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.

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.

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.

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.

Radish boom

The radishes have been growing incredibly fast. I think every seed I sowed has germinated. But there were so many of them in the small containers that I had to kill some of them to avoid overpopulation.

I have moved some to the pepper pots. I have also moved some to my fish tank. I will see how well they adapt to their life in the water.

The first batch of pepper seeds have germinated too. There were 5 of them. I removed the weakest 3. Ultimately I will only let one survive.

Day 4: Amazing Radish

It's only been four days since I planted the radish seeds. But you look at them! They have already germinated! They are just growing like crazy!

In retrospect, I should have sowed the seeds more evenly over the area. Now some seeds are taking the same spot while some areas are just empty. Next time I will punch some seed holes in the soil evenly with a pencil or something like that before I sow them.

Ginger killed

When I was eradicating the old cherry tomato plant (my sweet 100) yesterday, I killed the ginger as well - accidentally.

The root system of sweet 100 was so deep that it took me a lot of effort to remove it all. While I was doing that, I think I had damaged the root of my ginger too. So, I thought I might as well remove it to make more room for the newly moved-in -- Pepper California Wonder.

My ginger -- May you rest in peace. My apologies.

Day 1: Radish Cherry Belle

I set up two additional containers for growing Radish Cherry Belle.

The small round container located on the far left is solely for Radish while the large rectangular  one in the middle is for both Pepper California Wonder and Radish.

I bought 25 liter of potting soil for the 2 new containers. But it turns out it's a bit too much because the soil is tightly packed in the bag and so the package gives me more than what I actually need. Next time, I should get less.

I sprinkled radish seeds in the round container as well as right side of the rectangular one. This is the first time I have ever planted radish. I hope they will be easy to grow.

Apart from radish seeds, I also sowed the second round of Pepper California Wonder seeds to the rightmost container and the left side of the rectangular one. I sowed 5 seeds in each container. That should be more than enough.

Day 1: Pepper California Wonder

New Year. New Plant. New Start.

I sowed 8 seeds of California Wonder Bell Pepper today. 5 in the big pot; 1 in each of the three incubation cups.

It's a gloomy day today. But spring has already started. So, plants should grow easily now.

Temperature 22 degree Celsius. Humidity 90%.

My Sweet 100: Day 140

It's been 4 months and 20 days. It's well into the fall, and winter shall come any time.

It's the first day I've harvested a dozen of cherry tomato fruits in one go.

They are red, round, and most importantly sweet!

Don't get me wrong. The green seedling is no cherry tomato. It's my newly planted ginger!

My Sweet 100 has fallen down

It's the monsoon season.

Strong wind has been blowing non-stop. Day and night. My cherry tomato plants were the victim. Especially the one on the right - the younger one.

Last night, it was blown by the wind so much that it toppled over onto its neighbor. The plant, the rig, and the container - toppled over as a whole. It was a scary scene.

The plants were top-heavy, especially the younger one. As soon as as put the plant back upright, I cut as many upper branches as possible while trying to minimize on losing the green and unripe cherry tomatoes. After the hair-cut, I repositioned the container so that the plant is now leaning against the wall - I hope that it won't topple over again as it now has the strong support of the wall.

It's still a bit top-heavy though.

My Sweet 100: Day 127. Harvest Day!

Finally. Seriously. The big day has come! Some of the green cherry tomatoes have finally turned red and are ready for harvest!

I picked 5. They were fresh, juicy and delicious although they were not as sweet as I thought. This is the first time I have eaten cherry tomatoes freshly picked from the vine.

When I first planted the cherry tomatoes, I thought I would be eating the fruits in 2 months. Now, it took more than double of the time for the sweet 100 to mature. I waited, and waited, and waited. Finally the day has come!

I am happy that the day has finally come.