She beats her blues with gardening

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, October 25

The pandemic sparked a global gardening obsession, with many growing their own produce for the first time. With more time at one’s disposal, a large number of city residents adopted healthy hobbies and taking interest in nurturing their kitchen gardens on terrace or balconies. Likewise, Rita Chahal (60), a resident of Urban Estate phase-1 is also nurturing a garden on her terrace garden.

The unfortunate demise of her husband in November 2019, pushed her into depression. She didn’t want to do much and was unable to find any way to express her grief. However, the Covid-19 outbreak in March 2020, followed by lockdown, compelled her to get over the depression and also rejuvenated her to put her interests in the front seat.

Living alone in the lockdown was the saddest thing but, as people around the world turned to gardening as a soothing hobby, I also took out my tools to turn my terrace into a flower bed. Its been almost a year, since I’m maintaining my roof top garden, now I don’t feel like leaving my garden space in the morning and sit back again in the closed rooms. Nothing tastes better than a veggie you have grown yourself, nothing looks better than watching your plant grow into beautiful flowers”, added Chahal.

Apart from the terrace garden, she also has a small lawn area and a space from green vegetables. She says, tending to her plants and reaping them gives her a sense of pride. Rita spends 2-3 hours every day to maintain or water her plants. She has even trained her servant on how to keep the plants healthy and nourished, so that in her absence, he could take care of them.