Yesterday was a day for gardening. The sun has been really strong these past few days. All I could do was water my plants and add a little fertilizer to the soil in the pots.
I decided to go ahead and sow my seeds. I went out to buy two strawberries and asked the vendor to charge me for them, but he refused; he gave them to me for free. I brought them home and, using a sharp knife, sliced off the thin skin. It’s worth noting that with this method of obtaining seeds, you get several seeds from each slice.
I prepared a growing medium with plenty of compost, fine sand, rice hulls, and a good amount of worm castings. Strawberry plants need well-aerated growing media with plenty of nitrogen to grow strong.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t my first time planting strawberries; I did it many years ago. I harvested the strawberries in due time. On that occasion, even though it was my first time, I was successful with the germination, growth, transplanting, and harvest of my strawberry plants.
I’m following the same method as I did back then, with the difference that I’m not using a pot but this PVC pipe. It’s a pipe where I grew tomatoes using the hydroponics method last year, but the tomatoes didn’t yield as much as I’d hoped. It was an experiment with many mistakes.
The most tedious part of preparing this planter was filling the tube with potting mix. I used a recycled funnel made from a plastic bottle; little by little, I filled each hole with a good amount of my potting mix. Then I placed the pieces of strawberry skin with seeds inside and covered them with a little soil. I added the plant food, moistened it, and my planter was ready.
I also want to plant garlic again. That’s simple, too. The first time I failed, my seeds didn’t grow much, I didn’t fertilize the soil properly—in short, another attempt with many mistakes.
Now I’ve prepared the potting mix with lots of sand, plenty of rice hulls, a little black soil, and plenty of worm castings. This mix needs to be much more aerated than the strawberry mix, since the bulb will expand depending on how loose or aerated the mix is.
Following advice from various sources, I tried planting the garlic by sowing the seeds in different ways. For some garlic cloves, I peeled them completely; for others, I didn’t peel them at all; and for others, I just removed the tip. I proceeded to place one large clove in each hole in the PVC pipe. Then I added a little more growing medium on top and watered my planting.
I’ve got my two seed trays ready and set up, one on top of the other, in a spot where they get morning sun but not after noon. Since the sun is so strong in this area—37, 38, 39 degrees Celsius—I prefer to place them where the sunlight doesn’t hit them directly. I’ll be keeping an eye on how these seeds are doing day by day.
I also made a seedbed for chili peppers. With regular potting mix and worm castings, I’m expecting them to germinate sooner than the seeds mentioned earlier.
By the way, my cucumber plants are clinging to their stakes and doing very well. They’re growing a lot, with strong, green leaves. No pests and plenty of sun. Good potting mix.
That’s all for today.
Thank you for your attention, and see you next time.
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