We all will be happy and it might helpful to others too, if you keep updating (if not a trade secret) what you are doing with seeds, procurment process, custivation etc.
Every farmer in India is a born Scientist (age old information, widely non written in any books etc. but limited to Geography/area and community or language) as they work hard with limited resources and do wonder with crops.
Sure, when I grow them I will document each step and will post the log here for others.
Some of the things I learnt from growing things in rooftop garden during the past year,(here / eq OR)
Po.1 For one 12x12 grow bag best yields are when you grow one brinjal(not the egg plant variety but the smaller ones)/one Chili/one Ladies finger.
Po.2 For one 15x15 grow bag three corn/five radish/five carrot/four beetroot/one bush beans/two tomato.
Po.3 For one 18x18 grow bag one watermelon/two bitter guard/two cucumber.
For Po.1 and Po.2 and Po.3(bitter guard) you have to water daily twice, not saturate it with water but enough to keep it moist.
For Po.3(Watermelon and Cucumber) you have to water twice daily but also have to water a lot during the fruit maturity stages.
Po.4 After each growth cycle you need to remove the roots from the cocopit, what I do is first I will let them dry naturally on a flat surface and then use the drain cell as a filter and it will remove almost 97% of the roots the rest will be smaller ones which wont affect so I just let them as it is.
Po.5 The cocopit in the bag will compact after a week or two so you can add more or you can loosen the top 2/3cm of it by hand so as not to rupture the roots.
Po.6 When growing watermelon on a rooftop garden buy 18x6 grow bag(wide ones) and fill it with earth and put a drain cell under them. When the watermelon fruit starts showing put one 18x6 bag under each and let the fruit rest in them. Don't let the fruit rest on concrete or any other hard surface. Some say wood is good but I don't know.
Po.7 For tomato use the hydro phonics style of growing the plants don't let them grow on the surface. Use plastic cord or woolen cord(I prefer woolen cord as they wont cut the plant stem by mistake and kinds stretchy) to use as a support to grow vertically. Support from the top is important than from the side so arrange some kind of roofing.
Po.8 Add wooden chips or coconut shell on top of the cocpit inside the bag to prevent the dry cocopit from getting blown off. Here in Coimbatore the day temperature reaches 37c now so by mid afternoon (3pm) the cocopit will be bone dry even if watered in the morning, if not covered with wooden chips of shells then they get blown away.
Po.9 Water the plants before the sun rise and after sun set.
For the mix, I used 98% cocopit and 2% rocks or perlite. This method is costly but very light weight so I prefered this one.
For fertilizer I used vermicompost, The bottom 5-10cm is just cocopit and dosn't contain any fertilizer but the rest is a mixture of fertilizer and cocopit. I use about 400-600g of vermicompost initially and just before the plants enter the fruit stage I add another 200-300g of them.
I think I added all the points from my notes, will keep adding more when I grow the chili.
Regards
