Hey all! Zak here from Cape Town, South Africa.
Two great milestones of self-sustainability have been reached!
I have been growing, tending, and expanding my little veggie garden slowly but surely, and below is one angle showing the Basil, Rosemary and Bell Peppers doing well alongside some Marigolds.
I realized that while I have had some success, I have also made quite a bit of mistakes. I do not know everything and though I have done some of these things already, there are always more things that you can learn in gardening.
Is it not super important that we learn these things, do them ourselves and then to teach our kids about it? I think it is invaluable!
I then watched a video about Basil... well... many videos. People that were growing massive amounts of it and how to multiply your basil! I was very much interested in THAT since we are a family of five. We need a lot of food!
So essentially you need to make a cutting on a Basil plant that is doing well and cut below one of the nodes where there are leaves on the stem.
I did so and then put them into the water. The leaves that would be submerged under water was trimmed off and added to that evening's food!
There are two little plants in this mug. At first I did not see much happening. You need to be careful with where you place them regarding sunlight. The guy in the video had a growlight but I just have sunlight.
Too much direct sunlight and the cuttings would wilt. Too little sunlight and the cuttings would wilt. I ended up moving the Basil around to keep it happy.
Another thing I learned to do is to change the water out often, do not let the water just sit there and get stale.
Meanwhile the OG plants seemed to be doing fine and are continuing to grow!
This has been going on for a while now and I was not sure that anything was happening. I thought that perhaps I had not done something right or that the growlight was needed - in other words a more controlled environment. However... all I needed was patience!
Lo and behold! Roots have started to form! This little one has more roots than the other one.
So let me explain to those that might not know this: At each juntion where the leaves grow out of the stem there are rooting hormones and everything the little cutting of a plant needs to make itself into a whole new plant! Fascinating!
Why was I not taught this at school? Why were we not growing Basil plants all year round in one of my grades? This is why it should be known that the schooling system is teaching and training employees, not how to live this life.
More independent knowledge must be acquired! Do stuff yourself!
The other longer plant is also growing roots!
Look at these gorgeous tomatoes! They are huge, they are heavy and I know for a FACT that home-grown tomatoes tase 100 times better than the store-bought ones!
The tomato plants are looking a little sad. They got leaf blight, but I learned something there as well.
My mistake was simple: I used the same watering style on all the plants and therefore watered to tomato plant's leaves as well as causing splashing from the ground up. The mistake is getting dirt splashed up and that makes your tomato plant sick...
So at this stage my plan is to let the remaining tomatoes ripen and then to remove the plants and all the mold before growing new ones. I might attempt to grow new tomato plants elsewhere in the meantime.
That said, with Christmas and New Years and all that, I actually have not been given appropriate attention to my garden. I need to step it up! Much to do!
Until next time...
Cheers!
