Let’s look into the Topics Covered in this episode:
- Plant Purchase: Seed grown vs Cuttings grown vs Grafted Trees.
- Repotting: Should I repot immediately after purchase?
- 10 Golden Rules to Follow while repotting a plant
- Common Care Tips for Growing Fruit Trees.
Let’s begin:
- Plant
Purchase:
I am sure most of us might have this question in mind: Growing from Seeds vs
Growing from Branch Cuttings or Choosing to Purchase a Grafted tree. Which one
do you thing you should opt for?
First of all, growing from seeds is a great fun thing to do and we all have done it many times for gardening fun and experimenting. But the major disadvantage of seed grown tree is they are not “true to seed” – meaning they may not produce identical fruit tree and more over it might take ages for the seed grown trees to products fruits, but of course there are some exceptions.
Secondly, Plants grown from cuttings including the air layering method may produce the genetic clones of the parent tree. Fruit trees such as figs, pomegranates, mulberries and many others are generally grown by this method. But the major problem with this method is they do not have enough roots developed to support fruit production and more over there are only fibrous roots and no tap roots which are important for fruit trees for anchorage. Whereas Seed produced plants have a well developed tap root system and this concept is used in Grafting. The ‘root stock’ which is the lower portion of the plant with strong root system and the ‘scion’ which is the branch from selected delicious fruit tree which is grafted on to the root stock.
Having Said that, its time to choose which trees to purchase for your container gardening. It’s obvious that grafted trees, specially dwarf varieties are the best one to grow in containers.
- REPOTTING: Whether Purchased online or offline from a local nursery, people often have a misconception that immediately repotting a newly purchased plant into a larger container and a nutrient rich potting soil will make your plant grow like crazy. This is not always true.
Now let’s discuss some Very important points and concepts, that you must keep in mind if you want to keep your newly purchased plant healthy and avoid the so called repotting or transplant shock.
To answer this question, let us ask 2 QUESTIONS:
- When Do I repot a New Plant Purchased offline, that’s from a Local Nursery or Garden Store?
- When Do I repot a Plant Purchased Online? Like from nurserylive.com or amazon
Now, lets quickly look into the conceptual answers to these queries.
- If your plant just came home from a local garden centre or nursery, DO NOT REPOT IMMEDIATELY. Let it adjust to its new environment for few days or atleast a week before repotting it. This is because the Plants are already in shock at their new residence until they get used to new factors like light, temperature, and humidity conditions.
- Then in second scenario, that is when you purchase a plant online. Repotting immediately is the best solution in most cases. Because, it is very much likely that the plants would have travelled hundreds or thousands of miles and many days without any water or moisture before reaching its final destination. The plant will be going through a recovery period and an acclimation period during these days of transport in whatever medium the seller packs them in. So, Why let the plant re-acclimate twice in this situation.
- The 10 Golden Rules of Repotting:
Let’s quickly list them one by one:
- Water the plant the day before you plan to repot.
- Perform Repotting in the evening hours to prevent shock to the plant during sunlight that is the day time which is the active period for photosynthesis. Let it get overnight period of rest and recovery.
- To Remove the Root Ball, Gently Tap the rim of the pot to a hard surface like a table or a counter. This is to loosen the root ball instead of pulling it with force which can damage the roots or the stem. If the root ball resists to come out, run a knife between the pot and the root ball to loosen the root ball.
- Inspect the root ball for things like: any root worms or maggots, root disease and if they are root bound to decide whether you want to repot in a larger container or perform root pruning.
- Choosing the Right Container: For fruit and Vegetable plants especially if you are growing on terrace, choose fabric grow bags as your first preference. This is because they are not only light but also follow the principles of AIR PRUNING and can grow into healthy trees using this principle.
Then It’s also very important to choose a pot that is of appropriate size for the plant. Like, You should never pot a 6 inch pot plant into a 14 inch or a very large pot. Go Step by Step, Choose one or two steps higher, like 6 inch pot, you can plant in 8 inch or 10 inch pot and so on.
- Drainage Holes: This is probably the most important factor you should consider. If you do not make enough drainage holes at the bottom of the pot, your plant will stand in water and lead to root rot and death of the plant.
- Choosing the Right soil: . As a general rule use a well draining nutrient rich soil with atleast 30 percent compost like vermicompost or decomposed cowdung. To make it well draining, you might have to add cocopeat or peatmoss to garden soil in proper proportions. Make sure you also add stuff like bone meal or soya bean meal for inducing flowering and fruiting. Check the best Potting Mix recipe or formula from my post.
- Partially fill the container with potting mix and then place the root ball exactly in the center of the pot. Then add additional soil to cover the empty space. Make sure the surface of that root ball is below the rim so you can cover it adequately with potting soil or compost and also this good space for properly watering your plant.
- Gently tap the pot on a hard surface to remove air pockets and to level the soil from within.
- Finally After Repotting, water the plant thoroughly and this remove the left over air pockets and stuff like that. Then to counter the Repotting or Transplant Shock, you can follow these simple steps: Water the plant with Epsom salt solution weekly once for a about a month. The dosage is 1 teaspoon Epsom salt per litre of water. Finally keep the plant in indirect sunlight or under a green shade net for atleast a week, before shifting to full sunlight.
Happy Gardening!
Well, before I show you the actual recipe or the Formula for the making of our so called magic solution, you must know some Basic concepts. Please do not skip these 5 points am gonna discuss now. Will try to make it as short and as simple as possible, specially for beginners.
1. What do you mean by foliar Spray? Foliage means leaves! So the term foliar spray says it all, that is Spraying a liquid fertilizer on your plants foliage which aids in absorption of certain essential elements like calcium, magnesium through their stomata. Stomata are pores found in the epidermis of leaves which help in nutrient absorption and also gas exchange.
2. Calcium and Its importance: Calcium is the most important component of a plants cell wall. Hence for cell division and growth its indispensable, especially in rapid growers like tomatoes. So we will keep this point in mind and add calcium into our mix.
3. Magnesium and Its importance: Did you know Magnesium is the central atom in between four nitrogen atoms in the chlorophyll molecule. For beginners, Chlorophyll is the pigment present in leaves which is essential for photosynthesis – that’s plant food production. So we will keep this point in mind and add magnesium into our mix using our famous organic Epsom salt.
4. Soil PH concept: We have discussed in detail about the importance of soil ph in nutrient absorption in my video titled Ideal Soil PH for plants. You can check that HERE. Well! when it comes to foliar spray of fertilizer solution, its completely independent of the soil PH, because nutrients are absorbed through leaves.
- And last concept: Many Experts recommend applying egg shells andcalcium tablets to soil and some evenmake a smoothie juice or paste using all kitchen waste like banana peels, fruit peels and what not. This in perhaps unscientific according to me to directly apply to your plants. I don’t know! If you have any scientific explanation to this, please do write in the comment box. What I feel is why not utilize this idea of making this smoothie and keeping a dedicated heavy duty blender or mixer for this purpose for faster composting. Yes! if you are adding this paste to your compost bin and feeding your earth worms, this can accelerate composting process.
So you can utilize this concept of foliar feeding if your plants are not performing well despite all your efforts, care, fertilizing, watering promptly and what not! Many viewers keep asking the same question. So why not make it a habit of alternating your feeds – that’s fertilizing your plants once in 15 days with foliar spray to feed your plants. Because this idea is independent of soil PH value.
Now The Formula or the recipe of this Magic Fertilizer liquid.
I will quickly list out the ingredients one by one and quickly explain the benefit of each of these components.
1. Water: Nothing to explain about this universal solvent. We will formulate this recipe for 1 liter of water.
2. Milk: You can use skimmed milk or if available Raw milk is best. You can even use spoilt milk, butter milk or stuff like that. Use it with lower than 20 percent dilution in water that is 1:5 dilution. So you can add about 100 ml or 200 ml milk to our universal solvent. Milk is not only a source of calcium, but also an antifungal for treatment of powdery mildew and blossom end rot disease on tomato and other vegetable plants. It also kills many plant viruses like tobacco mosaic virus. In place if milk you can add 1 liter of a special water. Yes that’s special calcium rich water for plants. It s nothing but the left over water after you hard boil few eggs. The egg shells release a lot of calcium into this water during boiling.
3. Epsom Salt that’s magnesium sulfate which is a greatest source of magnesium and sulfur. This is easily available at a gardening store or at your local pharmacist and even online. So the dosage is max 5 gms or little lesser than a teaspoon per 1 liter of water.
4. Then the Most important ingredient for adding the major NPK elements into the foliar spray is COMPOST TEA. So, how do you make compost tea? Its really simple. Just Add a handful of decomposed manure or compost like cowdung powder or vermicompost per liter of water. You can make your own quantity of 2 liters or 5 liters depending on your garden size. Allow this to brew for atleast 1 week. Make sure you stir this atleast once every 24 hours to oxygenate this mix till 1 week. Then strain out the liquid using a cloth and use this liquid. I shall make a detailed video some other time on how to use some simple gadgets like an aquarium air pump to quickly make your compost tea.
Well, For now, Once the compost tea is ready, you should dilute this like 1:5 in water and then add about 1 liter to the above solution. Normally if you are using only the compost tea as a foliar spray, you need to use 1:10 dilution. But here we are making a 2.1 liter solution in total. I Hope you got my point!
That’s it, mix it thoroughly and load the spray bottle or use your electric sprayer or whatever and foliar feed your plants. Spray very early in the morning or late in the evening because leaf stomatas are well opened at this period so that absorption happens at its best.