Organic gardening workshop

I attended a workshop which was being held at Vikram Mallya Scientific Research Center by one of the very renowned people  (qualified doctors and expects).Around thirty people attended the workshop from different age group with various reason of their enthusiasm toward vegetable gardening. The workshop started at 10 am by giving detailed explanation about the present scenario  of the need to go organic. They explained the issue of high level of pesticide being used and how can we use organic ways to prevent the pest from attacking the plant.

Their terrace garden with all sorts of vegetable growing

After detailed insights regarding pests they explained how to make your own compost and also explained various types of composts. Once they were through with the details regarding types of pests and compost they live explained the types of soil and how to set the bed ... how deep the seeds should be put... also showed us different types of seeds of different vegetables and when to water , how much to water....where to get the utilities....  Also explained the importance of organic seeds and other dos and donts.

Demonstration

Diseased leaves

After attending the workshop... and buying bio foster (healthy liquid with all nutrients) and other seeds etc. i decided to spray some on the plants... neem magic and bio foster  to see if they will improve.. as my radish died due to lack of sunlight and my french beans dont look so healthy that i was quite worried about it ...

They still look pretty sick and dead even after first round of spray. I am not sure when are these french beans ready to be plucked?...

Its been a month since they have been growing... i plan to pluck them and sow new seeds... :)

Few fruits and few flowers.....

They are no more seeds or saplings ... they are fruiting.. after endlessly watching them grow ... i can see my french beans sprouting .. others look so far healthy... and nicely growing... After my visit to the workshop held at .. Vikram Mallya Scientific research center..they introduced me to alot of stories and information about how to go about it ... how to save these plants from pests and much more..
They even provided me few organic seeds some compost  and neem magic ( organic pesticide ) and showed us  to go about it from sowing the seed to making a bed to watering plants to how much of sunlight. It was a very insightful session... There were so many things to discover and so many things to learn .... !!...

Experience at the Workshop... (pictures)

http://branding-kit.blogspot.in/2012/10/organic-gardening-workshop.html

Innovation at home

Cut the bottle this way

another view

Add moist soil and few seeds

with in 7-10 days you will see something like this

another view

I created a planter box out of 1 litre maaza bottle. And have sown spinach seeds  and this has turned out very successful and like this alot of things can be used to make a pot to grow your own vegetable or herbs....

Oota from your thota

I had been waiting for this event ever since I had started my project. OOTA FROM YOUR THOTA is an event which deals with organic vegetable gardening in not only terrace but in balcony too. They share their experiences and knowledge. These people have their own garden and are there to share their experience and they also had brought their pots which had various types of vegetables and herbs growing like iceberg lettuce, basil , tomatoes , radish etc. When I started looking around in the first stall I found these vegetables being grown in tubs and half cut drums. 

 There were so many questions I wanted to ask regarding herbs and why few seeds like cabbage doesn't grow??? After talking to them I realized that certain herbs are difficult to grow and has certain methodology to be followed to get them growing. Coriander and parsley are herbs that are difficult to grow. You need to soak them before you grow them. Also this place was full of enthusiast like us. Other stall dealt with people who sold starter kits and also seeds and other guidance regarding starting up vegetable/herb garden. This place were full of experts some where experts in herbs and others in other vegetables.

There was also a stall by daily dump who guide about composting and also provided with the containers in which you can do composting. Some stalls provided with organic products like products made out of turmeric etc. They even told me about the workshop that will be held on 22^nd of September where they give all sort of tips to do organic gardening and also they will even provide with starter kit with seeds and other supplies like organic nutrients etc and more. It was very enlightening experience.

 

Potting Potting

Roots of the french beans

French beans in the pot

Finally my lil garden

My garden with cucumber , tomato, radish, french beans, spinach , mints...... awesome feeling...!!

Add ons

I attended flower show at lal baug (a place where you get seeds, pots, and every other utility. It was a really enlightening experience. where i got to see alot of people growing vegetables in various sizes of pots and through this i also got to know what all vegetables can be grown and how much spacing is required for the same. From there i bought a germination tray and some seeds and also manure .
 

Added seeds to the germination tray with lil cocopeat and few drops of water 

After observing that seeds have grown in decent size sapling .. it was time for then be shifted to them into bigger pots suitable to their needs and requirement of the space. French beans is the best start put vegetable to grow as within few days i started seeing beans and also cucumber.

some could make it !!

After a few of weeks  seeing radish grow i found out that most of the leaves look diseased.i didn't know what was going wrong in my procedure. i uploaded the same pic on the blog by organic terrace gardening and they immediately informed me that i have over watered my plants and they have become damp. They asked me to put in under the sun for couple of days without watering them.

some of the plants seemed extremely week from the bottom where as few looked as if they were eaten by some insects but all of this happened due to damping in soil.

Maintaining my garden

 

• Monday: 
  Its been a few days since I have planted my seeds and I am able to see little leaves of the red radish and to my surprise they were 20 in number. After watering the beds in the morning by the evening I could see little tomato leaves shooting out.
  
  
• Wednesday: 
   I have been watering plants every day in the morning. Yesterday while leaving from the office I could see two more tomato plants sprouting and today I can see two beautiful green leaves popping out from each little plant...But there was no sign of capsicum or Chinese cabbage. i also observed that the planter boxes weren't discharging water as a result I found the soil was more than damp and that may have caused the seeds to rot. I also made few holes in each pot so that the extra water can get drained.
  
  
• Thursday: 
  As the beds looked over damp so we decided not to water these plants for a couple of days. I also observed that mints leaves were turning brown (burnt types/ dry).
  
  
• Friday: 
   Another tomato plant popped out and now I have four tomato plants growing . As the distance between each plant is not too much so they need to be transferred into a bedding 
  where they are equally spaced.

• Saturday:After not watering for entire two days as i believe i have over watered my plants/ seed. Seeds need only few drops of water (sprinkle water). As i also observed that my capsicum and cabbage still haven't sprouted leaves. Today i watered my plants and also checked if these plants are growing properly. I observed that mint  has started have few brown/ dry / brown leaves. After consulting my mom who has been doing the same (growing vegetables for years) , she asked me to pluck those leaves.

•  Monday:
  While going through my plants and watering them i wondered why capsicum after two week still haven't grown ( sprouted ). So i decided to dig in  each pot. I realized that i had put each seed too deep into the soil (coco-peat). That is the reason why these seeds aren't blooming. As its time for the radishes to be shifted to a bigger pot , as about fifteen of them are growing in the same small pot.  I have decided that i will buy more pots and also some soil and mix soil and coco-peat together and then make a different sort of bedding for the seeds.

Setting up

 

To build my own small kitchen garden i required certain supplies like soil (coco-peat, manure), seeds (hybrid/organic), and pots or planter boxes (wide ones).

The cost of each utility was

1. Coco-peat: 170/- (15 kg sack)
2. Seeds: 100/- (5 types of vegetable seeds)
3. Pots: 330/- (2 big pots and 1 small pot)

I started my kitchen garden with four pots and some kg of coco-peat. And some seeds of tomato, radish (red), cabbage (Chinese), capsicum and few sticks of mint. I realized that each packet contained so many seeds that i will end up using these seeds in the couple of future plantation.
While preparation of the bed for the seeds to be sown wasn't difficult and i realized that coco-peat is quite moist and light.While putting the first layer of coco-peat in the pot..(4 inches) made sure that there are no lumps. Once the first step was done i had put the seeds i didn't how many seeds to put and how distantly should they be spread (space between the two). once the seeds are sown  draw another layer of coco-peat (1-2 inch) and i sprinkled water ( didn't know what was the appropriate amount of water to be put).

My lil kitchen garden

Questions Asked: Initial Query

1. How much minimum space will i require to make a decent (sufficient/ starter)  kitchen garden?
2. What is the initial cost and maintenance cost?
3. Where will I get initial utilities?
4. How to carry the supply (how will i carry soil and pots)?
5. What all types of supplies are possible? (like types of soil, types of pots )
6. Where can i get seeds (specially organic seeds)?
7. What are the organic method to prevent plants from pest?
8. Will i be able to maintain the garden on my own?
9. How often plants need to be watered?
10. What all plants can be grown and how long is their germination period? (how much time does it take to give the fruit)

To start up my own kitchen garden, i had certain question mentioned above and many other curiosities. I visited a shop which sells all sorts of utilities regarding gardening starting from soil (coco peat, manure), to pots (of various sizes and different cost variation) and all pesticide and tools and various other things including seeds. I brought few seeds (which turned out to be hybrid seeds not organic; and i didn't know the difference). I questioned the shopkeeper about which seeds can be put, what is the appropriate soil should be put and how much is to be put.As he started describing the nature of the soil i.e it becomes heavy and hence needs to be ploughed where as coco peat (organic mixture) is light and doesn't settle down. (less maintained) I even inquired the rates of the pots and understood different variety of pots. I was informed that to grow vegetables, the planter boxes need to wide.