Eating our way through a Colombo Garden

 
                                                                                    The fruit grows on the trunk, not on the branches

Whether we are leaving our home or returning, we can't help but notice the mix of fragrances from the fruit trees and plants along the walkway. So I do what any curious gardener does, I knock on the door of Mr. Senevirantne, our next door neighbor and father of our airbnb host, Surekah, here in Colombo.

I have been admiring the back garden through the mosquito netting, but Mr. Senevirantne says, "the garden starts in the front."  He is 78 years young and squats easily to share the leaves of low lying plants and raises on tip-toes to reach the tiniest red fruit he is hiding from the squirrels.  The Sinhalese plant names escape me for there are one syllable too many each time. We taste sweet basil cinnamon leaves, bitter arrowroot, taste leaves used to prevent cancer, leaves good for digestion, others used for diabetes, and we flip over giant fern-like leaves looking for the spores. I only recognize the papaya, the mango, and the plantain.  None of the other 30 plants are recognizable. 

  

  He says the Sinhalese prefer leaves to vegetables.  Yes, they have the chilis and pumpkins (the squat dark green pumpkins as opposed to our bright round orange pumpkins). They also have spinach, but the spinach leaves are dark green with maroon edging and the plant grows on vines.  There are dozens of plant leaves used in salads or sauteed in curry.   

Mr. Seneviratne is an agricultural engineer and has spent all his life gathering and introducing ideas, whether it was building solar stoves in Tanzania, to working near dams in the Congo and Zaire, to being part of the Indian coalition opposing Monsanto's genetically engineered seeds, or agricultural development in Malaysia. His work now is giving lectures to "the poor who do not know what they have" and reintroducing them to organic farming.  In his backyard, he recreates innovative ideas such as the Peruvian farmer who uses woodchips mixed with pulverized leaves (to allow air and space in the mixture) in French beds, so the roots from nearby trees can provide the nutrients to land worn down from over-planting or chemicals.  

                                                             Fern

He builds small tanks (ponds) and creates a backwall with vined plants for birds. He stocks the ponds with fish so the 3 foot tank self cleans.  Tonight I see a stork and a brown heron visiting his backyard and feeding from the pond. A kingfisher sits on a nearby branch from a mango tree to grab a fish dinner. He says mosquitos are not a problem as this is a favorite spot for dragonflies and damselflies. He tears up and crushes leaves from the betel plant to deter mosquitoes just in case.

Termites are always an issue. So he built an 8 inch wide strip around the backwall of his house and filled it with sand, but the neighborhood cats thanked him by using it as a litter box, so he solved the problem by planting aloe vera. He is a problem solver.

Each evening from my window I see his herd of land tortoises marching around the garden eating what they can.  The first tortoise was a whooping 14 inch animal hit by a car. He and his wife brought the tortoise home years ago and there have been eggs and tortoises ever since. At dawn a flock of green parrots nestle into his garden to eat the top half of berries to start their day. In order to eat some of the berries and fruits himself, he has devised a system of plastic water bottle traps over the fruits and berries so squirrels, parrots, mongoose, and other birds only "get the top half and I get the berries and fruits on the bottom half of the trees."

An hour after my garden tour, he brings me into his house and shares his musical instrument collection from around the world, his collection of paintings,  and his collection of masks.  If I would have met this gentleman at the start of our travels a month ago, I don't think we would have seen the rest of the country.  He's fascinating.