourful leafy vegetable. I had done a post about my relatives cheera krishi.
Malayalm:cheera
English:Spinach
Cheera is rich with Iron and its good for our eyes too.
I am trying to get the images of varieties of Cheera.
Our nadan dishes with cheera are cheera thoran, cheera aviyal and cheera kichadi.
I had listed various varieties of cheera available in Kerala in this post.
Variety of dishes from a veteran blog Mahanadi

If you are searching about the nutrition content of our traditional dishes Pls have a look at this link

Ponnankanni cheera

I was astonished by his words. He was my cousin and also a busy herbal consultant by proffession. Among the grass in front of our home he pointed out 'Ponnankanni cheera' I had not yet noticed that leafy vegetable. He told that its good for our eyes, especially children.
For better health we must turn towards nature.
Other cheera varieties are
Sambar cheera, kuppa cheera, mullan keera, madhura cheera, thazhuthama, agathi cheera, valli cheera, kozhuppa and thakara.

Mullan cheera

A variety of Cheera like pacha cheera with green leaves, but they have thorns in the stem. This leafy vegetable is a medicine to urinary infection.

Velicheera

Cheera

Dried chanakam using as the main manure for cheera

Pachacheera is more nutritious than the red one

'Cheera krishi' from my chitta's house at Changanacherry. They are very tasty. They use only chanakam(cow dung) and gomuthram as the fertilizers and pukayilakazhayam as pesticides. Whenever I buy cheera from shop it will not cook well, may be because of the chemical fertilizers.

Thazhuthama-Pictures from Kochi

Pachacheera -Shots taken from Thammanam

Cheera(spinach) is the widely availabe leafy vegetable in Kerala. Mainly its of two types, pacha cheera(green)and chumanna cheera(purple in colur). This leafy vegetable is rich with vitamins, minerals and anti oxidants. The other cheera varieties are velicheera(mysore cheera), sambar cheera, kuppa cheera, valli cheera, ponnamkanni cheera, agathi cheera, mullan keera, madhura cheera, kozhuppa, thakara and thazhuthama.

Most popular dishes with cheera include cheera avial with chakka kuru, vellarikka and manga.
Cheera thoran is also a tasty and nutritious for children.
Popoye the cartoon character always eats spinach for vigorous attacks. I always tell this to my son to eat some cheera for good health.

Dasha pushpam-Ten sacred flowers will bring health and wealth to our family

Velicheera(mysore cheera)

Velicheera is a very common plant in Kerala. It is in the cheera family and its pure green leave with rich vitamin A. It has high medicinal values. The top part(the tender stems) of this cheera is used to make 'thoran'. It is usually planted as hedges (veli) so it is called velicheera. It need not have much nourishing.