Summer veggie seed sowing

It's been ages since we grew our own vegetables that reached the harvest stage! The last harvest was the monstrous Bhindi in Ahmedabad. But now that we have the sun back in our balcony, we decided it was time. 

I really wanted a proper veggie bed, not just individual pots. I had my eye on a fabric raised bed by AllThatGrows. Its light and can be assembled and dis-assembled easily. 

Fabric raised bed by AllThatGrows

For our vegetables, we wanted good-quality soil. Nothing better than IFFCO Urban Garden's soil mix!

IFFCO Urban Garden's Magic Soil

After prepping, we sowed seeds of Rocket, Basil, Lettuce and Baingan (Eggplant). We've also sowed more vegetable seeds in other pots. And we've sowed flower seeds in a shallow tray, to be transplanted later.

Our summer vegetable sowing plan

Seed sowing in tray

A few weeks later, we're starting to see small vegetable saplings!

Baingan (eggplant) saplings

Summer progress

We are well and truly into summer now. All the plants suddenly start growing at a ferocious pace!

The vegetable patch is not much to talk about. The Lettuce saplings have started to give us leaves. I hope to harvest many before it becomes too hot.

Lettuce

I mentioned in a previous post about using Tibouchina pruning as stakes for Peas. The Peas did not survive, but just look at how well the Tibouchina has settled in! Their flowers will look lovely in the vegetable patch.

Tibouchina

I caught a glimpse of a Broccoli on one day. The next morning the plant was destroyed.

Broccoli

The Virginian stock are looking lovely! I now know what a field of flowers looks like. I see lots of bees hovering, so hopefully that is great news for the fruit flowers.

Virginian Stock

Speaking of which, the Pomegranate had a million flowers this spring. Some even dropped their petals and went on to pretend that they would become fruits. But, day by day, I see them falling. We will be lucky to get even one this season.

Pomegranate

However, the Guava is showing potential with eight buds. The tree is still quite short, only 4 feet tall. Fingers crossed!

Guava

Last year, the Kalanchoe flowered quite beautifully. This year too, the flame red flowers look so fantastic!

Kalanchoe

A few plants to look forward to are the herbs in the vertical planter. The Basil is well settled now and the leaves should be ready to be plucked soon. We have already started to harvest the Chives, Rosemary and Mint.

Basil

Chives

Lastly, I am so excited with the flower developing on the Cactus!

Cactus

How does your garden grow?

Time for a status report of the garden this spring.

Is there a prettier sight than lots and lots of flowers in bloom? The Jasmine has been doing it well the past few years, they look lovely!

Jasmine

The African Daisies, in conjunction with the various fruit trees are a nice sight from the kitchen window.

Oranges, Daisies, Pomegranate, Lime and Hakea

Last year, I planted Calendula in September. They did not flower at all, but did survive the winter. This October, the first sunny flower showed up. It was pale yellow, I did expect it to be more orange-y. But I read that the soil in which grows decides the tone of the yellow-ness.

Calendula

The new flowers this year are from the Pigface succulent. Last year, it almost died, till we replanted it in a better spot. This year, the buds turned into flowers pretty quickly. Each flower lasts about 3-4 weeks. Interestingly, the 'White' Pigface, also had a lone pink flower! I could not figure out how, as the entire plant had only one root. But anyway, I am not complaining.

Pigface

There are not many vegetables to talk of this spring. The Kale and Spinach are still doing well, worth 10-15 leaves per week. However, the Garlic did not develop into bulbs. The peas also did not survive due to the aphid attack. I had sowed some Lettuce seeds that I had collected last year, they are germinating now.

Lettuce saplings

We had planted Daikon Radish, but only got knobby ones. They tasted nice, but I probably left them in too long.

Daikon Radish

We are not planning to sow any new vegetables this year. To utilise the empty areas of the bed, I sowed seeds of Carnation, Calendula and Virginian Stock. The plants have just started to come up.

Virginian Stock saplings

Updating the veggie bed

When we bought our veggie bed, we did not have enough soil to fill it all the way to the top. To fill it to the top needed at least 40 bags of soil, which was back breaking work. Hence, the first year, we only filled it halfway. Every year after that, we raised the level of the patch in part. This year was the final raise to bring the entire patch to a workable level. It did mean transplanting some plants that we had growing already and not being able to increase the height of the asparagus side.

Raising the level of soil

We added some seasonal vegetables like lettuce, spinach and eggplant to the mix. The potato on the right, and the chillis and capsicum on the left are from last year.

Last summer, we had bought 6 chilli plants. I wanted to try my hand at saving the plants from the frost, to see if they would survive. I am happy to say that they did. We covered them with a shade cloth throughout winter and pruned the dead branches at the start of spring. I later learnt that this process is called "overwintering".

Hot chilli

Jalapeno chilli

Mild chilli

This year I also tried  my hand at raising some vegetables from seeds. A couple of years ago, we had a basil plant from BAAG, whose dried leaves lasted us for two years! We wanted a new one this time, but were disappointed that the season was not hot enough for them to stock the plants. Instead we picked up seeds of a "cinnamon basil" plant. I planted it September, it has just started to show some leaves.

Cinnamon basil

Finally, we picked up Bhindi (Okra) seeds too.  I do not have much hopes with this vegetable as it needs heat. Our veggie patch gets direct sunlight only in peak summer (2-3 months) for 4-6 hours per day. Anyway, the seed did sprout and I planted two of them. There is a sign of a fruit/flower in the plant already, will have to wait and see what it develops into.

Bhindi plant

A substantial harvest

Season 2 of garden harvest was more consistent. This year we had planted lettuce, capsicum, tomato, potato, strawberries, mint, cucumber, coriander, carrot and three kinds of chillies. Our veggie patch was groaning under the weight of all the produce!

Roma Tomato

Cucumber

Capsicum

Lettuce

The potatoes were our oldest plants. They were shooting up from leftover spuds in the ground. Compared to last year, we lost fewer to rot.

The strawberry plant was also from last year, having multiplied. Unfortunately, this season we have had an ongoing battle with a strawberry thief. We were unable to beat him to the fruit! Despite covering the plant with a cloth, the rat/possum/bird/whatever it was, still ate all of them.

This year we harvested the first of our asparagus. There was only one thick enough for eating. All the others grew side shoots very quickly, which is what sets the roots for the upcoming harvests.

Asparagus and few strawberries

Our most substantial harvest was from the chillies and capsicum. We had three varieties which had different levels of hotness. Hottest were the tiny ones, Jalapenos were less hot and the least hot were the fat ones. There were so many that I had to freeze them for use throughout the year and distribute them to friends!

Chillies in their full splendour

Mild chilly

The entire chilli harvest - ready to be frozen

We had a decent harvest of capsicums too. Most we ate while they were green, a couple we left to become riper and red.

Capsicum

Previous year, we had not liked the lettuce variety too much. This year we bought iceberg lettuce plants and harvested them in full before it became too hot and they started to bolt.

Iceberg lettuce

We harvested many more tomatoes this year, as we had planted them earlier in the season. They were Roma tomatoes, really juicy. The mint plant grew well and I dried a lot of leaves for the year.

Roma tomato

Mint for drying

I had also saved up coriander seeds from last year, which gave us some leaves. Frankly though, coriander needs too much work. One has to keep sowing them successively and can only harvest a few leaves per plant! Also, we got an odd carrot or two but most went to seed. The cucumber did not flower at all.

Coriander

Lone carrot

This season reinforced the satisfaction of growing our own vegetables. They were not as large as the ones in the supermarket, but were really tasty. Season 3 of our garden ended with a resolve to grow more next year!

Summer harvests

Following the relative success of the vegetables in the first year, we were really keen to try some more. BAAG was the place for some good veggie saplings.

Asparagus had recently become part of our diet and is easy to grow if you have patience. It takes two years to give a worthy harvest!

The other new addition to the garden was strawberries. The plant struck quite quickly and even gave out runners in a couple of months!

Strawberries

The other vegetables were a repeat of last year but started off earlier in the season. We got fresh plants of lettuce, chilli, spinach, capsicum and tomato.

Lettuce

Capsicum

 Meanwhile, the orange tree had some flowers which would soon turn into fruits.

Flowers in bloom on the Orange tree