Growing Your Own Lettuce

Interested in growing some organic lettuce?

Here's how to go about it:

There's 4 types of lettuce: Cos varieties, Butterheads, loose leaf and crisp heads. Iceberg, which is a crisphead is one of the most commonly available one here available here.

Step 1: Prepare a raised bed or crate or wide and atleast 1 foot container, and fill it with 40% fully washed cocopeat and 60% Sunrich organic manure (or fine compost). If you are not using cocopeat, instead using soil, make sure the soil is humus rich and free draining, ideally with ph 6.5. If you are planting right now, remember lettuce does not tolerate too much heat or rain, so best to provide it partial shade and shelter from rains when planting new plants/seeds.

Step 2: If you are growing from seed, make rows 12" apart, and sow the seed at 1/2 inch depth. If growing ready plug plants from trays, just sow them in rows 12" apart, keeping 4-6" distance between plants. Keep crow above soil, and water well.

Step 3: Lettuce like cool weather and lots of moisture. Water well everyday, and provide Sun Khanij Bhandar or any other micronutient as well as all purpose organic fertilizer. Do nothing more!

Step 4: Bolting is when lettuce starts producing long stalk like flowers.After flowering, the leaves will become rubbery and bitter, so you need to pick all leaves/head before this. 

In case of crisp head varieties like iceberg, harvest the head after 8 weeks of planting the plug plants, and for loose leaf varieties, start picking from the 6th week.

 Companion crops for lettuce are Dill, Garlic and Beetroot, which keep pests away and impart flavour to the leaves. Lettuce can be planted with cucumber, spring onions and broccoli. 

Lettuce plug plants are available from Sun Agrigenetics. Just call (0) 787 406 5060 to place an order.

Gardening is fun in the rains- everything seems to grow faster and healthier due to the humidity and distilled water courtesy of Mother Nature.

Many plants start growing vegetatively, instead of producing fruit/veg. However, here's a brilliant post on how to use other parts of a fruit and veg:
 
Global Underground eats-shoots-and-leaves!
To this, we'd like to add a few more ideas:

Pea Shoot stir fry! 

Drumstick leaves are rich in vitamins and iron...use them in soups, shak and add to chapati or paratha dough.

White part of watermelon (inside rind) can be used to make soups or vegetable stock

Leaves of Tindora (Ghiloda or Tondli) can be used in soup or a fresh juices and has great anti diabetic power.

For amazing videos and urban green living ideas, go to Global Underground
  This is an online magazine for sustainable living, and is run by Nicole Hays.

Superb Kitchen Garden Blogs

We’ve been busy this week, as we participated in the Biotechnology Interest Group Meeting (BIG) in FGI this Thursday. BIG is a NGO was set up in 1998 for the promotion of biotech industries. Their objective is to promote the development and growth of biotechnology industries in Gujarat and it does this by organizing a range of activities like seminars and interactive discussions among the academicians and industrialists. We hope they’ll organise some free to attend seminars for budding bio-techies in Gujarat soon.

Meanwhile, we’d like to mention some superb blogs for Indian gardeners:

http://geekgardener.in/

This one is my personal fav. This weeks’ post was on Bok Choy, and I’m happy to second everything mentioned there…Bok Choy is a delicious healthy salad leaf, and it tastes well in Chinese stir-fries and dim sum. Here it is in our terrace garden plantation from last year:

Another brilliant blog:

http://techie2aggie.blogspot.com/

This is a serious blog of serious note…for anyone who wants to make a living off agriculture but is trying for the first time. This week, they’ve put up a very useful checklist of things to watch for when buying agriculture land.

A fun picture blog:

http://indigarden.blogspot.com/

This is an informal photo blog with pictures of the author’s garden, birds and animals, places to see. A recent post mentions some gorgeous flowers that can be grown in India.

Other Indian blogs of note:

http://vrikshanurseries.blogspot.com/

http://the-urban-gardener.blogspot.com/

http://www.padvalagriculture.com/

 

Preparing For The Rains

It’s been a while since we’ve posted: that’s because we’ve been busy WATERPROOFING our terrace

This blog post is going to help you prepare for the rains. Here’s a handy list of things to keep in mind before the heavens open:

1)   For container plants, now would be a good time to aerate them. Loosen up and dig out the soil around the plant and add a handful of organic manure, then replace the soil. This is because when it rains, the rain will clog the air channels in the soil and will get thick and heavy around the roots. Also, rains will likely carry away some of the topsoil and important nutrients. Also remember to unclog the drain holes at the bottom or sides of containers.

2)   If you have a terrace garden, ensure you call a professional and service your drains, as well as the rainwater drainage in the terrace. This is especially important if you have any L shaped pipes. Always avoid having L shaped storm water drain pipes- they clog real easy.

3)   Waterproofing is a very important element to rooftop gardens. Waterproofing requires you call an architect or a special “kadiya”. Don’t just hire labour and slap on some cement mixed with water proofing powder.

4)   Small plants and rock garden plants such as cactus, and succulent plants do not like excessive rain. Try erecting a temporary shelter over them with a glass plane and some bricks, keeping the slope away from the plants.

5)   Its time to start rainwater harvesting! Rain is the best kind of water source for plants because it contains nitrates (especially after a thunderstorm), microbes, and is an ideal pH. Unlike tap water, it is free from chlorides and fluorides.

6)   Excessive rain or harsh rain with wind is bad for kitchen garden plants. If you have sticky clay type of soil that creates “kichhad”, it could become water logged in the rain. You may need to add a sandy layer to it. You may also have to erect cloches.  Tomato plants turn yellow with excess rain, and chilli plants are affected by a variety of diseases due to excess water logging. Plants such as broccoli and strawberry rot with excess rain. Remember, too much of a good thing is never good.

7)   If you see frogs, toads or earthworms crawling in your soil, don’t scream in terror and start killing them- they are just coming up for air. Earthworms are a gardener’s best friends: they help keep soil loose and aerated, and help breakdown organic manure to create plant food. Froggies and toads will eat all your insects and pests.

    

8)   Insects and sucking pests are bad for gardens, and very prolific in the rains. You will need a good pesticide and fungicide spray for your  plants such as Chinni Kam and Bavistin respectively. Read instructions on the bottles carefully and use accordingly.

   9)   Do you have a fountain or a water body in your garden? You will notice a lot of wriggly tiny black creatures- these are mosquito and insect larvae. The best way to get rid of them is to add wild Guppies and Gambusia, which are mosquito eating fish.

10) Now is the best time to grow herbs like Mint, Coriander and Chives. Just make sure they stay well drained.

ENJOY!

Foliar fertilization

Foliar fertilization is the application via spraying of nutrients to plant leaves and stems. Foliar feeding has been used as a means of supplying supplemental doses of minor and major nutrients, plant hormones and other beneficial substances.

High concentrated sprays have potential to burn the foliage

Spray solution should be in near neutral range (6.5-7.5).

Increase pH: baking soda

Decrease pH: lime, vinegar, tamarind

Always delay foliar fertilization until air temperature drops to 26°C (80°F) or below as absorption at higher temperature is very poor because plant stomata are closed.

Otherwise, the feeding can be done in the evening or early in the morning. Absorption is further enhanced when weather conditions are humid and moist. The presence of heavy dew on the leaves facilitates foliar feeding. Addition of surfactant to solution decreases surface tension on the leaf and may increase absorption. (Note: possible chemical interactions should be considered).

Foliar nutrition is not prime method of feeding the plants and hence should not be used as substitute of soil application. Instead, it should be used to correct the nutrient deficiencies, pest resistance.