Bagkam

The other day i was showing my one and half year old daughter the packet of 20+ varieties of seeds that I had recently acquired from a member of our Organic Gardening group on whatsapp. She was super excited to see them !  I've already been involving her in a lot of my gardening activities & we have a blast working together in the garden. Right now that for her translates to playing in the soil, gobbling up the cherry tomatoes on the plants & watering them.  So we got to work one evening & setup some seed trays with a range of seeds. This time we used only cocopeat as a potting mix without any seed protection agents.  11 October 2020 Basil 15 Chillies 15 Bhendi 9 Wangi 8 Bhopli Mirchi 6 All these i have planted directly without soaking them overnight in water.  13th October 2020 Today I added Cauliflower & Cabbage seeds to the mix . About 12/13 each. And some Old basil seeds (2 Years post Expiry). This time i have soaked them overnight in water.  15th October 2020 S

I'd been wanting to set up a small poly house on my roof for a while & I set up a temporary one with my Daughter's dollhouse frame. Here's that version.  However, that plastic isn't made for continuous use under the sun so I had to find a quick replacement so she can have her Dollhouse back :). 27th September 2020 So here is what I was able to set up in a couple of hours using 4 feet, 1/2 inch PVC pipes for the sides and PVC corners. You can get all this material at your local hardware store. It will cost you between 500-800 INR depending on the quality you buy. This is a 4X4X4 cube now and should house a decent amount of plants from my experiments. Next, I've put some playhouse plastic around it & left one side that can open for maintenance.  Update 6th October 2020 - Design Failure !  Massive Rains have wrecked the structure. The top was filled with water that i emptied once. Next time one of the joints broke. Luckily its not completely broken and still se

 So last week I have got some seeds started to try growing some Hydroponics based veggies. It will take some time for the seedlings to come out and for me to try stuff with them.  Today morning when gardening on my rooftop garden, I found lots and lots of strawberry runners that I had missed replanting. So I thought why not start a hydroponics version along with the regular one. Beats having to wait for the other guys to come up anyways!  This blog will be a diary of how things turn out with this experiment.  27th September 2020, Sunday I set up 3 planters using some Beer mugs from a Joomla conference of all things.  I don't drink beer so I have had these lying around for a long time. I thought this would be a nice way to put this souvenir to good use! Planter I've taken the beer mugs and covered them with a double layer of Newspaper with a small gap to check the nutrient levels.  Medium  I've used net cups and 'Agrilabh' brand clay balls as the medium.  Nutrient 2

In spite of gardening for years, I've never really done it properly, scientifically understanding the process. Its been more of an arbitrary & inconsistent process where the results are just by chance.  I've been reading up on hydroponics for a while & thought that I should document my trials with it & try to do it more scientifically. The plan is to use the Kratky method. 20th September 2020 - Starting the Seedlings for a Hydroponics Experiment So today is Day 1. I am just starting my seedlings in discarded mushroom trays. Normally when gardening I just arbitrarily plant seeds and hope for the best. This time I've decided to be very efficient.  I 've taken 10 seeds each of all the plants I plan to grow in this edition. I've treated them with 'Agrilabh Seed Guard' & will let them sit overnight & plant them tomorrow morning. This is what we are working with, in this experiment Basil Tomato Capsicum Palak (Spinach) Methi (Fenugreek) I'l