KURAKAR KITCHEN CHEERA GARDEN

KURAKAR  KITCHEN CHEERA GARDEN

Growing cheera can be the easiest crop to start with your kitchen garden for a beginner. Cheera grows in almost all the soil but loam soil is most suitable for its cultivation. You may either choose the seeds or the stem to cultivate. There are different varieties of cheera available; however the most common in kitchen garden are cheera in red and in green colours..cheera is suitable for growing in summer as well as rainy season. The seed is sown in December- January for summer crop and April – May for rainy season crop. Seeds of cheera are very small and hence there are chances for the ants to eat the seeds. Here you have to be smart to protect your cheera seed you sow in your garden bed. When sowing cheera seed, mix it up with some rava so that ants will eat rava and your cheera seed remain protected in your garden.For growing cheera, you can also consider planting its stem if you are not available with seeds to plant. When considering cheera stem to plant, choose the stem that is fresh and have roots on it. You can even consider the cheera you buy from the market for your recipe in the kitchen.

when you are planting cheera, try to plant red and green as mixed, so that both gets protected from some leaf dot diseases.Once you planted either cheera seed or its stem, don’t forget to water in order keep your soil bed moist, that is essential for the seed to germinate or the stem to propagate. Then consider manuring cheera. The best will be organic manures like compost or dried cow dung.The crop become ready for harvesting about three to four weeks after sowing and subsequent cuttings may be done after 7 to 10 days. The plants are harvested by cutting them periodically. This crop revenate quickly after each cutting. Hence  growing cheera is a easily grown fresh veg for your kitchen. The wonderful varieties of spinach available in  Kerala. Most of them are available through out the year and the best greens restricted to the summer. A few of them are Arai keerai, Mulai keerai, Siru keerai,  Pulicha keerai, Venthaya keerai, Manathakkali keerai and Vallara keerai.The widely available varities of cheera (spinach) in Kerala are always mainly, Chuvanna cheera, Pacha cheera  in those road side vegetable shops other than the home grown greens.

                                                 Prof.JohnKurakar