12:04 am

June 9, 2011

Its been 40 days since we started this addiction. The activity this morning was to get some compost from Camaroon123. And surely it was gold dust. Just like black tea leaf/powder. Amazing. No smell. Felt so good lifting a handful. Thanks to Camaroon. Spent an hour to spread it out. The below photos were taken before the compost spreading was done.
And here is the first set of photos. With the limited space and constraints not a huge or great exhibition just some experiments.
7:14 am

Moderators
October 27, 2010

8:41 pm

Excellent pictures Jeev. Amaranths look great. Bitter groud also looks great. Be careful about tomato leafminers, they can also spread to amaranth's. You may want to follow Srikanth's advice of thinning out the pots( I know its difficult) as they will compete for nutrients and eventually none of them will give results.
12:00 pm

July 14, 2011

2:22 pm

June 9, 2011

Thanks all. I was off for 4 days and would like to thank camaroon123 for his wet-cardboard mulching technique. I used them on the tomato containers and after 4 days. Wow! They are still all alive and kicking.
Other technique we used was to fill up used plastic bags, filled up with water and poked a needle onto it and hung it above the containers. It was dripping when we left but some how it got auto-sealed off quickly. When we returned it still had water in it. So a couple of the keera plants wilted a bit. However the good thing is that after a couple of watering folks are back.
Thanks camaroon123 for the compost. They are really helping the growth of the plants. Tomatoes are a 2-3 ft tall now. When will it flower? Btw, the leaves look crumbled, though these are new small leaves at the top. What should I do? The bitter gourd is reaching out of the balcony and is climbing thru to the AC external unit which is on the terrace. What next?
2:53 pm

Hmmm. Impressive.
I also want to thank you for card board mulcing method. It is very usefull for me.
I use an.or this purpose. May be it is usefull for someone here. I make a very tiny hole under the 1 litre plastic bottle and fill it with water . Now put the bottle on the soil . Bottle pour water drop by drop. This technique always save my plants.
Make sure the hole is very tiny. Remove the cap from the bottle or use the cap to control the air pressure in the bottle, that controls the water flow.
(hope you understand my poor english )
10:02 pm

Welcome back Jeev. Glad to be of help to you and Amit.
Tomatoes 3 feet tall already? Are you growing them on steroids? You must have got some good quality soil from the nursery guy. I visited him this week and got some overpriced manure at Rs150 per bag. He has got a fresh supply of manure with less propotion of soil.
Thanks for the tomato plans. They are doing fine and are the same size maybe because the roots have not set in.
I am not sure how your balcony is positioned but you may able to construct some extension with some pvc pipes and jute ropes for the climbers to grow. If their growth is not redirected to accessible locations, it may be difficult to collect the bitter groud later. I got my first bitter groud from my plant and they are yummy.
12:47 pm

February 15, 2011

Hi folks,
Just a comment, you are trying techniques to save your plants from wilting due to no moisture and here in Mumbai I am trying to save my plants from the onslought of the monsoons.
There has been no sunshine since last 3-4 days and I am wondering how my baby plants/ seedlings (cherry toms and chillies now) will cope. I am keeping them inside and taking them out from an hour or so when it is not raining; but then no sun either
Saving grace in my terrace garden are the bhindi plants which have grown well and are giving me a decent harvest of 2-3 fruits per day, I have 10 plants growing in five 15 L oil containers. I also have a brahmakamal (night blooming cerus) due to flower any night now ( there are four buds) and ginger lily which keep my spirits high during the rains....
land of diverse climates INDIA
Chitra
4:10 pm

June 9, 2011

Indeed Chitra. Diverse India! My roots (no pun intended) are in the western region as well. Moreover from age 0 to 20 yrs I lived in Mumbai and miss the s/w monsoon badly. But mulching/bottle techniques were used when on vacation. Will be needed anyway.
No sunshine is bad indeed. Very tough. Will artificial light help?
10:20 am

June 9, 2011

Back after exactly a week. Firstly I need to inform a very strange and beautiful event that happened this morning. I got up in the morning and went to the balcony. The sun was beating and to my horror I found all the leaves of my tomato plant (from the packet seeds) had drooped. I was feeling sad. But I managed to pick myself up and get a couple of mugs of water from the bucket and poured it into the container. I continue doing the watering for the other plants and when I am done and see the tomato plant. Gosh! Amazing! Magic! All the leaves got up and were glee looking at the sun. Wow! I called my wife and showed it to her. She had seen the morning scene as well and so was surprised as well. It confirmed that I was not dreaming. Has anyone seen this before. All this happened within 10 min or so.
The updates:
-- A few yellow flowers on a few tomato plants from home seeds and one on the packet seeds. The tomato plants are getting to 4 feet tall. How tall do these grow?
-- 4-5 okra - very small as of today
-- Potato - one of them is growing like Amitabh Bacchan and the other just fell off. But now for the one growing I dont have space in the container to hill up. Its become taller than I expected.
-- Red Keerai was plucked and we had a keerai curry yesterday. Green keerai was cut a second time over and cooked mid week. The best part is it grows well. No more seeds need to be put. Spinach vada was made Wednesday as well.
-- No flowers yet on the bitter gourd. Any manual intervention needed?
-- Methi is growing better and taller than previous attempt.
-- Sad news: Onion shoots just died a week back. The green shoots turned brown and lay down on the soil and withered away. Question: Do we have to give these shoots support with sticks or something? How much water do they need? Another thing: It was in the same container as okra. Does that affect?
-- Thulsi - not that great.
-- Panikoorka - no issues.
-- Malli (coriander) - one pot gone. The others are ok, but they are not growing fast and tall. The containers are not that deep though. Does it need deeper containers? Should'nt it be in the sun for too long? How tall do they get?
2:34 pm

Moderators
October 27, 2010

2:58 pm

June 26, 2011

Hi,Jeev bitter gourd vines to be pruned at the tips when female flowers found.It will encourage more branches &more female flowering.It need regular more watering&good manuring .It will give yield after 3 mths of sowing.Regular picking of tender vegetables induces growth of numbers new b.gourds.Happy gardening.
9:17 pm

Jeev, looks like you are on the way to getting home-grown organic tomatoes.. congrats. Just ensure your tomatoes and snake gourd get enough sunlight. Your plants are making excellent progress. Care to share the secret?.
I am looking to have plants in my terrace. If you have seeds that will go waste, I can probably buy them from you.. let me know.
10:25 am

June 9, 2011

Thanks Camaroon for the enouraging words. Btw now the tomato is 5.5 ft. There is something wrong! There are flowers here and there and they fall off as well.
The okra buds at the junctions - which look like okra fruit - one of them had a yellow flower covering it. A day later it dried up. Nothing happened after that. There are lots of ants (red and black) who are all over these. I tried to brush them aside and this dried flower totally got nipped off. There are other 6-7 of these buds as we go up. The height of the okra is also close to 4 ft.
Why are these guys growing so tall???
So much so that the neighbouring potato plant is getting encouraged and its trying to reach their height and its now 1.5 ft above the can. I cannot hill up any more soil 🙁 The can is full of soil. I was expecting it to grow laterally/horizontally at the edge of the can. Its not always what you think is how things would pan out.
These two have given the balcony a very green look which feels very good. Forget the fruits. Not a grape is sour thing! I am really looking forward and anxiously awaiting them. Its 60 days since these were started up. However the transformation to greenery gives me enthu. The balcony has a shaded look, especially the strong morning sun on a barren balcony no longer exists. Due to this I feel very good.
I can see a white flower and a few on its way to bloom on the chilli plant.
The yellow flowers on the bitter-gourd is few and far between. They are running on the clothes-line and wifey is "can you turn its direction 180 deg" rather than covering the entire line. She is now managing with half the clothesline length.
The thulsi has lots of seeds now. Just revived from the brink of death. Feels good. Wifey had lots of faith all along and its her baby.
Red Keerai/Green Keerai are being enjoyed as usual.
Today its going to be methi harvest.
Camaroon: Buying? No way. I will come with my bag of seeds this week to your place (after giving you a call) and please make good use of them. I just want to see urban green houses. Its so pleasing. Set up the terrace. Aug-end mid-week holidays are on its way. Get it going.
8:25 pm
July 3, 2011

camaroon123 said:
Jeev, looks like you are on the way to getting home-grown organic tomatoes.. congrats. Just ensure your tomatoes and snake gourd get enough sunlight. Your plants are making excellent progress. Care to share the secret?.
I am looking to have plants in my terrace. If you have seeds that will go waste, I can probably buy them from you.. let me know.
Hi cameroon and jeev if you guys are in chennai you can come and collect chedi murungai seeds from me i have more then what is needed, contact me at 9500024813.
regards
suresh
8:10 pm

Hi Jeev, feel free to drop in anytime. I am in the midst of setting up the irrigation system. At this time I will run out of pots if all my seeds germinate. Maybe I should wait for some time before getting the seeds.
Hi Sureshsharma, thanks for the offer. How big does this drumstick variety grow and what is its pot requirement?. Please share details about your garden and experiences.. It will be useful to share info about what grows well in our climate. One piece of advise is, do not post personal info in forums. This is easily searchable through google. You can use PM for passing on personal info. Just to be safe than sorry.
10:37 am

June 9, 2011

No, I am in listening mode all this while and a couple of 3-day, 5-day west-bound trips to hometown. Quite some developments in the garden front. Harvested atleast 5-7 okra. Good ones. Felt very very fresh I must say. Straight after plucking. All tomato plants have grown equal or taller than me. Lots of flowers but no fruit. We are a bit sad about it. We were out on vacation and the same enthu was not there to help them retain water when we were out but wifey is more sensitive and she left newspaper pieces on the soil surface after watering. When we came back some of them had dried leaves, the couple of okra which were on the plant curled up a lit, but we watered and most of them have sprung back into life. But the bigger question is what do we do of these tomato plant. I was for cleaning up the balcony. Wifey feels a bit sad and so its just as it is now. Just watering.
The bittergourd is also flowering but no fruit.
The potato plant once had a board fall on it and the stem broke. I was anyway not much enthu about it since it was growing taller than spreading wider and was difficult to manage with hilling in that water can.
There is a good news in all the termoil above. Couple of dark green chilli have appeared. The leaves look brilliant and survived the 4 day non-watering (they were smartly placed in a shady place by wifey before we left.)
Time to churn up and start some new stuff. No vacation till atleast 6th October now and so a good time to start.
2:42 pm

September 1, 2011

8:18 pm

@Jeev, All leaves and no fruit indicates abundance of Nitrogen and possibly lack of other nutrients. I suspect some fertilizer might have got mixed in the soil. The nursery guys usually use fertilizers for fresh looking saplings and to induce flowering. Lack of sunlight is another possible reason.
Feel free to visit sometime and probably you will get back your Enthu.
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