New Year, New Tools, Better Indoor Plants

Happy New Years to my readers and hope that everyone had a fantastic holiday. As we enter the New Years and having spent around 3 months cultivating my houseplants and I am now a proud keeper of Gardenia, Basil, Rosemary and Nasturtiums. I have just sowed seeds for Cilantro and Jalapeno Peppers and I will keep you updated on the progress on that.

Here is the status report on my plants:

• Basil continues to grow well in my South East facing window and growth has propagated beautifully. I have not added any compost or fertilizer to it so far. I continue to prune the second set of leaves (from the top) which seems to have helped drastically.
• Rosemary does not seem to like being on the window much and might not be liking the cold weather, I will update you more on issues with this.
• Nasturtiums have grown as well or better than Basil. The leaves are looking beautiful and it just had a a flower bud appear.
  
• Gardenias: There are so many varieties of gardenia's and the one that has been easier to handle is Prostata but the Fortuina have the largest flower and strongest fragrance. I have to admit that I have been overwatering these plants.

New Tools for the New Years.
When you grow plants indoors you realize that its probably not the best environment for your plants as they should ideally be grown outdoors. Living in New York City this can be wishful thinking for the keeper, so while we cannot control this, we can provide other most conducive environments in terms of conditions of the soil pH, soil moisture, light intensity, and total combined nitrogen and phosphorus and potash levels (NPK). While this can be time consuming if you live a busy life like most New Yorkers, there are tools you can use that can easily help you determine this in a few minutes.

Where to buy it: Electronic Soil Tester for Garden Plants
eStore link: http://www.cleanairgardening.com/soiltester.html

If your plants are not doing too well make sure you use the tool above to check your plant condition before you go making any behavioral changes as a keeper. I just bought this tool and will get it by end of next week. I will upload the conditions of my plants vs. the ideal conditions as per several sources online. It will be a great test.

Growing a fuller basil plant

Many times when you use the pellet, you realize that most of your seeds germinated and grew as a bunch from the center of the pellet. In this case, the leaves that are taller have a splendid growth at the cost of the smaller, shorter shoots that dont get the same amount of exposure to sunlight. To solve this problem, I used a pretty rudimentary tool to pull back the tall leaves so shorter leaves could move out of the shadow. I used french hair pins, the ones that you use to pull back extra hair in your bun. You can buy a 100 pack of these on Amazon for a mere $1.16. I could pull back the taller leaves by using very small and thin hair pins to delicately position the leaves. A very simple process, just be very gentle and soft to not damage the stems of your plant.

This process will ensure that you have a fuller, healthy plant where every shoot gets complete exposure to sun. Here is a picture of my fuller basil which has been harvested several times already:

Urban Garden

For all who live in compact apartments know that growing plants takes up too much space in terms of where do you put the 2 quarts of soil, fertilizers, pots etc. I found some great ways to get started in a compact way.

Compact Greenhouse:

Jiffy International a Norwegian company makes a great product to start your compact greenhouse. I used the little Jiffy pellets to start my seeds. Get the Jiffy-7 5710 Mini Greenhouse 12 Peat Pellet for a mere $3.08. Just add water to the pellets that expand, dig a tiny hole and add one to three seeds, cover them back up with some peat. Set these in the greenhouse and store it in a dark warm place. I put the greenhouse in the oven and it worked great. Once the "true leaves" appear transplant the whole pellet into a pot. Its that easy!

Wonder Soil:

For soil I got the Wonder Soil. Wonder soil is an expanding potting mix that comes in 1/2 inch wafers. Just a cup of hot water, and one soil wafer expands to 14 times its original volume. Great for transplanting your jiffy pellets, one wafer fills a 4-inch pot. Or add water to all 18 in the 1-pound tube and you'll have the equivalent of a 10-pound bag of regular potting soil. This lightweight, soil-less medium is made of coconut coir, peat moss and water-absorbing polymers.

Whats more, this is a true international product, it is distributed from Mexico and actually made in Sri Lanka.

Watch the video on how it grows, its a true wonder:


My first leaves of Basil after two weeks of starting my seeds in the pellets:

The first leaves on all plants look the same. Little eyes looking out at you from the soil. I have already transplanted the pellet into the pot using the wondersoil potting mix. The "true leaves" are the little leaves you see in the midst of the first set of leaves. The true leaves look like basil leaves vs. the first leaves.


After one more week, this is how my basil looks:

So all I have to say is that my experiment has worked. I have a healthy basil plant in the midst of November and I am hoping that this plant continues to grow for the rest of the year. Will keep you updated on the progress.

Good Night and Good Luck!

Growing plants in your NYC apartment

I love plants and I live in an apartment in New York. So when I moved to the city in June of 2007 I knew that I had to figure out a way to make plants live in my NYC apartment environment. New York is a Zone 6 and the first frost date is 4/13 and last frost date is 10/27. I knew I was late but I had to bring in some plants. I love growing herbs as it has a real utility besides looking pretty and smelling great. Having bought herb plants before and not succeeding at keeping them alive indoors, I knew that growing from seeds was a better option. I bought the following seeds:

1) Basil
2) Coriander
3) Mint
4) Calendula
5) Lavender

I planted them in October around the frost date and I was expecting very little success. But surprisingly Basil grew fast and has had a healthy growth since. Calendula seems to not be getting enough humidity indoors, so while it germinated fast, its leaves have had a very short life. The others are not doing that well, but there is some progress in terms of germination, the growth has not been as sporadic as Basil. So New Yorkers, get some Basil seeds and some jiffy pellets and get to enjoy fresh basil year around.

* Click here to check your frost date: http://www.victoryseeds.com/frost/ny.html