Seasons: Summer

Green by day and overpowering by night; plant it away from a bedroom window.

Grows from a bare cutting pushed into dry soil; scents a whole terrace.

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

Sprawls generously and stores well; the leaves and flowers are food too.

Fast, thirsty and best trained up a net where air can move around it.

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

Pods, beans and green manure from one undemanding monsoon plant.

Sixty days from sowing to dal, and sproutable on a kitchen shelf.

Upright, bell-flowered and ancient; the oilseed of the dry season.

A thick-leaved climbing spinach that thrives in the worst of the monsoon heat.