Saturday, May 26, 2012

Day 42: Radish Cherry Belle - Failure Review

It's been 42 days. The rightmost pot is a total failure. I hope I can learn the lesson. Otherwise, the time, energy, money -- all that would be wasted.

Here is my review.


The radishes in the rightmost pot are the thinnest and smallest compared with the other pots. Why? I think it might have to do with:

  1. the shape of the pot: The bowl-shaped pot does hold water as well as the others do. I found that the soil was pretty dry after I dug up all the radishes.
  2. the way the seeds were sowed: When I sowed the seeds 42 days ago, I just kind of sprinkled them on top of the soil and then covered them up by sweeping the soil surface with my hands. As a result, the root system of the plants did not get to develop as healthily as they would have if the seeds had been sowed deeper into the soil.
  3. overcrowding:  I sowed too many seeds in that small pot. So, the radishes competed against one another for sunlight. So, most of them developed unusually long red stem in order to position themselves for the best spot for the sun. The thing is, the red stem part is the part that would have developed into the "meat" if it were in the soil.
Take a look at their roots. They were very shallow:




After killing them all in the rightmost post, I have sowed another round of radish seeds - but this time in a different way than before:
  1. I made holes in the soil with a pencil. Each hole is about an inch deep. I placed one seed in each hole. That should allow the root systems to develop more healthily.
  2. I held back my greed and sowed 7 seeds only. They are at least 2 inches apart from one another. Hopefully, they won't be overcrowded.
  3. I gave it 2 bottles of water after seeding. The soil was soaked and wet.

That makes today the first day of my second batch of radishes - the 7 disciples. 



On a side note, the rectangular container has one radish setting fruit. How did it make it? I will save the review for next time. At least, it gives me some comfort.





Sunday, May 20, 2012

Bushy radishes haven't set fruit

Some of the radishes have grown really tall; some even have their leaves turn yellow. Yet, none has any sign of setting fruit. It's quite disappointing.

The peppers are starting to get taller and stronger. But the rightmost one is still the weakest. I will use compose tea with it this weekend.








Saturday, May 12, 2012

It's been a month

It's the 36th day since the first pepper seed was sowed; 28th day since the second batch.

The rightmost pepper is still growing slowly. The compost tea didn't work as well as I had expected. I think I have to do something about it.








Saturday, May 5, 2012

Radishes outgrow Pepper Wonders

It's been 29 days since I sowed the first round of pepper seeds.

But the 21-day-old radishes are much bigger than the senior peppers.

The young peppers are starting to catch up with eldest brother too.

I have been trying out compost tea with the rightmost pepper. Let's see if the tea can boost its growth.






Peppers in the wild

I have more pepper seedlings than I can handle. So today I am putting all of them in the wild.

Be good. Be prosperous. My strong five.