Today’s task in the garden was to harvest the ever-abundant cardamom in Cardamom County.

This is a task that cannot be completed by machines, so even in commercial fields, it must be handpicked. That is because figuring out which ones are ripe requires tuned fingers.

It was a bit of a learning curve for me at first because I thought I was supposed to be looking for which ones were the darkest, but then I learned otherwise.

I was looking for the ones that fell off easily into my hand from tugging slightly. When ripe, the small seed pods on the inside are dark colored.

We may be most familiar with this sweet spice in masala chai tea, but it has many uses.

To do a little research, I asked the Ayurvedic doctor here if he could enlighten me on some of the traditional medicine uses of cardamom. He said that it is good for throat and lung troubles, skin problems such as acne, and digestive issues.

The type of cardamom we have here is the Malabar variety and it is native to Kerala. The green leaves are pretty tall- probably about 5 feet on average. The pods are on short vines that cluster at the bottom of the tall leaves.

When we were harvesting them, it started to lightly rain, but the leaves served as umbrellas for us. It was comforting to hear the rain patter above us while we stayed dry underneath.