Seasons: Monsoon

A winged-stemmed climber storing a heavy tuber under a monsoon trellis.

The fastest useful tree there is — 3 m in a year, edible leaves and pods.

A small tree that lives happily in a deep pot and gives leaves all year.

Jowar — drought-hardy grain and fodder in one, on almost no inputs.

One of the small millets of tribal central India, quick and undemanding.

An old and quick millet, sown as a catch crop when the rains come late.

A hill millet that tolerates waterlogging better than any other grain.

Grown for seed rather than leaf; magenta heads over the whole monsoon.

A long curling gourd of southern and eastern kitchen gardens.

Drought-hardy bean of the west — fixes nitrogen and crops where little else will.