August 28, 2009 at 11:42 pm (gardening, harvest)
Tags: bangalore, cherr, cherry tomato, ripe, stupice, stupice early, truss, vine, vine ripe
Last week I was on vacation, so nothing much happened in BlogVille. But there are lot of things that had happened in my garden both good and bad.
During my absence,To water my plants and to take care of them, I appointed a maid and I gave her one day training on how to water ..esp those tiny beefsteak tomato seedlings …With all this prep work done, I was all set to visit my inlaws in North India.(Uttar pradesh)
I spent almost a week, visiting many places which i will describe in a different post. Today I returned home, Anxious about what happened to my plants. I ran to my terrace straight from the taxi.
First, I was so happy and excited to see my garden after a weeks time. It feels like I was away for years and they have grown so big. So many tomatoes…..so many vine riped ones. Stupice early tomato was fully of red ripe tomatoes.
Then I rushed to see if my 22 fruit cluster cherry has fully ripened. I was shocked. So many cherries have been plucked and many fell down. Many had cracked and poked by pigeons. I was able to collect the fallen ones and discarded the cracked/poked ones(might use then for seed 
).
This weekend too, I will be out of station, So I didn’t want another tomato to go waste. I rolled up my sleeves and harvest all the red looking toms. Guess what, I ended up with so much.
This contains tomatoes of the following varities. Maskotka, Washington Cherry, Stupice early.
Fish bone truss with few cherries taken away 
Another shot of the same basket. I weighed the tomatoes after I plucked them. It came about 3.6 Kg. 3610 gms to be exact. Not bad huh!?
More later
gg
16 Comments
August 19, 2009 at 12:24 am (eggplant, gardening, vegetables)
Tags: bangalore, blackbeauty, brinjal, container, egg, eggplant, purple
While the image of fresh brinjals from my last post on eggplants Red, White and Green still green in my mind, there is another batch of brinjal plants getting ready for harvest. The variety that I am growing now is Black Beauty.
When I went for vegetable shopping a while back I saw this huge black beauty weighing almost a Kilogram. It was priced at Rs 25-30 a Kg. This was enough push for me to start sowing black beauty in my own container garden. With some local searching I was able to get the seeds that said “Black Beauty”.
The seeds were sown like usual in trays and transplanted into containers. Then Magic happens and you will have something like this …
I can hear you saying “Come on! this isn’t black beauty?!” “Its more like purple?”. I too am wondering. May be its the lack of direct sunlight for long hours? May be I was taken for a ride by the seed seller? I dont know.
I was expecting a 1kg brinjal from my plant. This one was about 300 gms. But that doesn’t bother me.
One might notice a brown scar on that brinjal’s base. This brinjal was growing so low in a container that it started touching the ground. I had to remove some soil to make room for it to grow and there was a small stone that made its mark on this brinjal. I was shocked to see that spot as I didn’t want this brinjal to be infested with worms. No way.
Totally I had 10 plants of this variety but I had only 3-4 big containers . Hence the rest of the plants had to adjust with whatever container they got..
Look at this plant below, that is so happily growing in a polythene bag. Its that simple. You don’t need great containers. A simple thick polythene bag will serve the purpose. I was looking for a black polythene bag but then this one is much thicker than the black ones available in the market.You can see a small brinjal that is growing near the base.
There are other vegetables that I am growing right now. Red cabbage, Bitter gourd to name a few.
Let me finish give a spicy ending to this post.
Ornamental chillies in a 4 inch pot!.
More later
gg
13 Comments
August 14, 2009 at 12:13 am (gardening, harvest, vegetables)
Tags: bangalore, cherry tomato, container, gardening, green zebra, stupice early, terrace, tomato, tomatoes
Long time no post! Offlate it is really difficult to find time to write a post with work taking most of my time. However, my plants do get their share of attention/time and as always in return they do what they are good at… yielding..
Daily, my morning time just flies by looking at the veggie garden especially keeping track of how many tomato plants started flowering and how many have set friuts. It is definitely a time well spent and joyful as well. With this post I am going to share the joy that I get every day! and Tempt some folks to start terrace gardening if they already haven’t started.
There are different kinds of tomato besides yellow pear ( enough has been written about them) that are growing in my container garden . Here they are one by one.
Maskotka:
Before I speak anything about this variety, I have to thank Preethi, a gardening enthusiast and one of the regular visitor of this blog. It was so generous of her for sending me the seed packets from her collection. The seeds include the tomato varieties Maskotka and Balconi Red. Thank you so much Preethi.
Maskotka in clusters
Almost ready for picking.
From the plant to the plate
Balconi Red Tomato:
This is a dwarf and a compact tomato. It grows upto a maximum of a feet or even lesser than a feet. This variety has very small flowers and bears beautiful berries. Its a cherry tomato kind. Its a perfect plant for the kids to grow.
Red cherry tomato:
I had grown red cherry tomato before and was impressed with its sweet tasting berries that my garden always has a red cherry growing. I am growing them in a 20L bucket. Though the tomato is small the plant is pretty huge. And this time, with proper care they are having very long trusses each having upto 20 berries. Its so beautiful to just look at. This is what is called a Fish bone arrangement. This plant has around 15 trusses each having 20. You do the math.
Green Zebra:
This is a heirloom variety ( not really a heirloom considering the fact it was introduced in 1983). The tomato has white stripes in it and guess what it remains green. The indication of its ripening is goldening of the white stripes. Green is the new Red!!
Stupice Early:
This variety originates from Czechoslovakia and thats not surprising about that. What is so special about it is, it has leaves that of a potato and not just that. It is known for its early yield. Check out the potato leaf like tomato leaf
I am not done yet. I am growing Beefsteak and Pink plum tomatoes now. They are in seedling stage. More on them later.
That’s a good meal for your eyes, isn’t it? Wait… here comes the dessert.
Happy gardening
gg
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