Seed started – Tomatos, Eggplants & Chillies

As the first set of plants are doing good i am forced to start some more plants, last time the Bio carve chillies didn’t germinate at all. I’ve got some seeds from Annandana soil & seed savers. Different kind of chillies are there so i am hopeful this time..

I’ve seeds started below plants–

1) Tomatoes – Caro Rich, Striped Abundant(cherry), Golden delight(Cherry), Arka Vikas, Mehgali, Poland Pink & Broad Ripple..

2) Eggplants – Dark Long Red, Gullu Badane, Heddurgulla Hosanagar, Imperial Black Beauty, Violet Florence

3)Chillies – Great black, Orissa kala, Bangalore Long red

(Meghali, Broad Ripple ,Heddurgulla Hosanagar & Violet Florence are still in the germination box. Normally i keep the seeds for germination first before putting in the tray. You can take a air tight box, put your seeds in some paper towels, wet them and store in air tight box placed in some warm dark place for 2-3 days. )

Rest is here in the trays..

These seeds were put to germination on 2 – Nov 2012.. so far the growth is good.

As of 7th Nov 2012

As of 11 Nov 2012

As of 19 Nov 2012

Eggplants.. Harvest

19 Nov 2012

A good harvest is all i needed….

A mature Black beauty egg..

This is going into my office tiffin today..

Purple Long Eggplant’

 

Buds, Flowers & Fruits …

8 – 11- 2012

As you see there is no drainage collection system here, reason being i don’t need one at this stage. I just pump enough water so it doesn’t comes out of the drainage holes and should be enough for the plants to survive the day. I water the plants every morning through the drip, 16 liters to 20 liters for 24 plants, which is enough right now.

Below picture is of Purple Long from Bio Carve, it’s giving the most healthiest buds & flowers, even the plant is very sturdy.

Below is a group of clustered buds, most of them are falling off due to some reason. May be the plants are not yet ready to host fruits…

Eggplants fruit..

6 th Nov 2012

The plants were already flowering from the last 8-9 days.. None if the flowers have fallen though, but its too early for them to set fruits. Anyways i didn’t pinched off any blossoms, so here is what i get now.. a new set fruit…

Picture taken on 6th Nov 2012

Its just been 44 days since i sowed the seeds and only 20 days since i transplanted them to the grow  bags…

Here is another one — almost out of the flower.. and there are many such small fruits already setting..

These are PMLS black beauty ordered from Bio Carve seeds.. turned out to be good, their Purple long didn’t had good germination but the plant looks good, i just have one plant of that which is looking great at the moment, its already setting fruits. pics in next post..

Eggplants progress.. In Growbags..

10 days after the transplant–

This picture was taken at night..

trying to set up drip..

Some more shots…

29th Oct 2012…

I started with stage2 nutrient… which forced some blossoms.. but i don’t want them wasting energy to produce fruits so early.. so a i am back to stage 1..

26 OCT 2012

You see some tomatos, which i started along with eggplants, they had problems initially but now they are growing well..some patience paid off..

30 Oct 2012

30 OCT 2012

Eggplants in Growbags

16th Oct 2012
The eggplants from my last post got destroyed in a heavy storm, i didn’t had to start fresh as i had another set sowed just 10 days after the first batch..

8 Oct 2012

It took a while to get my grow bags transported to Baroda(vadodara), till then these seedlings had grown very sturdy.. i was giving them HR Stage1 till now.

Here comes the grow bags on 16th Oct 2012..

These eggplant plugs looks so professional, i loved pulling them out of the root trainers..

here they go into the grow bag..

Just placed them in sun on my terrace

..

I still have to figure out a lot of other things, like drainage collecting, automated watering etc.. pest issues etc.

more in next post..

Later…

Eggplants transplanted

Eggplants were transplanted on 4th Oct 2012 to some small containers..

Some small ones are still staying in the tray…

EC to PPM Table

Out of the root trainers..

On 4th Oct 2012

The plants were crowding in the tray so i decided to transplant all the Eggplants since they all have many big leaves and its about time they get a bigger pot.

See the root growth, it’s excellent  for a 3 week old plant , I could never achieve this in compost or soil.

Root trainer trays are great for making a strong root system.

A root trainer, root-training pot or root pruning container is an aid to the cultivation of young plants and trees in nurseries. There are many different designs of pots that will train the roots. One example is a truncated plastic cone in which a seedling is planted. There is a drainage hole at the bottom and the main tap root tends to grow towards this.

This encourage the roots the grow a denser system of root hairs. How it does this it to have the pots designed so as to air prune the roots. The advantage is when the plant is planted into its home environment it has a stronger root base to start with.

Stage 1 Nutrients

Just straight figures of whats needed, how much ..

Howard Resh Stage 1 Tomato is what i am feeding my plants now.

The desired PPM values are below–

Elements	N	K	P	Mg	Ca	S	Primary
PPM	100	200	40	20	100	50
Trace Elements		Fe	Zn	B	Cu	Mo	Mn
		3	0.1	0.3	0.07	0.03	0.8

To make a 100 liters solution you will need the below mixture, make sure you completely dissolve one salt before introducing the next one.

This is just a starter solution, plants have different needs at different stages, so we need to keep changing it as per the requirement. For my small plants this is just enough, may be i need to upgrade the solution to HR Stage 2 in another 2 weeks.

Instead of making full 100 liters at once I prefer to make concentrated A & B solutions.