Gardening - The Bare Basics II - How to Prepare the Ground for Sowing Seeds/Planting

To prepare the ground for gardening, you'll have to get rid of weeds, till (as in dig) the ground and remove stones, plastics etc. and finally manure the soil.

Weeding

• The first and obvious step is to remove weeds.  But there is often a conflict about exactly what kind of plants constitute weeds. So, I'll use the often used gardening quote to describe it. 

"Any plant out of place is a weed"

• This means, a Tulsai plant in your tomato bed is a weed; or if it is co-habituating with your potted rose, either the tulsai or the rose is a weed.
• When you hire someone to do the weeding for you, they merely use a spade to chop it off ground up. This is not going to help in the long run. Because, when you manure your plants, you end up manuring the weeds as well. They happily lap up the nourishment and flourish better than your plants. To avoid this, take the time to remove them from the root level. 
• To remove weeds from a totally neglected gardening space, thoroughly water the grounds twice a day for 3-4 days. This will loosen the soil and make your job easier. 
• Once the weeding is done, water the beds thoroughly for another week. Remove any new weeds along with the root.

Tilling and Manuring

The purpose of tilling is not just to loosen up the soil but also to help you free the soil of plastics, stones and other material that might hinder the healthy growth of your plants. For optimum results, dig and loosen 8" to 10" of soil. Break and level clumps. This and the leaf manure you add along with the manure will allow water to sink in rather than run.

After weeding your garden, water it thoroughly once or twice a day. Use your discretion to decide how many times you need to water it. This will encourage weed growth. Once again remove it from the root level. Your ground is now ready for some serious manuring.

For a 10' x 10' Plot, You'll Need

Dried leaves/vegetable compost - 2-3 bags

Dried cowdung - 2 bags

Red soil - 2 bags

Sand - 1 bag

Super Phosphate or bone meal - 1 Kg

Neem cake - 3 Kg

Mix these together to ensure even distribution. Spread the mixture on your plot and mix it into the soil with a spade or a hoe.

Cowdung, as I've explained in a previous article has the ingredients needed to encourage healthy flowers and fruits.

Super Phosphate and bone meal are excellent sources of calcium. They improve the texture of the soil and act chemically on the manure you add to the soil enabling plants to better absorb nutrients.

Sowing

Seeds can be sown either in seed pans and then transplanted or directly into the soil. Very fine seeds (as in கீரை விதை - greens) should be mixed with fine sand for even distribution. Some seeds are very light in weight and tend to fly away. Mixing with sand before sowing and covering the area with moist leaf manure prevents this. If you plan to use a seed pan, use 1 part sieved leaf manure and 1 part sand as your sowing media.

Plants need at least 8" - 10" of private space.  So, if you are sowing seeds directly into the ground, take this into account.

How Deep Should You Sow?

The depth of sowing should be about 3 times the diameter of the seed.

Notes:

1. The best location for your kitchen garden is a sunny spot with restricted access to outsiders.
2. While plants in general add a lot of warmth and joy, flowering plants endow a positive ambiance to space they grace. I frequently remember the story of how flowers served to reiterate Solomon's wisdom.

Gardening - The Bare Basics - III - Taking Care of House Plants

Taking care of plants is a time consuming hobby but well worth the effort. One of the side - benefits of planning some quality time with your plants is you tend to get introspective. Often, when you're done with a session, you'll find that you are more at peace with yourself... your mind is clearer. For me it always has the effect of an hour's meditation and I am better equipped to handle the day.

How To Take Care Of Your House Plants -

1. Water Thoroughly Only If The Soil Appears To Be Dry: We are talking about house plants here; not just any plant. How much of water a plant needs depends on various factors like the weather, the potting media and the pot itself. Mud pots for instance are porous but the poracity keeps keeps it cool. Cement pots generate a lot of heat and the rate of moisture loss is faster than in mud pots. I haven't figured out how it works with plastic pots. 

Remember: Watering all your house plants the same way is equivalent to giving your diabetic father-in-law plenty of sweets every time you give your teenager some. It's harmful to your FIL's health.  He might eat it because you are offering it (maybe because he loves it too)... Get the idea?

2. Give Them the Benefit of Indirect Sunlight: Indoor plants too need a bit of sunlight albeit indirectly. So, if you keep them inside the house for a week, put them where they can catch either the first or the last rays of the sun each day for the next 4 days. If you expose them to direct sunlight, the edges of the leaves will first turn yellow and then brown. With a bit of trial and error, you can figure out the favourite locations of your plants.

3. Turn the Pot Around Frequently: Ever noticed bent and twisted houseplants? If you remember some of your botany lessons, you'll also remember that plants exhibit phototropism; meaning they tend to grow towards light. Turn the pot around every couple of days if you don't want to see your plants leaning to one direction.

4. Height of the Plant: I keep plants inside my house for 3 reasons.

1.  I love plants
2. They give my house a well cared for and aesthetic appearance
3. Some indoor plants (according to a NASA report) are considered air cleaning machines.

To maintain the well cared for aesthetic look they give my rooms, I have to ensure that they don't grow too tall. The general rule is if a plant is more than 1/3 the height of your room, it belongs outside.

5. Colourful Plants: For obvious reasons, colourful plants need more light. Keep them near a well-lit window or give them the benefit of indirect sunlight more often.

6. Moss-stick: Some plants like Philodendrons, money plants etc, need a moss stick support for their aerial roots. In that case you have to water the moss stick as well while watering the plant.

7. Misting: Mist leaves frequently with a sprayer to remove the dust that inevitably settles settles on them. Some plants like Begonia and African Violets don't take well to misting.  Leafy plants like Dieffenbachia (also called dumb cane), palms, money plants etc. love misting.

8. Food for Plants: Indoor plants are poor eaters. If you have the potting mixture right, you don't have to worry about regular feeding. 15-15-15 or 17-17-17 (also called NPK - Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potash) once a month is good enough. 

Here's the dosage: 1 tsp of 15-15-15 + 3 liters of water. Use this for watering. 

Plants love tea leaves. So don't throw them away. Use them for feeding your plants minus the sugar of course. You don't want a colony of ants taking up residence in your pots.

9. Indirect Watering: How do you water your plants when you plan to be away for a few days? In my experience, the best way is to thoroughly soak a couple of gunny bags and put them under a very very slightly dripping tap. Put your pots on these bags. They should be good for a week or so. But the general health of your plant would depend on the location of the tap. Alternately, you can request someone to water them for you. I've found that general health suffers anyway. Plants like kids and pets know when you are not around.

10. The Watering Hour: The best time to water plants is the evening. There is enough time for the plants to absorb the water and nutrients. When you water them in the morning, the rate of evaporation is faster.

A final word - keeping an already potted plant in decorative container without drainage holes is fine as long as you remember to drain the water frequently.

Gardening - The Bare Basics I - Potting a Plant and Potting Media

Most of us make do with the same potting mixture for all kinds of plants; and we wonder how places like the Lal Bagh Garden in Bangalore manage to showcase such lush green plants.

I attended a Course in Home Gardening conducted by the Government of Karnataka in 1993. The then director of Lal Bagh Gardens conducted the course; which was supposed to be a 10 day course but was extended to nearly 20 days because of the eager beavers who attended. It was here that I learnt that different plants need different soil compositions.

Bangalore has a race course; so, you'll find that almost all compositions listed below use horse manure. Fact is horse manure is better than the usual cow manure for roses.

1. Soil Composition for Sowing Seeds

1 part sieved leaf manure (by weight)

1 part sand

Leaf manure is nothing but dried leaves fallen from trees. Allow it to decompose to a stage where it crumbles when you touch it. The logic behind using this combination is, sand does not absorb moisture while leaf manure does. Combining the ensures that the compost is damp, yet not soggy enough to rot the seeds.

2. Soil for Vegetables

2 parts red soil

1 part dried horse manure 

1 part dried (மக்கிய) cowdung (don't make the mistake of using raw cow dung or horse manure - your neighbours will start complaining)

1 part ordinary soil

1 part leaf manure

You can use 2 parts of cow dung if you can't get horse manure.Some people use goat manure in place of cow dung or horse manure. In that case use only 1/2 part well pounded goat manure in place of horse manure + cow dung. This is because goat manure generates too much of heat that might kill the plant.
Note: Fruit trees and vegetable plants respond well to donkey manure.

3. Flowering Plants

2 parts red soil

1 part horse manure or cow manure or 1/4 part sheep manure

1 part sand

1/2 part leaf manure

4. Foliage and Indoor Plants

1 part red soil

1 part leaf manure

1 part sand

1/2 part horse manure or cow dung

5. Bonsai - For a Container that is 2"-3" Deep 
1 part red soil
2 part leaf manure
1 part sand
1 part charcoal powder
1/4" stones and pebbles
1/4 part broken pots

Notice the proportion of horse manure and cow dung is very high for vegetables, slightly lower for flowering plants and very low for foliage and indoor plants. They apparently play a vital role in yielding good flowers and vegetables.

Blocking Drainage Holes

All containers meant for plants should have drainage holes to drain out excessive water. But, you have to block it with broken pieces of old pots to prevent the soil from going out through it as well. In spite of your best efforts, a bit of soil does go out anyway. The pictures below demonstrate how to block them.

The image above shows just the soil. I plan to use this pot for a foliage plant. I don't have access to red soil where I live and as I live in an apartment, I don't have access to sand either. So, I'll make do with dried cow dung and leaf manure (our watchman so kindly swept up for me from a nearby government building) and a handful of neem cake powder.

Note: If you can somehow get the dung of a milk cow, your garden will simply bloom. Milk cows are usually fed better. Therefore the quality of the dung is better.