Farmland Tales- It’s not a bed of roses always

Germination Blues- Tiny Farm Large Life

It’s not a happy picture always and sure it’s not one around my germination kits. This time across all my seedlings .... I have had only one germination per plant type !!!!! How does one explain that ....hmmm!!!!

And all from different seeds . And I have always had almost 70% germination success.

You can see in the image up there is only one Lemon Balm guy peeking its head out, one Lavender, one marigold, one Calendula !!! The only 1 I am happy with ... so far ... is the one creeper rose 🥀 that’s sprouted. I have never germinated a rose plant from a seed ever before and didn’t think I would see any joy. So this time just to try it out I sowed two creeper rose seeds and one germinated. It took a good 3 weeks to finally burst open. But it’s still a wait and watch to see if that guy has the strength to continue growth.

So for me I need to restart the process of sowing my seeds again. Maybe this time I won’t directly sow them in loose cocopeat but will try the compact cocopeat coins which swell up when you add water to them. I order some from Biobloom online on Amazon.

Farmland Tales - Planning My Garden

Planning My Garden - At Tiny Farm Large Life 

At our tiny farm with dreams its now planning time. It takes a lot of planning when you are starting on your farm from ground zero. Planning your farm or planning your garden may sound easy but when you have an absolute open field, thoughts can run all over the place. It has been raining almost every day for the past two weeks and work at the farm is almost at standstill. Although the fruit trees I  have planted so far are quite happy with the rain the rest of the work will have to wait. I needed to get some raised beds done and my structure for the passion fruit plants I planted last week but I guess will need to wait for now.

So I decided to spend my time planning my garden and researching how I would like the layout to pan out. I had ordered some seeds last week which got delivered to be today.

Although I initially wanted to get some local seeds, I finally reconciled to ordering them online. It will be a wait and watch the game to see how good the germination is.

Earlier I had ordered some cherry tomato and Jalapeno seeds from Kraft via Amazon and got almost 100% germination. This time I have ordered some from All That Grows.

Since 50% of the cultivation is going to be flowers, I wanted to get started with the seedlings.
I am planning on a small vegetable garden which would be mainly for our consumption or maybe barter.

Seeds From All That Grows 

I got some grow bags and some more compost to start the germinations. So this week I sowed the seeds for Lemon balm, Marygold, and Calendula. 

This week also happened to be the Diwali week. And I had to light a little lamp at our tiny farm with big dreams. It truly is a tiny farm with big dreams.  

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Seed Germination

Germinating Seeds Using Coco Peat 

Over the past few months I had read so much about Hydroponics and researched quite a bit both online and by meeting some of the experts around town that I really wanted to get down to doing it myself....yes I am a bit impatient.

I started my experiment about two months back. The developments at the farm were slow so I jumped into setting up my own Kratky system at home. This method of hydroponics is super easy and you can set it up at home with minimum investments. I will write more about it in my next blog.

But to get started I first needed healthy seeding.

I started by ordering some coco peat and seeds via amazon. Coco peat is an excellent alternative for soil. Because it is light and fibrous it allows air to flow and prevents moulds from forming. Moulds are one of the main reasons for low seed germination.

Received my packets of Cherry Tomato and Jalapeno seeds in a week and that got me going. I started by first preparing the Coco peat for sowing the seeds. As my Coco peat brick was quite big ( 1kg ) I broke about 2-3 inches from one side and put it in a small tub.

Next soaked it in about 1 liter of water for about two hours for it to swell. Before careful about not adding too much water. You can always add in a little water first and once it's absorbed if you think the Cocopeat is still dry add in some more. Coco peat on wetting expands about 5-6 times. So if you are using it for the first time break off smaller chunks, soak them in water and let them swell. Add in more Coco peat only if you think you need more.

Next, I divided the damp cocopeat into two containers that had transparent plastic lids. Once I had smoothened the fibers of cocopeat I started with making small 1cm holes. Next came the sowing stage for the Cherry tomatoes. I dropped in one seed into each hole and gently covered it with Cocopeat. At this stage be gentle when you cover the seeds. We don't want to push the seed way down. Gently brush the cocopeat over the hole to cover it.

Once I had finished with the tomatoes I moved over to sow the Jalapeno seeds. Followed the same steps as above. 

Then I covered the lids of the containers and place them under LED lights. In about 4 days the germination had started

Setting up the Germination Process 

Wait until the seeds have about one to two sets of true leaves. That's when they would be strong enough to withstand transplantation.

During the course of time that you are waiting for the true leaves to come out, you might need to sprinkle a bit of water in case the Coco Peat starts to dry out. Just ensure your water is JUST ENOUGH.....we don't want the Cocopeat to be runny at any stage. It should resemble lose fluffy damp soil