Of all the flowering plants I grew, one of my favorites is Petunia. The reasons are very simple. It is easy to grow, flowers throughout the season and big attractive flowers with variety of colors.

Of course all these beautiful flowers come after some hard work. That’s what gardening is all about.

Lets get started:

Petunias are of different kinds

• Grandiflora – The type that produces large flowers and most popular type.
• Multiflora – Smaller than grandiflora but has lots of blossoms.
• Milliflora – Small, compact flowers.
• Groundcover- This variety spreads fast and used as a ground cover. Flower beds can be created with this variety.

Seed starting

                      Petunia seeds are very tiny. I mean very very tiny and also expensive. So don’t expect gajillion seeds in the seed packet. Based on the variety, you may get somewhere from few 10s to a 100s. The seeds look like the picture below. Sorry I didn’t place a known object in the pic to relate the size to.  They are smaller than a small mustard seed. Petunia seeds are surface sown. What it means in English is, you sprinkle the seeds on the top of the soil and don’t cover them/bury them with soil. The seed is so tiny and hence the food stored for the germination is less too. So don’t expect it to push whole lot of mud above it. Sow the seeds on the surface of the potting mix. Potting mix can be only coco peat or a combination of coco peat and compost. Since the seedlings are very sensitive, you can use 80:20 mix of coco peat and compost. Sow the seeds and then water them gently. Seeds are so tiny that they can get dislodged if water is poured over them. Cover the seeds with clear polythene sheet. Petunia needs light to germinate.

Covering the seeds with polythene sheet keeps the humidity high. Germination happens in 5-7 days. Sometimes more. Don’t get impatient. Seeds don’t know that you are a first timer, they will take their own time .  Seed starting petunias can be challenging but not impossible. Use the fresh seeds, don’t try expired seeds, they wont germinate.

Watch out for signs of growth. The moment you see a seed sprouting, immediately remove the polythene. Don’t let the media dry out.

Transplanting

Transplanting is a process moving a plant to its permanent place. Usually seedlings are raised in one place and they are transplanted to a different place. If you are raising the seedlings yourself from seeds, then transplanting is done after seedlings are about a month old. If you are buying small seedlings of petunia, from the nursery , then you need to move it to a bigger pot or something like that.

A good potting mix is required for growing flowers. To make a soil based mix, mix equal parts of red soil, compost and sand. The red soil should be the one that is used for garden purposes not the ones that are used in road construction. People sometimes get cheated. Get it from a good place. Lalbagh is ok. I will be soon making my own mixes available, if you are interested please get in touch.

Last but not the least. Location! Petunia needs good amount sunlight. At least 4 hours of sunlight. They do better when kept in full sun as well. So pick the sunny spot. Lesser the light, fewer the flowers.

Caring

Petunia needs good sunlight, well drained soil. Add a handful of compost to the pot when the plant starts flowering.  Periodically remove the flowers that start fading. Removing spent/faded flowers is called as Deadheading. This promotes more flowering.  You can continue to deadhead through out the season. If you want to save seeds, then you should NOT deadhead.

Enjoying!

You need me to tell how to enjoy watching petunia flowers? Get outta here!

Here are some petunia snaps for your viewing pleasure.

Purple Petunia

White Petunia

Petunia in a Planter

Petunias Cascading

Ok, you have grown petunias ,had them flowering and they did extremely well in that season. Next season, what are going to do.. head to the same shop/nursery pickup the same plant and grow ? Or would you like to be smart, save your own petunia seeds and grow it yourself and brag off later.. who wouldn’t like an ego boost. If you are interested in saving the seeds proceed further.

Petunia seeds are small, so first spend some time identifying the flower that is faded and withered. In the center of the flower you will notice a conical fruit bearing all the seeds in it. The idea is to let the pod dry out but before it bursts out, you come in the scene and collect the seeds. Wicked eh!

The seed pod inside the spent flower.

Seed pod full of seeds for your next season!

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The cherry tomatoes that feature in this video are actually grape shaped. They are grown in bag culture. Actually I wanted to put them in paint buckets but bag culture is simple and cheaper to setup. With automated drip setup watering the plant at regular intervals, the plants have no other job but yielding nice tomatoes.

I actually wanted to make up for a month’s delay in post by writing the complete cycle of growing cherry tomato like my previous spinach post. But with the time so less and ocean of activities happening (I will keep that for the next post), I thought this video would convey most of what I wanted to write if not all.

Here it is folks,

Hope you all enjoyed watching.
Check out my channel http://youtube.com/user/TheGeekgardener

Ciao
GG

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There are several plants one can start with. My recommendation is, always choose something that yields quickly and easy to grow. Spinach is a good candidate for starter project. Most of the times, I find myself explaining this. Hence I thought, I will make a video out of it. So without further ado, the videos of sowing spinach.

Part I

Part II

UPDATE: Part III.

UPDATE: Part IV

Hope you enjoyed watching this. If you like the videos, you can subscribe to my channel
Good luck on starting your vegetable garden.

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Thanks for such a good response on the videos. It is really motivating. Many of them wanted a video of the entire life cycle of the plant and also possible narration of growing methods along side.  That is exactly what I am doing now.

Some of the videos were shot without audio. Now, I am recording all the videos with narration. I used to think, that recording an audio/video should be very easy. You just talk..Isn’t it.. Apparently not so, when I started taking these videos. The moment I switch on the record button in the camera.. suddenly the situation changes.. one becomes all conscious, all kinds of disturbances happen only during that 10 minutes of silence you need… I have so many blooper videos which we keep watching and laughing later.. so anyway.. easy or tough, there is going to be lots of videos from now.

Here are the videos of Seedless cucumber growing in my greenhouse. Check it out

If you like these videos, don’t forget to subscribe to my channel, you can rate the videos, drop some comments/suggestions.

you can also follow me @thegeekgardener

Until next video

GG

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Thanks for the amazing response for the video series. I am excited to post another video of lettuce.

This is a continuation to the last post Hydroponic Lettuce Video Part I. After 10 days of the first video, I shot this one and the growth is unbelievable. All it takes is about 30 days from transplanting to harvest in the hydroponic DFT setup.

Hope you all liked it. Check out my channel for more videos:

Happy gardening

GG

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When I was about to harvest the potato plant in my greenhouse, my folks asked me to wait and warned me that there won’t be well formed potatoes. The impatient gardener in me couldn’t wait to dig up some spuds. Guess who was right..?

Hope you enjoyed. Subscribe to my channel http://youtube.com/user/thegeekgardener

Thanks

gg

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Its show time!

If you like the videos, you can also subscribe to my YouTube channel

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• Panchagavya

• Seeds and Seedlings

• Hungarian Yellow wax Seedlings [ Bajji Pepper]
• Black beauty brinjal seedlings
• Green chillies
• Cabbage
• All other vegetable seeds.

• Cocopeat

• Fresh lettuce for sale

The location for purchase is http://tinyurl.com/geekgardener
Preferred timings: 10AM-2PM 3PM-6PM

Happy gardening.
GG

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In most of my posts/comments, I recommend people to start with plants like mint that are very easy to grow. Mint for example, is easily available. It grows invasively and very easy to propagate. Or is it? I received many questions on how to successfully propagate mint. I have posted several times in this blog on how to root stem cuttings successfully but I thought it would be really helpful if I dedicate one post entirely for mint.

Steps to propagate mint with 100% success rate

• Collect Mint cuttings — Buy or borrow mint that have slightly thicker stems.
• Take the stem tip cuttings by making a cut at 3-4inches from the top. Make sure the cut is right below a node.

• Do not remove all the leaves. Leave them in the cutting, if the bottom most leaf in hindering them you can just remove them off.
• Prepare the media (in my case cocopeat). The media should be moist but not wet. If you try squeeze the media, water should come out little bit.
• Fill a propagation tray with the media. You can take any container. Propagation tray makes it easier to transplant.
• Stick the cuttings into each cell and compact it so that the cutting is intact.

• Now cover the whole setup with a polythene sheet. If your tray is small enough, you can enclose it in a polybag. Transparent cover is good. This step is extremely important. If you don’t cover the cuttings with a polybag, they will lose the moisture and wilt very quickly.

• Keep the setup in a bright location but not with direct sunlight.
• No further watering is necessary. Keep an eye on the plants daily. The plants should remain fresh and not wilt. Wilting indicates that the plants are not covered properly in the polybag and is losing moisture.
• If you properly followed steps 1 through 8, the cuttings should root in just about a week.

• Once rooted, slowly introduce the plants to the outside world. Since they were in humid environment inside the bag, sudden change in humidity will result in plant going through stress.

• Expose the plants to sun gradually. First start with an hour and then increasing by an hour every day to harden them.
• In about 15 days time, your plants will be fully rooted and are good for transplanting.

This is how you propagate Mint from cuttings to get 100% successful results.

Happy gardening

GG

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It was Saturday morning 8ish and I was struggling to wake up after a week’s work. The phone rang suddenly. It was my mom on the other end. Still half asleep, I picked up the call with the idea of continuing my sleep after the call (duh!). She said, “Hey, do you know? There is an article about you and your garden in the The Hindu newspaper?” .Though I was half asleep, I was excited. By the time I ended the call, sleep had already left the building. I had given an email interview couple of weeks back. But It indeed was a pleasant surprise since I didn’t know when it will be published.

I immediately rushed to the PC and checked out my site.. the traffic was already sky rocketing. Mails got flooded into already full mailbox.

I am pretty excited to share the link of that article.

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-propertyplus/article2781915.ece

Thanks for all the support.

geekgardener

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