How to Plant Mango From Seed Part II

I want to make an update to my earlier post on how to plant mango from seed.

On that post I suggested to let the seed sits near the windowsill for about 2-3 weeks(from the information I got from Wikihow) to dry before we crack it open to release the kernel and plant it. Through my experience, this is not always the best idea,'cause the kernel has higher possibility to dry up inside or spoiled during that process, even when we only put it to dry in room temperature(away from the windowsill/sunlight).

I recently made a new experiment by cracking open the seed(of mango fruit that is stored in room temperature, the kernel of the refrigerated one tends to be spoiled) to expose the kernel, once the flesh has been eaten. As you can see below, the kernel is still at its best condition and fresh. Then I soak the kernel for about 12 hours before I planted it outside under the sun, in a germinating pot. But once it sprouted, I moved it under the shade in order to protect the young leaves.

Then after the the second layer of leaves came out, I bring the plant inside and place it under my reading lamp until the leaves wholly developed.

The seedling is growing well. The the third and fourth layer of leaves have come out but I will wait a little longer before I transplant it to its permanent home.

How To Plant Mango From Seed

Most people nowadays prefer grafted fruit trees as it saves them from a lot of troubles and heartache, and takes less time to start 

yielding fruit. That makes sense since some fruit seeds call for a special pre-planting process, such as stratification process on berries or grapes, and they can take as long as 3-15 years before it sets fruit.

However, if you are a-curious-type of person, you may want to experiment with planting fruit by seeds. You may also do it just for the sake of gaining knowledge or just for fun. 

So, go ahead and check out the steps below! This may be a good school experiment for children too.

Steps to plant mango from seed:

1. First of all choose a mature mango fruit of any kind. After you eat the flesh, Clean the seed from the flesh adhering to the seed, wash it with running water and dry it with a napkin. Let the seed sits near the windowsill or a warm area of the house to dry for around 
2 weeks.

2. After the seed is dry, crack open the seed carefully 

to make a big enough crevice or opening. 

3. Then, soak the seed along with the outer skin that 

you have cracked open or you may release the kernel 

from the outer skin and soak it overnight.

4. You may plant the seed that you've soaked overnight in a soil mix directly or you may release the kernel from the outer skin first before you plant the kernel.

5. And within a week or two, the seedling may come out.

6. After it has set several leaves or as high as 15-20 cm, you can transplant it to it's permanent home. 

Planting Grapes from Seeds

 Last February, I tried germinating grape seeds from the 

store-bought grapes—red globe grapes and black grapes. 

I have always wanted some vines 'cause our tropical weather is perfect to plant grapes. Yet, you know that germinating grape seeds are a bit tricky as they need stratification process etc., 

just like berry seeds.

I had tried stratification process to some berry seeds I bought but none was successful. So, this time I just skip it. 

I planted them right away in my Kale bed. 

I was planning to just give it a shot.

To my surprise, two of them grows in that bed and 2 more in the seedling pots I put indoors.

I haven't repotted these two since they're still too small and frail. I'll let them grow to as high as 10-15 cm before repotting them, but I have repotted the other two and have taken them outdoors and put them at the corner so they can adjust with the heat and weather but still have some shades to protect them from the afternoon sun.

Well, we'll see how it goes. I'll keep you updated! :-)

Planting and Harvesting Onion

 Sorry for not updating for sometime, I had some problems with my computer last week. My Windows7 wouldn't let me access my computer 'cause I canceled the file-compressing process half way. And I had to be without my computer for about a week. Thank God for a good church friend who happened to be a computer expert, who helped me with helpful advices on how to reboot my computer in an effort to save all my data.....and thank God it worked!!

By the way, I actually want to share about how easy it is to plant onion from onion especially in the tropical weather where Sunshine is abundant! There are three ways of planting onions and for more information on it you can click here. 

As for me, planting onion from the bulb is the easiest. I just burry onions I buy from the market, leave it and it will grow. I mix 1 part of soil with 1 part of cow/goat manure and a generous amount of organic matter, ie. mature compost . And I make sure to keep the soil moist not soggy, because soggy soil will cause the onion to rot(from past experience).

Below, you could see the onions I harvested today. One cluster of onions is bigger than the other. Just keep in mind, if you want to get bigger size of onions, then you have to choose 

the biggest bulb to plant! 

Still, both clusters are edible! :-)

So, when can we harvest the onions? This time I didn't keep a record of the germinating time 'cause in the first place I just wanted to get some spring onions from it, that I mostly needed for cooking. So, it wasn't planned! Therefore, I can't tell you exactly how long it took the onions to grow in order to produce mature onions. It's quite fast though if we plant it from the bulbs, I guess it's just about 3 months or so, however, I'm not really sure.  

But don't worry, there's one hint that can be an indication for us, that is the falling, wilting and drying of the leaves. Once the leaves fall by themselves, just let it wilted and dried. In my case, I left it for about a week to be thoroughly dried before I extracted it, cleaned it from dirt, and dried them under the sun for several hours, before I brought them inside to further hang them for another 2 weeks to be completely dry, so that it will be good for a long-term storing.

I just germinated more onions today, and this time I will keep a record and I will update more details later. Why not planting along with me? It's very easy, and self-planted-organic-onions will soon be available in your kitchen!

Updates from my rooftop containers garden

It's been quite a while since I gave an update from my rooftop containers garden. Frankly speaking, the activities in my now expanded garden are quite time-consuming, though I enjoy it very much! Each day presents its own challenge, be it the weather anomaly or pests or depleting or scarcity of rainwater because of drought! It's a little confusing because the rainfall in January through February supposed to be high still, but all the rain was flown to Java island. They had multiple floods during the rainy season in December, even up to March, while the vegetation in my island and city were struggling to live. Up to a point, I had to give up and used tap water for my plants! I fill big buckets and let it stay out in the open for 24 hours or more before using it on  my plants, hoping that the chlorine and all the chemicals like fluoride can evaporate through that process. But heaven knows!

The other thing the people in my island and city are struggling with is the haze from the fire for commercial agriculture in the central part of my island! I sympathize with the people in that particular areas, since they have to struggle with thick haze much beyond the safe level. So far, tens of thousands of people have been affected by it and suffer from throat and respiratory infections. Schools and offices were closed during the time when the haze exceeds the safe level. The central government and the President himself have intervened with the disaster management. So far 60 people have been listed as the suspects. Hopefully the government will really be firm this time, and hefty fine and punishment will be imposed on the culprits (both who set the fire and those who instructed the fire) for future precedent, since our country has been notorious as haze exporter to neighboring countries! The fact is there is only a handful of greedy businessmen from big corporations and some corrupt officers behind this catastrophe! Seriously, we are fed up too!

Thank God that entering March, we got some downpour especially last week and this week, though it's not that much but it's been such a relief for the vegetation, cooling the air and clearing the haze from the sky. I am still counting on mostly tap water for the plants, though I got a couple of buckets of rainwater from a couple of downpour. Yet it's not enough for my garden.

Well, anyway, as you can see, my garden has quite expanded and I have harvested some from it. So far I have harvested maybe about 10 dozens of cherry tomatoes. And new tomatoes are formed again. I also harvested some hot chilli (the tabasco type of chilli) which I planted from the seeds I saved from the chilli we bought from the market. I have harvested dozens of Jasmine flowers (it blooms almost every other night, 3 to 5 or six flowers each time) and some roses too.

for this new planting season, I germinated more plants in February, as follows:
- Indigo tomato
- Brandywine tomato
- Black krim tomato
- Cherokee tomato
- Tigerella tomato
- Zebra tomato
- Cayanne
- Tabasco
- Red bell pepper (from the seeds I saved)
- Yellow bell pepper (from the seeds I saved)
- Evening Sun Sunflower
- Alchemy Sunflower (failed germination)
- Borlotti beans
- Cilantro (not very successful)
- Marigold (African) Crackerjack
- Marigold (French) Red Cherry (failed germination)
- Roman Chamomile (failed germination)
- Petunia (failed germination)
- Begonia Summer Rainbow (F2) (failed germination)
- Poppy Ladybird (failed germination)
- Gailardia (failed germination)
- Cactus (failed germination)
- Amaranth
- Cardoon
- Cumin (failed germination)
- Oregano (failed germination)
- Gourmet lettuce
- Rainbow Swiss Chard
- Yellow flesh papaya (from the seeds I saved)
- Chinese cabbage
- Water spinach
- more garlic
- Leek Careentan (failed germination)
- Shallots (failed germination)
- Marketer cucumber
- Lemon (from the seed I saved)
- Kumquat (from the seed I saved)
- Turkish eggplant
- Sweet corn (failed germination)
- Giant Strawberry (failed germination)
- Black Strawberry (failed germination)
- White Strawberry (failed germination)
- Watermelon radish (failed germination)
- Pear (from the seeds I saved)

as you can see some germinated successfully but some failed. I am still figuring out why... Maybe the temperature or the soil and humidity.

Rainbow Swiss Chard

Borlotti Beans

Water spinach a.k.a 'Kangkung'

Water spinach transplanted into self-watering containers using recyled mineral water bottles

Tongue of Fire Beans

Orange Bell Pepper

Gourmet Lettuce

Cardoon

Evening Sunflower, Marketer Cuke, Amaranth

Rainbow Swiss Chard

Learning from mistake

These several days I've been preoccupied with the attempts to save the lives of my tomato seedlings! Since my last blogging I noticed that some of the cotyledon of my nearly-4-week tomato seedlings were turning yellowish. I was frantic but at the same time feeling perplexed. What had I done that was wrong? 

After some assessment I was convinced that it's overwatering. I was inexperienced and had no idea of how much water is enough for my seedlings, so all I tried to do was keeping the vermiculite moist but I might have watered it too often that one time I noticed that the water in the container was brimming over since my container doesn't have holes at the bottom, so I had to pour the water excess out.

At the beginning, it was only started with one or two leaves turning yellow but then I noticed that more leaves were affected. The first thought that crossed my mind was they were going to die! And honestly that made me grief! My love has grown for them and that thinking had really made my heart sunk. 

The other possible factor was because they grew too close to each other. I was a novice gardener, so I impulsively emptied the whole packet of seeds into one container! I had no idea that all of the seeds had decided to germinate altogether! So, crowding they were in that little container. 

I'd been impatient to move them into bigger or perhaps individual containers but the instruction said I have to wait until at least they had reached 10 cm tall, but upon encountering this I had decided it was my only way and chance to give them an emergency CPR! So I rushed and mixed the soil with some compost and replanted them. I had also decided to place them out in the open space of my rooftop against the wall facing the west, and above it there's a small-rectangular iron-sheeting shade, so they won't be directly under the scorching tropical sun at noon. Well, honestly I wasn't thinking of how direct exposure to sunlight might affect them or whether it would stress the plants out. I simply hoped that with the new soil, access to sunlight and wise watering they would have a second chance to live. 

I waited restlessly, and observed if they managed to survive. And though the yellowish cotyledon stayed the same, I began to see new life thriving! I started to see that new shoots were coming and branching out! Hallelujah!! 

It's been four or five days, and they are growing healthier now, though size-wise I think they're pretty small or growing slowly, but I am very happy with their condition now. It's as if that they have managed to pass their critical moment and I am wishing that they will continue growing into big and healthy tomato plants that will bear multiple fruit in the near future! Amen to that! Ha...

Meanwhile, my Basil seedlings continues growing healthily.

Basil & Lemon

Yesterday, I noticed some Basil seedlings sprouting out and within hours they grew bigger! 

And also the lemon seedling...

However, I haven't seen any sign of germination from the orange bell pepper and lime... 

Oh well, I'll wait a little longer...

Btw, it's over 3 weeks now and the tomatoes seedlings are growing taller and those new shoots are getting bigger and cuter too. I can hardly wait to move them into bigger pots as it is getting crowded in the germination pot.