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.

"Fruits" in and around the house

This Banana tree is around 2 month and 28 days old and its growing in my front pathway.
More Banana trees in the backyard where water is at plenty.

Now comes the curious photo showing a Jack fruit tree with 2 fruit, getting ready for harvest.
This is just behind my house.
I've asked the owner to give me one to prepare Jack fruit Jam (or) Chakka varatti
Please note, this is inside Chennai city only !

Sapling Tray and failed Capsicum plant

This is the simple sapling tray that came along with the Tamilnadu government rooftop garden kit.
The above photo shows the well grown saplings of Capsicum. I tried it as an experiment, not knowing whether these plant will grow in harsh Chennai summer.
The seeds i used are directly taken from a Capsicum which i bought for cooking.
As a 2 inch height sapling i re-planted them in a bigger coco-peat bag.
After 7 days, when it was showing signs of stability and all of a sudden within a span of 2 days almost 8 (all of them) saplings wilted and died. :-(

Now, no Capsicum is left and i'll try again after June end.
I'll love to make Capsicum Chutney with my fresh Capsicum from my rooftop garden.

Beet root! Will it survive this Summer?

Beet root seeds were laid on 20-Apr-2015.
This photo shows the saplings of it on 25-Apr.

And this recent (18-May) photo shows the good growth. You can see 2 more small saplings that came up on 14-May.
Now, my question is whether this plant will survive the super heat (38/39 C) of Chennai?
How long should i wait for the root to grow? or to harvest?

Okra harvest, 18-May

This is my first Okra harvest from our rooftop vegetable garden.
Till today (19-May) morning i got 7 Okras, and more coming up.
At present i have 3 good matured plants and 3 mini ones.
Any idea how much it'll yield before 31-May ?
From 13-May to 17-May, we had good mild weather and rain.
Totally we got 24.3mm, 
Now the HOT temperatures are here and many more super HOT days ahead, i don't know, how the plants will survive the upcoming days.

Rooftop - Mint / Pudhina harvested 2 times

I've planted mint or Pudhina in only one bag containing coco peat as soil.
It was started on 1-Mar-2015 and so far till 11-May-2015, we have harvested 2 times and used it for Chutney, Chicken Biryani and as Burger topping.
Our Chutney recipe will be published soon !!

This photo was taken just after 1st harvest on 9-Apr-2015.

This was on 25-Apr-2015.

And this was on 11-May-2015, during the 2nd harvest. 
I'm very satisfied with the super growth!

First flower of my Okra plant

You can see 2 fresh flowers, one in each bag. This is after 40 days of growth !
No pests so far !
Previous stages of this Okra read here

The leaf miner - slow killer

Leaf miners are the larvae of several different insects. Leaf miners feed on the nutrients in leaves, mining out the plant tissue and creating white trails on the foliage. On vegetable crops, the most common leaf miners belong to the genus Liriomyza.
Affected leaves lose vigor and fall off, eventually causing a slow death to plant (or) just slows down the growth of it.

In my garden, i've seen these on tomato leaves and in some Indian spinach (palak) leaves.

Here are some tips to fend off these bugs in a natural way...

• Immediately remove the infected leaf.
• These flies have some natural predators, some wasps will prey on it. Stop using chemical insecticides, because this can kill the predators as well.
• Try to cover Spinach (especially) leaves to prevent adult flying insects from laying eggs.
• Feed the plants with good water and nutrients, so that they can recover from the infestation.
• Prevent debris or dirt heap in the garden, because these will attract the insects.
• You can also use Neem oil regularly to fend off these bugs.

Yummy Palak - harvested twice.

Palak / Indian Spinach was the first thing i sowed in my coco peat roof top garden bags. First seeds were laid on 1-Mar-2015 in 3 bags.
I got the first harvest on 26-Mar-2015 and the second one on 9-Apr-2015. After that i destroyed the plant and prepared the soil for next fresh cycle.

This photo here was taken just before the second harvest.
The above photo also shows 3 other bags, which is "Siru Keerai" (Tamil) - Amaranthus Tricolor / Tropical Amaranthus. This, I harvested in 20 days from sowing the seed and did the second harvest after 12 days from the first.
Here's an article showing some great nutritional values of Tropical Amaranthus.
Palak and Keerai (Amaranthus) varieties are going to be home grown in "many" bags and will be distributed in local community from June - 2015.

Okra nearing flowering time

Okra / lady finger is one of my favorite vegetable.
At present we have 3 bags of Okra with 3 plant in each bag. I think 3 plant in a bag is bit heavy with less breathing space for the roots. 
Seeds sowed directly in the bags on 29-Mar-2015. Please check the above photo for Okra Seeds, which came along with the Tamilnadu Rooftop Garden Kit

After the growth has started, the 3 bags were treated with NPK 15-15-15 once during mid April.

This photo, 25-Apr-2015, shows the super growth of One or two plant in each bag. You can see the big wide leafs.

This photo was today, 5-May-2015, Which shows less growth after 25-Apr-2015, but shows signs of flowering. Is this is the right time? Here's a link that suggests that a Okra plant will start flowering at around 8 weeks. 

Around 30-Apr-2015, one of my well grown plant just wilted and died in a single day and found that the stem just above the root was in a decayed stage. Still not able to find the cause of it. May be a root rot ? If anyone know about this, please post in comment.

We'll put a new article when the first Okra flower blooms.

Green Amaranthus - start to finish in 13 days

20-Apr-2015
Evening, Green Amaranthus seeds sowed in 2 coco peat bags.

22-Apr-2015
Morning, Saplings popped out. :-)

25-Apr-2015
Slowly picking up growth.
Between 24-May and 30-May, we used 15-15-15 NPK mixture once and sprayed "Ginger,garlic,chilli,turmeric mix" once.

3-May-2015
It's time for first harvest.

Harvested, then cooked fresh with dal and served along with boiled rice for 5 people.
It was yummy !! The recipe will be published soon !

Following photo is taken after the harvest, let's see if this will grow more and when can we have the 2nd harvest??

In near future we are planning to grow in large scale (40 bags) and sell it commercially to local community.

Home / rooftop vegetable garden at present.

Our upcoming articles will focus on developing a mini vegetable farm in your roof top and how to get satisfied with farm fresh vegetables daily for your home need.

Articles will be focused on growing vegetables in coco peat & plastic bags / buckets, less fertilizer usage, more usage of organic fertilizers and less pesticides. All the details shared here is based on present life experiences. Photos of the garden will be shared on a regular basis.

This is my present (photo on 29-Apr-2015) rooftop garden in Chennai with 20 coco peat & plastic bags.

As of today, 3-May-2015, we have...
1 bag of "Mint"
2 bags of "Green Amaranth (thandu keerai) "
3 bags of "Okra (lady finger)"
1 bag of "Bitter gourd"
1 bag of "Green peas"
1 bag of "capsicum"
1 bag of "Beetroot"
2 bag of "Brinjal (egg plant)"
2 bag of  "Palak (spinach) "
2 bag of "Amaranthus aritis (Arai keerai) "

And another 40  bags are planned in next 30 days !

My interest in growing vegetable garden

My interest of growing a vegetable plant and reaping from it was from 8th standard around 1990.

The idea of growing vegetables in rooftop and front of house garden came from Tamilnadu Government's plan of "Do It Yourself Kit program"

In this blog i'll share my interesting journey of growing vegetable plants in plastic bags in rooftop.

I'll be sharing photos and description from sapling stage to crop destroying stage.

At present i've 20 plastic bags and in next 30 days it'll be increased to 60 bags.

Sorry fellows, there's no ornamental plant in my garden and no plan to plant one in near future.