Seek, and ye shall find...
Turn the page,
get your hands dirty.
A journal about kitchen gardening in India, written by people who’ve been killing and resurrecting vegetables for many moons and who reckon you should give it a go too. Stories, city guides and a free interactive planting calendar.
Four ways into the journal…
Read the stories
Long-form essays, dispatches and grower portraits: specific to where you are, honest about what’ll go wrong.
Open the Journal →Learn the how-to
Step-by-step organic guides — from your very first kitchen garden to beating pests — plus the 2020 Grow-Along video series that started it all.
Browse the guides →Plant by your city
Tell us your city, your space and the month. We’ll tell you what to plant, what to harvest and what not to bother with.
Use the calendar →Grow where you live
Climate is local, seasons are local, mistakes are local. Long-form guides for specific Indian cities.
See city guides →A tomato you grew yourself tastes ridiculous.
In the best way. A supermarket tomato is bred to survive trucks; yours will be lopsided, maybe cracked, and taste like something your grandmother would recognise. You don’t have to grow everything. A few pots of herbs, a patch of salad and a handful of chillies already change what lands on the plate. And kids love it: we’ve seen six-year-olds refuse shop brinjal after one season of their own.
What’s going in the ground this month.
Between seasons is when most people give up: too hot for the winter crops, too early for the monsoon ones. It’s exactly when a calendar helps most.
If you do one thing this month, plant coriander or amaranth. You’ll have something to cut within a fortnight and feel unreasonably pleased with yourself.
See the planting calendar →
Things Yogita’s been thinking about
The traditional monsoon vegetables nobody grows any more
Colocasia, taikilo, ambadi and shevga: a handful of monsoon-season vegetables grandmothers along the Konkan coast still know, and almost nobody else grows. A case for putting them back on balconies.
Laterite soil: the Konkan gardener's special problem
The reddish, iron-rich soil across Goa and the Konkan coast is a real challenge, and almost nobody writes about it. Here’s what fifteen years has taught us.
Stop obsessing about pests
After fifteen years of teaching, the biggest pest problem I see isn’t aphids or mildew. It’s the gardener panicking at the first nibbled leaf. Here’s the calmer way.
Ten things that will go wrong in your first kitchen garden. And it's fine.
An honest confessional from fifteen years of teaching first-timers. Yes, you will overwater. Yes, the coriander will bolt. And yes, it’s fine.
The good bugs: your garden's free pest control
For every pest in your garden there’s very likely a predator that eats it — and most of us spend our time accidentally killing the wrong ones. A love letter to the good bugs.
Tell us where you are. We’ll tell you what to plant.
Pick your city, your space and the month. It’s free, city-specific and the thing we wish someone had handed us twelve years ago.
Use the planting calendar → Growing with success, wherever you may live.
Mumbai
Balcony-first culture, tropical humidity and three clear seasons. The complete field guide.
Bengaluru
Year-round mild climate, terrace culture. Coming this quarter.
Chandigarh
A city built around its gardens. Seasonal extremes, underserved.
”We’re trying to write the thing we wish we’d had when we started: specific to where you are, honest about what’ll go wrong and unafraid to enjoy itself.”
The journal, in your inbox.
Once a month: what we’re growing, what to plant where, a reader’s garden photo and one essay. No ads, no tracking, no “exclusive offers.” Unsubscribe with one click, no questions.