Fresh from my Garden

Monday, July 2, 2012

From container to ground

I've been growing veggies in containers for the last 2 yrs. From this year we have some ground to work with & made a little vegetable garden patch.

After many days of hard work & getting rid of some of the lawn, we finally managed to get some of the plants into the ground. We used some garden soil & compost as suggested by the person at the nearest garden center.
& also used dried grass clippings to mulch the plants.

The seeds were planted into small peat pots & later transferred into yogurt containers this spring. Most of them started to outgrow their containers....& some of them dried out completely & died. So, I planted whatever was left of my spring container garden & sowed other seeds directly into the ground. We'll hopefully get some good produce before the end of the season.

First flower on my Bell Pepper plant

Cucumber Plants

Mango (still in a container)

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Mango Plant !!!!!!!

Last year I planted a seed from a store bought apple & it sprouted!!! When it grew almost 5-6 inches in height, we had to move & I passed on the plant to a very good friend of my mother. Unfortunately she had to go out of town for a longer period of time & the plant died. Even if it would have grown well I guess it would be difficult for a single apple tree to produce fruit. From what I understand, an apple tree requires cross- pollination to produce fruit. So there must atleast 2 trees near each other for the pollination to occur & for fruits to be produced.

But in tha case of a mango, I read that one tree can produce fruit. I decided to try & plant a mango seed.

I used a store bought mango. After peeling & using the pulp, I carefully washed & cleaned the pit. Using a butter knife, I carefully split open the hard shell (outer cover) of the mango pit. Inside was a big bean-like seed.

I planted this seed into a medium sized pot filled with potting mix. After watering generously, I covered the mouth of the pot with plastic wrap & used an elastic to hold it in place. Covering with the plastic wrap will create a greenhouse effect & help the seedling sprout faster. Take care to keep the soil moist at all times & then cover again with the plastic wrap till the seedling emerges from the soil.

Now my plant is almost 8-10 inches tall.