Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Kitchen gardening - How to grow Okra (Bhindi)

After tomatoes, Okra (bhindi) is the most easiest vegetable to grow. It loves the heat and humidity. It is delicious and contains many valuable nutrients. Here are some of the tips to grow it successfully.

Soil
Okra can grow almost any soil although it does not like heavy soil. Loam(meera) and sandy loam soil is best for yield. Incorporate plenty of organic matter into soil and also place a mulch to retain moisture. Okra likes a PH of over 6.

Sowing
Okra is mostly grown from seed as it produces crop fairly quickly after sowing the seeds (45 - 55 days). Soak the seeds in water for few hours for better germination. Sow seeds about 2 inches apart and 1 inch deep. Rows should be at least 3 feet apart if you want to walk in between rows. Seedlings will emerge in 1-2 weeks. You can also direct sow the okra seeds.

It is Sown in February for April crop and then again in June/July for September crop. It can also be propagated from cuttings.

Growing
Maintain regular watering. Do not let the plant wilt at all. It loves watering specially in summer heat. At the same time, soil must be well drained. Fertilize every 3-4 weeks.

Harvesting
As part of Hibiscus and cotton family, the flowers are large and beautiful. It will be ready to harvest few days after the flowers fall off. Pick it when it is immature and not more than 1/2 inch thick. Length should not be more than 3-4 inches long. Keeping removing the pods (okra) as it will promote good crop.

Best Varieties
The most famous local variety is "Sabz pari". If you want to try imported variety suitable to our local climate then try "Clemson Spineless" and "Emerald". For dwarf try "baby Bubba" and "sweet Lucy".

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Kitchen gardening - Hybird, heirloom and OP varieties

A hybrid vegetable is result of cross-pollination between two genetically different parent plants. Plant breeders develop hybrids to increase disease resistance, to improve yield, or to select for special fruit traits such as color, aroma, taste, or shipping quality. Whenever you see F1 or F2 with a seed, this is hybrid.

If you grow a vegetable/fruit grown from a hybrid seed then the seed obtained from the crop can not be re-used, you must buy the seeds again. This is the reason most commercial sellers sell hybrid vegetable seeds so that gardeners come to buy again and again. If you sow the seed from a hybrid crop, the resultant plant will never be as good as the parent.

Heirloom vegetables are cultivated forms of crops that have been perpetuated by gardeners who save seed (or propagate by some other means such as taking cuttings) from year to year. Some heirloom vegetable varieties have been around for more than a century! Gardeners have kept these varieties growing for generations because the crops performed well in a particular area or because they have outstanding flavor, unusual color, or other appealing characteristics.

OP stands for open-pollinated, meaning that wind, bees, or other insects, rather than plant breeders, transferred the pollen to fertilize the flowers. While all heirloom vegetables are open-pollinated, not all OP vegetables are heirlooms, since most seed companies offer modern-day varieties of vegetables that have been pollinated by wind or other means.

Seeds from the crop of Heirloom/OP vegetables are true to their parent. So you do not need to buy the seeds again and again.

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

DHA Flower show 2012, Lahore

The sixth annual DHA flower competition will held from March 15-17, 2012 at Sheeba Park near McDonalds Y-Block DHA Lahore.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Flowers of Murree hills - Pipeline track

This is the last post in this series of posts "Flowers of murree hills". This last post was delayed because i was unable to identify some flowers. Still there are some flowers i can not identify and any help in this regard would be highly appreciated.

This is Oenothera rosea, evening primrose. Blooming happily in the crack of a steep hill. In fact it was growing on a hilly slope, no soil visible at all. Location was nathiagali.
Oenothera rosea, evening primrose

This is the first from the un-identified flowers. Seems like a Ranunculus but not sure which species.
Ranunculus alpine

yellow buttercup flower

This one is another unknown flower. Blooming in the mountain crack of pipeline track at Donga gali.
flower of nathia gali

This is also a very common bush on the pipeline track. Fragrant white starry flowers. I thought of wax flower, hoya but hoyas do not thrive in this cold area. Maybe an Abelia.
fragrant white flower alpine


This one is again i could not identify. It is a small tree and few flowers were there. May be a robinia. i captured it in Nathia gali main road.
robinia tree flower

This one seems to be Hypochaeris radicata, dendelion.
Hypochaeris radicata, dendelion

Another unknown flower on the pipeline track.
white flower yellow center pipeline track

The last of the unknown flowers, it was not fragrant.
yellow bush donga gali

I will try to put a post on butterflies of Bhurban and Nathiagali next.

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