Growing spaces: ground

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

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

The hardiest pulse of the dry deccan, grown where rain is unreliable.

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

The grain that carries the western desert through a bad monsoon.

A tough small-grained millet of the southern and Himalayan hills.

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.