Seed starting begins…..

By geekgardener, on May 5th, 2009%

Ever since I started growing vegetable in my container garden, flowers and ornamental plants took a back seat. And everytime I visit garden stores, I end up buying lots of flower seed packets and realize that I dont have enough containers to plant them. But now I got some more new containers/pots. So its party time!!.. My hands started itching to sow some flower seeds. Last sunday, the sowing finally happened.

Here are the pics…

Seed packets on the left and cell trays on the right side with plant labels on the top. Labels are DIY types. If you watch closely the seed packet on the right is Ornamental Chillies. I have been wanting to grow these since ages and finally got it a week back.

These cavity trays will be filled with seed starting mix.

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Seeds with the seed starting mix. The seed starting mix is 3:1 peat + perlite. It has no fertilizer and hence will not burn the seedlings. Once the seedlings have their true leaves I water them with a weak solution of fertilizer. Sowing is different for different flowers. For Marigold, the seeds need to be covered but coleus needs light to germinate. Care has to be taken. Spending time on reading the seedpacket will do good.

The red tray that holds the mix is from a local plastic recycle shop for Rs 30 and its such a useful item in my garden that too at a dead cheap price.

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Seed are sown in their own cells and covered with a polythene sheet. I started the following seeds,

  • French Marigold.
  • Tithonia.
  • Ornamental Chilly.
  • Coleus.

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and now the most difficult job…. waiting for them to germinate..

Will keep you all posted about the progress. There are more seeds to sow.. May be someother day!

more later

gg

32 comments   gardening, perlite, seedstarting   , , , , , , , , , , ,  

Seed starting Tomatoes, Chillies and Egg plant

By geekgardener, on October 27th, 2008%

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have been working on seed starting tomatoes, chilli and egg plant. I have been recording information on that at every possible stage. I sowed them on 12th of October and we are 15 days from that point now.

First I will go over the varieties I planted and then the details on each of them.

Tomatoes:

Cherry Tomato F1 Hybrid:

Ever since I came back from US, I have been craving for cherry tomatoes. I have checked nearly countless shops for cherry tomato seeds; over the phone; in person, you name it. And after I came to know the price of it(INR 900/100gms), I had a shock and I almost gave up on it. Then I casually went to Indo-American Hybrid Seeds to buy some pots and on the way I saw a shop called National Seeds(Very close to INDAM Seeds). I had a feeling that I should try one last time in this shop and Bingo! they have it. Cherry tomatoes!! Yes.. 1gms for INR 80. Not bad.. not bad at all. I immediately picked up a packet and reached home back with a Happy Face :-D

This cherry tomato is an indeterminate variety. So It will reach more than 6 feet in height and will keep beariing fruits throughout the year.

Indam – Naveen:

This is another indeterminate variety of a normal sized tomato. Wanted to grow indeterminate variety this time hence this. These varieties are not really meant for Container growing. But hey, what the heck, Lets break some rules. I have already made arrangements for the containers. This time I am going for huge 20Litre Paint buckets and since these fellas grow as tall as i am .. I have bought some stakes as well.

Indan – Rupali:

This is a determinate variety that was loyal to me lasttime by its amazing produce in container, so included that as well.

Eggplant (Brinjal) :

This is the variety that got the name egg plant for brinjal. This is a F1 hybrid variety.

Chilli(long variety):

This one is a long variety from Indam. Chilli plants are perfect for a container and trust me! if you have one plant, you will never have to shop for chilli and everytime you need one, you have a few that you can pluck from the plant and use it.

So Let me end the text here and let the pictures speak.

Seed packets:

Top left- Indam – Naveen Tomato

Top Right- Eggplant (Now you know why)

Bottom left- Cherry tomaotes

Bottom right- Need i mention that?

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Seed starting:

Medium:

The medium I used to start these seeds are peat + Perlite ( in the ration 3:1). I didnt add any fertilizer to the mix. The plan was to fertilize the plants with a weak solution after they show true leaves.

Moist medium ready to take seeds:

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12th October:Seeds are sown and Labelled ( yes labelling is important esp when i have 3 varieties of same plant)

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19th October: 7 days later they peek out. From the right-left Indam Rupali, Cherry tomato, Indam Naveen, Chilli, Eggplant, Zinnia.

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27th October: 15days after it was sown. Tomatoes were the first, then came zinnia and later egg plant, then comes the chilli finishing last. Tomatoes are having a set of true leaves and they will remain in this 2.5″ square pots until they are ready to be transplanted into 20L paint bucket.

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This is what I have been doing last couple weeks. In the next couple of weeks, these seedlings will grow and more work to pot all of them into bigger pots.

Wishing everyone a Happy and Green Diwali :-)

More later

gg

24 comments   gardening, medium, perlite, propagation, seedstarting   , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,