Here's something about leaf yellowing

My Brinjal (Egg plant) leaves are yellowing, i'm trying to figure out what's happening using this infographic.
I'll try to come out with my findings in coming days !

32 Bag Roof top Vegetable Garden

As of today, my 32 Bag Roof top Vegetable Garden is doing good with moderate yield after initial struggle with larvae from 20-Jan to 20-Feb.

I'll start my regular update about the garden from tomorrow, 7-Apr-2016 !

Boron Foliar spray !!

I'm going to try this on my RoofTop vegetable garden !
More posts related to this coming up tomorrow.

Indian Council of Agricultural Research
Boron foliar spray increases crop yield

Gardening makes you happy ! What's the science behind it ?

Antidepressant Microbes In Soil: How Dirt Makes You Happy

Some technology for our garden

Already we've installed a Automatic Weather Station (or) Personal Weather Station.
Please check here...
Polichalur, Chennai - IWM

And planning to implement a "Raspberry pi Soil moisture sensed Automatic water sprinkler" inspired by the following projects.
Must read for ALL Garden lovers and Electronic Enthusiasts/Hobbyist .

GardenBot - open source garden automation project
OpenSprinkler Pi (Plus)
Raspberry Pi Irrigation Controller

We'll post our project work as and when it happens.! Expecting to start this automation work after March-2016. Cash crunch now :-)

2016 - Season #1 - "a new promising start"

After almost 6 months break from Garden blogging.
I'm here with a NEW season start to our Roof top garden.

During last 6 months we had good harvest from Okra (around 12kgs), Mint leaves, Egg plants (brinjal), Palak and red Amaranthus (Thandu Keerai).

This season we've prepared Coco peat soil for extra 12 bags in total it'll be 32 Bags.
And have planned to grow the following for this Season #1

1. Okra - 6 bags
2. Brinjal (Egg plant) - 6 bags
3. Mint - 1 bag
4. Coriander - 1 bag
5. Bitter gourd - 1 bag
6. Bottle gourd - 1 bag
7. Palak (Spinach) - 6 bags
8. Red Amaranthus - 4 bags
9. Amaranthus - 4 bags
10. Avarakkai (Indian Broad Beans) - 2 bags

In our next write-up we'll post about the soil content and mix we have used.

Coco peat mix for Grow bags

Yes, Using coco peat as potting soil for outdoor pots and grow bags is good enough solution for a light weight roof top garden.

What are the advantages of using Coco peat?

• Uniform soil texture.
• Remember, coco peat as such will have NO nutrient. So you have to mix vermi compost in 50-50 ratio. If needed you can add 10% washed sand along with this.
• Important factor is that Coco peat can retain moisture for a long period of time, moreover it can store up to 8 times the volume.
• Due to its porous nature, it can enable good root growth and health.
• PH level of Coco peat is around 5.7 to 6.5. This sits in the recommended PH values for growing vegetables. You can test the PH using this low cost simple meter.

Now coming to the all important Soil preparation or Soil mix for the Grow bags.

Try the following mixture for better results.

• For each grow bag, Coco peat should be 50% of the soil.
• Next 30% should be a well prepared Vermicompost.
• Try to get red soil from a nursery and mix only 10% of the Coco peat.
• Remaining 10% should have the mix of Cow dung, neem cake, NPK 19:19:19 mixture and Sand.

You can buy Coco Peat 5kg block online here.

Try it and give your results as comments.