NOW SOWING !

Lets get a seek peak at what is going on behind the scenes in my garden!

Making of prolific garden requires some insight into technical details too. With basic knowledge anyone can gain success in this fruitful industry! To begin with, check out the sowing season of vegetables you want to plant.

I went through all seeds packs I had, checking for sowing dates, and found out that I can plant almost all. True season for cherry tomatoes is coming up, although they have been fruiting so well in the time of the year when they were not suppose to. So I am excited to see their performance in forthcoming months.

Last time I used mixed pepper seeds pack, and did not know what I was investing in, but I just loved yellow diamond and big red peppers. They were too tasty. So, I saved lots of seeds from them to sow this season. This time I decided to plant, big red sweet pepper, yellow diamond pepper, cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes and radishes.

My inner controlled spy wanted to add more suspense to the story by sowing red pepper flakes from pizza hut to discover which type of hot peppers they use! So I collected some clues and did some research and found out that they are probably slim, long cayenne peppers. Mystery will be solved only when the peppers appear.

Most important thing you need to know before planting any plants is their season. The lowest temperature recorded determines which growing zone your city falls into. For example, lowest temp for Karachi is approx 10-20 F. so we are in zone 8.

Your Zone _____ Your Lowest Temp (F.)

Zone 10_________ 30° to 40°+ Zone 9 __________20° to 30° Zone 8 __________10° to 20°

Zone 7__________ 0° to 10° Zone 6__________ -10° to 0° Zone 5__________ -20° to -10°

Zone 4__________ -30° to -20° Zone 3__________ -40° to -30°

The next thing you need to know is whether your plant is determinate or indeterminate type. Determinate means the plant is a Bush variety and the indeterminate type grows as vines upwards and needs to be caged or staked. Once you know this, you can get your containers or the plot ready accordingly. Next you need other details about the plant such as, its height, and color, how often it needs to be watered, what type of soil it needs, amount of sun it requires, pot size etc.

Most of the plants are first planted in seed starting trays, or 3-inch pots. They are transplanted according to given instructions once they have developed a set of true leaves. I have sown Radishes, Peppers and tomatoes this weekend. Instead of going for many little pots, I used one large tray, and made little tags for each type of crop seeds. It’s a good idea to keep a record of the dates sown, day harvested.

When I look at a visually dead seed, it’s hard to imagine how many fruits are hidden in it packed with thousands of more seeds! Its enchanted world I tell you! It is nature’s magic that turns seed into a tree. Whenever I am near plants, I always recall an Urdu poem that I learned as a child.

“ Chota sa aik beech ager hai to kia hoa
Kitna bara darakht hai uss me chupa hoa

Choate say til me aankh ki kitni barai hai
Darya hon ya pahar hon sub ki samai hai

Mil jul keh paani ka aik darya bahati hain
Bondain hain choti choti jo sagar banati hain

Choti si Ummer me jo iradae rehay karae
Dunya me tum bhi kaam kero gae barae barae “

We truly live in an enchanted world. Gardening gives us whole new perspective to look at life.

Open you eyes to it!

Happy sowing!

Thanks for appriciating my effort and for your wonderful comments.

News Feed: Rainbow-struck Garden

Rainbow has just struck my crops in a pot garden. These vegetables are not only a treat for your tummy, but these are also truly a feast for your eyes.

Just have a look at my astoundingly beautiful garden! O My! It’s looking startling! I cannot wait to harvest my sweet dazzling peppers! BIG MAMA/Godfather 8-inch long peppers are coming in abundance. They are still half the original size. As they mature they will turn into red. Harvested my PURPLE BEAUTIES last week! They taste superbly sweet but some thing strange happened when I cooked them. The color turned back into green! All the purple shade was gone unlike the first time. And even when I tried to refrigerate them they turned back into green. I think they should not be kept on vines for too long after ripping. And it is for sure that they don’t like moisture… well although they look stunning on vines and they produce fruit in large numbers, but I don’t think I will grow them again. Instead I’ll go for yellow, orange or red ones. Speaking of yellow peppers. I am madly in love with this vivacious variety. Brightly painted peppers look so gorgeous. They look so apitizing, i can not wait them to ripe!

I harvested 10 beans yesterday! It is so great to have grains grown in your garden. I was delighted to see my first bean pods. In my last post about beans, I said that beans should be picked up while they are still green. But for white lobias or the cowpea, it is not true. If they were picked before the pods color fade, they would still be green from inside. The ones kept on vines little longer will properly mature and get larger.

My tasty tomatoes are just superb. Plants are producing more and more. And there are new bunches of blossoms. I have moved my plants to a partially sunny area. As there is always water shortage and watering pattern changes. But they are doing well.

Nature has played with all colors and textures for every thing it has created but it has blessed food with unique flavors, shapes, sizes, colors, fragrances and special attractiveness, That one can never get bored with them. There are always marvelous creations of nature around us, waiting to be discovered. Find them!

Love Nature!


Share your thoughts and experince growing crops.

in mynext blog i ll share some interesting pictures of how differnt crops get colored.

Grape Enchantment

Who is not in love with divine grapes? Imagine having romantic grapevines in your own garden!

Well not exactly grapevines, but grape-tomato vines! These blissfully lovely vines are not less in anyway. I am totally in love with these and best thing is that I can have them in my garden whole yearlong.

Grape tomatoes are amazing to grow! They are best for summer crops too. They come in bunches of shiny, 1/2” red, elongated globes. The vigorous vines grow up to 8 feet high with abundance of fruit. These are sweetest tomatoes ever! I am totally in love with them.

Mouth-watering grape tomatoes are absolutely irresistible. Vines look stunningly beautiful and they produce fruits like crazy. I planted NAPA HYBRID grape tomatoes. Seeds are little expensive than others and there are hardly 10-15 seeds in each pack. But you can always save new seeds for next round for non hybrid grape type tomatoes. Hybrid will very rarely produce plant exactly like itself. But i accidentally squeezed one tomato in a pot and now there are around 30 tiny plants! So I'll experiment! May be I'll get a plant true to the original one. This award winner variety is a must for every vegetable garden.

I planted mine twice since august’07. And as my second batch of crops is still fruiting abundantly, my next batch will be ready to be transferred to larger pots in 3 weeks. These will produce well through out the summers too. It takes almost 60-70 days after germination to harvest your crops. These are the sweetest, most delicious tomatoes you have ever tasted!

Fruits come in stunning clusters and it’s amazing how each bunch gets colored. Sunlight makes red globes even more tempting. I love all stages of grape tomatoes. Yellow blooms come in beautiful clusters, as they dry out, little green globes emerge which enlarge into grape’s size green bunches.

Recently most exciting thing happened! My enchanted grape tomatoes did their magic on a little 3 years old girl. A friend was visiting me with her little daughter. And as a “tradition” they had to see my garden before they could enter. Little girl, who hated tomatoes before just like her parents, got attracted to little shinny red globes. She was totally spellbound! Some popped out of her month and ran across the terrace, as she tired to swallow them as a whole! But she just couldn't keep her hands off them; there were hardly any left on the vines after her attack on them.

Last week we met again after a month or two, and her parents told me that now she leaves no tomato lying in the fridge. I was so excited to know that. Kids don’t eat vegetables. But picking up fresh vegetables from branches makes it exciting experience for all. Even I can never forget when I pulled out carrots and potatoes from the ground for the first time; I was almost the same age. It was such an extra ordinary feeling! May be that’s the only reason why I wanted to grow vegetables myself.

Oh its delightfully divine experience to grow and harvest your own vegetable. And an excellent way to encourage children to grow, to nurture and to enjoy nature’s fast food!

Enjoy Gardening!

Share your experience of growing crops.
In my next blog, I’ll be updating you on my garden!

A Warm Greeting

As i walked into my lil garden this morning, a new friend greeted me. Oh My Black-eyed bean Plants are Finally blooming.

That’s the first sign of summers! Warm days and warm nights are here. Not really good news for most of us but summer bring new colors and its own tasty flavors to our gardens! I am so excited to grow my summer crops!

Black-eyed beans/cowpea or the white lobia as we call them, should be sown early in spring. Scorching summers will bring end to the production of this wonderful crop. So if you want to try this delicious bean this summer sow your seeds ASAP. Try mid-season varieties. I planted mine local seeds in late January when weather here was still chilly and I have already shifted my plants to larger pots.

These delicious peas need little attention. Pests and disease are rarely a problem. Just watch out for aphids! You will have to wait almost 75 days after germination to enjoy these yummiest beans. 8inch long pods will be ready when they feel round and are freshly green. Use deliciously flavored peas fresh or dried! Remember, frequent harvesting increases yield.

Well, I am so excited to see these beautiful blooms in my garden. You should also try growing peas. They have the most beautiful and the most fragrant blossoms among all vegetables. Peas have pole and bush varieties. Lama beans, Soya beans, yellow bush beans are just few of widely used ones. I was amazed to know that there are purple peas too! We are missing out so much here, I wish people try new things and make everything possible. Our lands lack nothing; we lack in trying new things, experimenting. I think, we need to get inspired by nature! Get inspired! Try new things!

Happy Summer Gardening!


If you have tired these wonderful crops do share your tips!

Watch out for my next blog, I’ll be talking you to the enchanted world of Grape tomatoes!

Crops in Pots

There Is nothing better than waking up in the morning and walking into your own garden, It gets even more amazing when you garden is packed with mouth-watering food!

Last fall, I had this wonderful experience of growing vegetables. Not just any vegetables! But, some pleasantly unique varieties, such as grape and cherry tomatoes, Yellow pear tomatoes, Purple Peppers, Big red, orange sun and diamond Peppers and some other crops like juicy, 1 inched, crispy, red Radishes! That’s not all! These “crops were grown in pots” on a roof in Karachi! Amazing or what!

Initially it was very hard for many to imagine crops in a pot. And they found it impossible for my little rainbow garden to survive in Karachi’s brutal weather. But I was so determined to grow crops that it was just not possible for me to give up before even trying.I came across this idea of “crops in a pot” at bbc.co.uk/gardening. Before that I never knew that we could actually grow vegetables in pots. It totally inspired me to have my own little crops in a pot garden.

At first, I tried local varieties; it was not a good experience although, it taught me a lot. Credit goes to Mr. Tofique Pasha, who encouraged and helped me a lot with millions of troubles I encountered. Well, my first experience was not good. Plants got severe attacks by mites.

While searching for different varieties of tomatoes and peppers I was astonished to discover that there are so many varieties of these vegetables that one cannot imagine! I totally got lost in the world of tomatoes! And I had to get those varieties for my garden. I requested my uncle to get them from Houston for me! And luckily he found all that I listed.For my garden I selected Grape tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, and yellow pear tomatoes. And wanted mix verity of sweet peppers too.

Visualize vigorous tomato vines, packed with mouth-watering bunches of ripped red tomatoes and young green ones, little yellow colored pears hanging here n there on the branches, smiling at you, Crispy, shinny Purple peppers catching your eyes, and dazzling red ones waiting to be picked!

You must experience sowing tiny, visually dead seeds into the soil, watering them, and seeing them come to live! Enjoying their blooms and fruits. It’s just out of this world experience to pick fruits from the branches or to harvest them from the soil.
Oh! You got to have one of your own to peek into heaven’s unseen gardens!

I ll be updating my blog regularly, giving an update about my garden and what new things I learned. I would love to see your comments, suggestions and contributions!