Just to write a few words about manjaris (flowers).
Tulsi tends to give manjaris during summer hot season and at this moment in Australia she is profusely providing them. It is a way to give us plenty seeds to continue growing her and sharing her presence with our friends.
Although she is beautiful with them you need to bear in mind the production of seeds diminishes her life energy. My mentor always says 'if you let her produce seeds she will produce less leaves' and the greener she is the healthier she is.
As simple as that.
So, you will need to remove all excess manjaris and offer them to Krishna.
The whole of last season I've allowed only about four strongest manjaris to go into seeds and when the seeds turned brown I've used one of those transparent zip lock small sandwich bags to cover them, so they wont fall off if you accidentally shake the manjari. I've then left them there until they dried out making the seeds of good quality.
The reason for this bag is that the seed that falls off from manjari grows into small Tulsi withing the pot of mother Tulsi and this will mean you need to damage their roots to transplant them. Mother will surely survive but baby might struggle so I prefer that not to happen.
If you don't have a mini zip lock bag u can use bigger one by cutting it with scissors and making a small one using clear tape. Try to leave a small hole in one of the corners to keep the air coming to seeds. I didn't have time to do it this year and I still have seeds from last season but I'll try to do this in next few weeks and produce some pictures to give you an idea of what I was doing.
As you will see each manjari produces almost a hundred seeds if it is a big one as each manjari is made of maybe twenty or more mini flowers each having four seeds inside.
I gave some seeds to our friends and they all got Tulsi plants growing out of them.
The famous Tulsi that has the pictures in 'Growing Tulsi step by step' series on this blog is one of them.
So, even if you don't do 'the baging of seeds' thing just take care to remove all but one of two most beautiful manjaris in a season and your Tulsi is going to be growing greener and healthier.
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| Manjaris to be cut and offered |
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| Fully grown manjari |
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| Where to cut (under the first set of leaves) |
If you look at the picture on the left and one below you will see two mini manjaris growing just above the two top leaves. This is the reason we have to cut manjari under the two top leaves or better to say with the two top leaves.
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| Fully grown Tulsi gives a lot of manjaris |
Manjaris ready for offer. When we have this much I usually share them with friends who have Deities at home for their offers and Tulsi appreciates and provides more and more ;)
Happy Tulsi, happy home!
