Sprout Sprout!!

There's nothing as awesomatic and exciting as a little sprout, trying to resemble its fellow giant plants! Once you have successfully let a seed pop out, you can show off on your own terms! ;)

Sweet Pea Sprout- About a week old

Well, my show off session began there! :D

Starting a mini nursery!

Homemade Seedling Tray

Since in average sized houses like ours in Delhi, soil and pots are a luxury, its better to play with lesser soil first before shifting the seedlings to bigger pots. While going through many websites I hopped upon the idea of seedling trays. Before I set up my own seedling tray I was working on my seedlings in half cut 2l coke bottles, which was messy of course- 1 or two seedlings getting lost and found in small messed up rooms over and over again. I hadn't been lucky enough to see seedling trays in a few great of nurseries in Delhi, but was lucky enough to find a big tray lying on the top of our old unused TV and a long piece of sponge from a sofa makeover session a couple of months back. So I built one.

Kidney Bean Seedling- about 2 weeks old

My seedling tray has space for 15. Each square that I cut in the sponge is 3 inches in length. 500ml Soft drink bottles fit just as good as beer cans. Later on I figured why half cut beer cans are far far better than coke bottles. Bottles are funky shaped by the bottoms, they really mess up the roots of seedlings while transferring them in pots. Beer cans, on the other hand, are straight cylindrical in shape so the whole plant comes out with no damage in a single shake. And of course, if the tin cans can hold beer for years, they will surely have no problems with just a little wet soil. Although how drunk do the plants become in beer cans- I am not sure!

Seedling trays help in keeping an eye on all the seedlings at the same time and of course, making it easier to organize your kid plants. I had 6 beer cans when I made my seedling tray. Of course, I had loads of empty beer cans in the store but before the idea of beer cans struck me, I had already cut many soft drink bottles. But then on, I decided, beer cans and beer cans only! They are very easy on the roots of the seedlings.

The name "Paudhonwala" for a blog

Deciding a title for a blog and finding it very much available just for you on the web can be a matter of constant frustration or vague luck. I have had the whole idea of a specifically pre-planned blog dropped entirely many a times. People are creative, people are too many. Names are not available. Coming up of a title in your head in the form of a sign from God to grabbing it on the web is next to a miracle. Lately I have been a lot into plants, seeds, manure and so on. So much that my brother in law calls me a kisaan (which in Hindi means 'farmer'), one of my girlfriends just called me paudhon waaley a couple of days back out of early morning affection one can say! Well, that's more or less, from where the title comes.

In this blog I am going to talk about whatever I grow, whatever I get killed by sun or water or insects or monsters or whatever. My aim is to discuss in full detail the stages of my plants and seedlings.