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.