shaheediyan Posted July 22, 2010 Report Share Posted July 22, 2010 One thing I passionately believe we should all try and do (and a vidya we should all have) is know how to grow fruit, veg and herbs. There is so much knowledge out required re season, germinating, soil types, when to water, pest control (natural), kaadh (fertiliser – natural), when to harvest, how to collect seeds etc etc. It would be good to share and learn from each other on this thread, I will start by giving a glimpse into my small but busy garden Some things currently growing: Watermelons Courgettes Spring Onions Cherry Tomatoes Green Beans Carrots Coriander Basil Methi (sorry gone blank, can’t remember what it is in English) Rosemary Chives Lavender Garlic Rhubarb Olives (fingers crossed, the tree will produce this year) Peppers Beetroot That’s most of it. We just harvested our Radishes, which my Massi told us are part of the Turnip family, and advised us that in Pakistan they make sabji from it. So we gave it a go. You cook the radishes same way as shalgum (turnip) and utilise the leaves to (50/50 radish and leaves mix), the result was amazing, delicious. The leaves are near identical in taste (and nutrition I imagine) to paalak and radishes are a slightly meatier version of shalgum! Some tips: Olive leaves are said to have great anti-bacterial and anti-oxidant value, a few leaves chucked in a pan and boiled and drunk as tea once a weak is excellent for your health. You can simply take individual pieces of garlic and place them in the soil (one inch depth) and they will grow into a plant. Rather than harvesting the garlic, simply keep cutting and using the leaves, they taste exactly like and can be used the same way as garlic!! They grow back so you have a continuous harvest!! Try and plant rosemary/coriander around the garden/near your veg, slugs/snails can’t stand it. Don’t fret if you don’t have a big garden or veg path, you get many great sizes of plant boxes nowadays, get some organic soil and hey presto, you can pretty much grow anything in plant boxes (make sure they have holes in the bottom for drainage otherwise the roots will rot and kill the plant). Label your plants, if you have quite a few, and not much prior knowledge, you will have no idea whats what when the leaves come through! Onions and carrots are easy to recognise, but veg (non-root) generally isn’t. You can buy copper tape for £1 per roll. Slugs and Snails actually receive an electric shock when their mucus comes into touch with copper. So they stay away from copper. You can apply a strip around all your pots and boxes. For ground growing plants, you can get copper circles, but they are quite expensive as copper is not cheap anymore. Beer traps are great, you get small green cones, which you push into the ground, put some beer in them and they will draw and catch many slugs and snails! Simply tip them into your next door neighbours garden if you don’t get on or release them in some green space nearby. I personally have not used the this trap because neither me or my wife can bring ourselves to go to the corner shop to buy some beer, if asked, we don’t feel the Tamil shopkeeper will believe ‘Mr Singhs’ story!! Another great trick is to leave pieces of metal or any low lying material with some dampness underneath in the garden. Come down into the garden around 6am in the morning and guaranteed you will have a sangat of mucus waiting for you! Personally, i find the favourite places of snails and slugs (some particular plants they hide under leaves or near the base) and clear out a few times a week. Its important to catch the small/baby slugs as well as they are prolific breeders! I already mentioned once before, but potatoes are excellent to grow. Simply get black bin bag, fill 2 inches of soil, scatter seeds (or half seeds) and repeat all the way to the top. Leave top of bag (or bin) open. Make some holes around the bag. In no time at all, you will have over 20-30 kilos of spuds!! A brilliant and not so messy method for khaadh is to collect all your peelings i.e. potato, orange, carrots, any food based leftovers (fresh, not cooked) i.e. leaves, roots anything, and them in a bucket of water. Leave for 2 days then use to water the plants. You can use the same peelings etc for 3 buckets worth i.e. 6days, before you have to chuck it away and start again. The result is ‘super-nutritious’ water, your plant growth and size will rocket!!! That’s it for now, I hope other would be gardeners here will enlighten us with their family secrets/methods for great home grown food also!! Cheers. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DSG Posted July 22, 2010 Report Share Posted July 22, 2010 Very Good tips about the slugs ( liked the sangat bit ] Havent tried but will , if you are growing beans , may get green flies/black files , apparently ladybirds like these flies , so go hunting for a ladybird place it on your plant , and let nature take its cause 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaheediyan Posted July 22, 2010 Author Report Share Posted July 22, 2010 Funny you mention that, we always have lady birds hanging around near the beans... looks Mata Dharth Mahath has already smiled on us 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chatanga1 Posted July 22, 2010 Report Share Posted July 22, 2010 Some things currently growing: Watermelons Courgettes Spring Onions Cherry Tomatoes Green Beans Carrots Coriander Basil Methi (sorry gone blank, can’t remember what it is in English) Rosemary Chives Lavender Garlic Rhubarb Olives (fingers crossed, the tree will produce this year) Peppers Beetroot That’s most of it. how big is your garden ? we grow paalak, alloo, pootna, dhannia, methe, and spring onions. Had no luck whatsoever with gajjar, mooli, batoun this year. gardening and shit. its brilliant. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaheediyan Posted July 22, 2010 Author Report Share Posted July 22, 2010 Garden is not big at all, being so central to London I would say approx 30ft long by 15ft wide? But we try and make good use of it, even though we have decked area adn 2 lawns. We grow around the complete border of both laws (strangely, the laws get smaller and border gets wider every year....). Also use lots of pots and rectangular plant boxes (around 2ft long and 1 ft wide). Oh, yes, we grow puthna too, Desi and British variety! Radishes are a great alternative to Muli, they are easy to grow, you can grow them tight (i.e. not much spacing required) and they are ready literally in around 4-5 weeks. "gardening and shit. its brilliant." Lol, that is defo a 'Chatanga-ism'. If you are refering to manure fertiliser, then yes! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SURYADEV Posted July 22, 2010 Report Share Posted July 22, 2010 '30 by 15 ft'?? Good Lord , your a member of the landed gentry!!! a lot of jaidaad for central London. SOme very interesting tips there . many thanks. Some more for you: If you have cats doing its doodoo in your garden you can either grow smelly vegs such as garlic, onions etc or do what my nan does: once you have finished making dhal or sabji (or maybe any dish for that matter) when dishwashing, fill the patilla with water, swill it about then pour the water in the garden. Apparently it works to keep the cats away. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaheediyan Posted July 22, 2010 Author Report Share Posted July 22, 2010 Lol, not quite central, Zone 3. Thats a great trip for cats, hopefully should work with foxes too (we have loads where I live). What I have done to keep those nocturnal mammalian beasties at bay is quite different. I have numerous 'CDs' hanging off strings placed strategically around the garden. The CDs hang at around 7 inches off the floor, samish height as cats/foxes. The science bit - The CDs reflect moonlight and are constantly moving and banging into the fence with light wind, the animals see the moving reflections and think its some big old predator with massive eyes! Has made a great difference, and without the need for a smelly garden!! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ishvar2 Posted July 22, 2010 Report Share Posted July 22, 2010 Very Good tips about the slugs ( liked the sangat bit ] Havent tried but will , if you are growing beans , may get green flies/black files , apparently ladybirds like these flies , so go hunting for a ladybird place it on your plant , and let nature take its cause Aphids, as well as what they can become i.e greenflies and blackflies, can do serious damage to growing plants. Check new leaf growths especially peppers (all varieties) and aubergines. Tomatoes are particularly susceptible to blackfly. As above add alliums (onions, garlic) to deter them, and pray for ladybirds. Also Aphids also hate marigolds! For trees, aphids are a more of a cosmetic eyesore but won't do much damage. Nonetheless, be careful with feeds for fruits tree. We have a plum tree in the back garden over the last 4-5 years produces massive crop of wonderfully sweet organic plums. This year, we decided to add some organic liquid fertiliser to help produce even better fruit, but somehow we had an massive invasion of aphids on all the terminal leaves of the tree. Apparently, the mistake is that we should have used a slow release fertiliser. Organic ones tend to be slow release but this liquid one probabaly wasn't and gave the tree a massive nitrogen boost which aphids detect and need to build their bodies. Plus they breed like anything. After water blasting the tree proved ineffectual we decided to clip the leaves with the aphids on. As we were clipping the tree we saw quite a few ladybirds and of course they were left alone as we know they are natural predator of the aphid. We stuck the clippings in our compost bin and a matter of hours all the aphids escaped through the bottom and all decided to spend the rest of their lives walking all over the bin and looking quite lost. Over the next week these weird insects turned up, I found out these are the ladybird larvae. They totally decimated the aphid population on the bin. http://www.flickr.com/photos/linny/4776978403/ So if you see these guys, let nature do it's magic and enjoy. It's amazing that this quite rough looking insect becomes the tank that is the ladybird. Curiously, ants play a part in this insect battle - http://www.pbase.com/antjes/lady_bug 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maha Singh Posted July 22, 2010 Report Share Posted July 22, 2010 Grandads garden lol 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaheediyan Posted July 23, 2010 Author Report Share Posted July 23, 2010 Wow, he grows his own nishan sahibs... now thats impressive Seriously, that is an old school Punjabi garden, concrete and veg, no need for anything else! Not the neatest I've seen, but he has certainly made maximum use of space!! Those onions are most definately ready to be pulled out... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ishvar2 Posted October 31, 2010 Report Share Posted October 31, 2010 Gur Kirpa de naal, my family have been able to get hold of an allotment. I highly recommend getting one (or some land/plot) wherever you are. We were inspired after making a small vegetable and fruit garden this spring so this felt like a natural progression. We got the plot quite recently so I thought I'd share with you all the journey as we develop it. Right now, attached are some pictures of how it looks - big, weedy and in need of some major work. The first task will be weeding and prepping the soil for the spring. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaljug Posted October 31, 2010 Report Share Posted October 31, 2010 (edited) What would you grow in windowsill pots (apart from spices, whch I already do)? I live in a top floor apartment, so serious gardening is pretty much out of the question. Also, would the potato in the bag trick also work with sweet potatoes? K. Edited October 31, 2010 by Kaljug 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaheediyan Posted October 31, 2010 Author Report Share Posted October 31, 2010 (edited) Forget the window sill, get an allotment! Not much you can grow apart from herbs and may be peppers, chillies and perhaps tomatoes. Logically sweet potatoes should be able to grow in a bag, but haven't tried it. You will have to experiment and feedback to us :-) Look forward to the developments Ishvar Singh, and even more to coming and raiding the crops when they are ready! Get that rotovator churning! Edited October 31, 2010 by shaheediyan 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Del Piero Posted November 1, 2010 Report Share Posted November 1, 2010 During the summer we had metheh cucumber , mircha, tomatos and peppers, im not sure what you can beej in the canadian winter so feel free to suggest anything 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyhp32 Posted November 1, 2010 Report Share Posted November 1, 2010 I've noticed how a lot of people have been growing their own vegetables. It might have something to do with the downturn or maybe people getting ready for 2012 (the Mayan prediction thing not the olympics!) The uncle who I rent my house to does a lot of gardening and he's got me interested in it. I have to say he is a great gardener as he's made good use of the large garden even thought it still contains some of the hardcore I couldn't be bothered to get rid off when I had an extension built. I grew some cherry tomatoes over the summer and they came out really good, we didn't need to buy any tomatoes over the summer and even used them in the sabji and dals as well. But a few weeks ago all the plants died out due to the weather. I don't have any problems with cats or foxes but we did get birds attacking the plants. Does anyone have any suggestions about how to deal with them? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaheediyan Posted November 1, 2010 Author Report Share Posted November 1, 2010 Stuffed cats are supposed to work wonders! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaheediyan Posted November 1, 2010 Author Report Share Posted November 1, 2010 Seriously, hanging CDs work against all animals including birds. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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