Tomatoes - Germination & transplanting

Requirements:

• Good quality native tomato (desi variety)
• Big container - say 1sq ft - 2 sq ft (with drainage)
• Cocopeat
• Thin stick
• Potting soil

Take the round shaped desi tomatoes , cut them into thick slices. Lay them on a bed of moist cocopeat and top it with a thin layer of cocopeat. In few days you will see tens of tomato seeds germinating.

why can't we sow tomatoes directly in mud? Do we need the cockpeat medium?

Homemade seeds & solutions to germinate

We don't need to buy seeds to grow them, we can get them at our home itself.

Chillies

Every household uses dry red chillies in all shapes, sizes and varieties. The dried seeds canbe sowed and voila you have your green chilli plant.

Tomatoes

Take the round shaped desi tomatoes , cut them into thick slices. Lay them on a bed of moist cocopeat and top it with a thin layer of cocopeat. In few days you will see tens of tomato seeds germinating.

Sowing of seeds

Good morning friends, now that we have got our spaces ready and our basic potting mix ready too, let's start with sowing of seeds.

While sowing seeds I normally use only cocopeat as my medium. I use any of the containers at home which are of no use to me or I make small cups from newspaper, shall show you how I make those in a video soon.

Spray water on your sowing medium and sow the seeds...the sowing depth will depend on the size of the seed, it's normally two times the diameter of the seed. Larger seeds like beans and gourds can be sowed an inch deep too.

There are few seeds which you can sow and transplant and there are some which have to be sown directly.

Largest roof top green organic farm - Chennai

Mother Teresa's building , opp Hotel Park Elanza, next to valluvarkottam

Those in Chennai can visit and buy greens organically grown there

Here is the link (video - opens in a different window)

CLICK HERE

How to prepare a basic potting mix?

Here are some pointers to prepare potting mix:

1. You can add bone meal to your potting mix. 

2. You can add goat manure/chicken manure, but add little as by nature it's hot, so too much may cause plant burn

3. You can add a little wood ash

4. You can add bio nutrients and fungicides like pseudomonas, Trichoderma, azophyllum, phosphobactria, these are added in minimum quantities so don't overdo it, just a tad bit goes a long way.

Mealybugs

Take an old toothbrush or paint brush and with water rub off the mealy bugs, then spray the neem oil soap nut solution.  5ml neem oil plus soapnut solution or if you don't have soapnut a few drops of liquid dishwashing soap to a litre of water. 

Repeat this for sometime till you see they are eradicated.

You can also keep the plant 6"from the base of the soil free from any leaves or branches. 

When the soil is too wet or if you water late evenings the pest infestation is more active

I have even used aloe Vera Juice to remove the mealy bug infestation and it has given amazing results, you can try that too.

Good Luck.

Preparation of NPK @ home

Recipe for preparing nitrogen or N, phosphorus or P and potassium or K (NPK) at home:

Collect your used tea leaves everyday. ( Wash the tea leaves thoroughly with water, dry and store)

Powder some mustard cake. ( You will get mustard cake from any cold pressed oil mill where they make mustard oil...the leftover bit after taking the oil out is what we call mustard cake)

Banana peels powdered ( after eating banana collect the peel and dry them, once dry powder them in mixi and store)

Your NPK is ready. Use this in equal ratio and feed your plants every 15 days ....just sprinkle a little away from the base of the plant and water.

Good luck

Pots available in the market

Friends,

Let's look at the options available in the market with regards to pots.

HDPE Bags

LDPE Bags

     

Old tires

Plan for your veggie garden

We need to start planning for our veggie garden now, so please plan out what all you wish to grow, how many members are there in your family, which area of your garden gets sunlight, which gets shade, where do you wish to grow ...i.e. in pots and containers or you have ground space ....take two three days to think it out and then we can all.plan

May is the month when the garden soil is turned out and new manure is added to enrich the soil. Normally a ratio of 1:1:1:1 is used which means equal proportions of soil, cowdung manure, cocopeat and vermicompost.

Normally when I make bulk quantities of soil I add more of cowdung manure and less of vermicompost as we shall be topping our pots with VC once in 15 days 

Hello everyone - Welcome

Welcome friends and thank you for visiting my page.

Here in this blog, I would like to share my gardening experience. I grow a lot of plants - vegetable, fruits, flowering in my terrace garden.

I also request you to share your experience, so that we can grow more plants at home.

I have a whatsapp group. You can use the following link to join the group.

https://chat.whatsapp.com/GaHdjFmGHZv2cv8eiowKo0

Keep watching this space for more gardening information.

With warm regards.