New Year Mochai, Orange, Plum, Potato and Turmeric

Pongal, especially here in the South, usually means scrumptious eats: chakarai-pongal (which, ironically enough is made with jaggery rather than sugar) and the accompanying sambar or kozhambu containing a medley of vegetables--presumably from the New Year harvest--including, my favorite, mochai paruppu.

As far as I have been able to determine, the botanical name for Mochai Paruppu, as it is locally known here, is Dolichos lablab var. lignosus Prain. I saved a few of these pods from their intended sambar-death and got the seeds growing in my 'standard' seed germination set up (newspaper pots stuffed with coconut coir and loosely capped with the 25-liter drinking water container seal-lids). Its just been a couple of days since I got them started but, it looks like they are about to sprout already!

An interesting feature of the Pongal cuisine is that the pongal panai, i.e., the pot in which the pongal is made, is girdled with one or more turmeric plants, roots (rhizomes), stems, leaves and all. I have no idea why but, it does make the pot look 'green' and festive. And, once the cooking is done, these plants are discarded. So, I scored a couple of these, cut up the rhizomes into a few pieces and got them planted in a regular 4" terra-cotta pot containing an equal mixture of sand, neem seed-cake and compost.

Feeling a trifle industrious, I also stuck a pre-soaked plum seed, a (whole) potato (which had been drying on a closet shelf for god knows how long), some kamala orange seeds (all of which had been soaking in water, again, for god knows how long) into a few terra-cotta pots filled with just plain old garden soil. I am pretty sure the potato is simply going to rot away much like the seypang kizhangu that I had stuck in a (different) pot much earlier.

I am also planning on trying to germinate the Bhut Jolokia seeds that I got from Geek Gardener and maybe some ginger as well.