How to set up your kitchen garden

Grow Your Own Food!

 Set up a Kitchen Garden or a Terrace Garden easily, with minimum investment.
The benefits of growing your own food are numerous:

·         The food tastes better, and is free from pesticides and harmful chemicals such as preservatives used to coat food, so that it can be transported long distances

·         You will appreciate food better, and young children will be more inclined to eat fruit and vegetable, if they develop an interest in gardening

·         If you set up a terrace garden, you can cool the ambient temperature in your house by more than 5°C

Gardening will bring a therapeutic change in your lifestyle and give you an outlet for exercising your mind and body


 Simply email us at greenbay1999@gmail.com, and we will email you a complete booklet with comprehensive information on setting up a Kitchen Garden or Terrace Garden

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.

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!

Intercropping

A short while ago, we came across a fantastic website www.ghorganics.com which is a Colorado based company promoting the organic cause.  Here is an excerpt from the information on their site, plus a few additions from us.

Intercropping, companion planting or symbiotic planting are all techniques of growing different plants together or in succession, to deliver best results. Here is another good resource with loads of info:  www.organicgardeninfo.com/intercropping.html.

Some common intercrops or companion plants are listed below and can help promote growth, fruit taste or quality and protect against diseases. (Does not eliminate need for pesticide or weeding though)

Holy Basil (Tulsi): Grow with Tomato’s, Capsicum, Oregano, Asparagus and Petunias. Basil is helpful in repelling thrips, flies and mosquitoes.

Bay leaf (Tamalpatra): With Beans.  We Gujaratis have been putting tad patti or tamalpatra in each storage container of beans or grains to deter pests since kingdom come.

Beans:  With Carrots, Corn, Brinjal, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Wheat and other grains. All beans enrich the soil with nitrogen fixed form the air, improving the conditions for whatever crop you plant after the beans are finished.  Beans are great for heavy nitrogen users like corn and grain plants because the nitrogen used up by the corn and grains are replaced at the end of the season when the bean plants die back. Besides, remember the nursery rhyme we sang as kids? 

Beans Beans
Good for your heart
The more you eat
The more you fart

Sorry, couldn’t resist. Hehe

Beetroot:  With Lettuce, Onion, Cabbage, Good for fixing magnesium in soil, and that in turn helps plant take up nitrogen. Companions for beets are lettuce, onions and cabbage, cauliflower. Grow beets alongside garlic.

Chamomile, Mint, and Dill: plant with brassica like Cabbage and Cauliflower. Do not plant near tomato and chilly.

Broccoli: Mint, Garlic, Dill and Marigolds and Methi

Coriander: Potato

Garlic: Roses, Cucumber, Pea, Tomato, Carrot …almost anything!  It’s a great natural fungicide that is high in sulphur content.

Do let us know if you have anymore suggestions...email us at greenbay1999@gmail.com