Beginner needs help--gardening in Pakistan

[Architect]

Hello,

In my first ever batch of planting things july-august, I planted ;

Phalsay (local berry)
Cherry Tomatoes
Lychee
Lemon
Capsicum
Brocolli
Grapes

And they're all out - and growing at various speeds.

The lychee is really wierd, the leaves are okay as long as they're in the shade, but the minute I put them out in the sun they get brown and crisp... but they're not growing very much in the shade. So i don't know how to help them.

In the second round late october, I planted

Yellow & Red Capsicum
Spring Onions
Salad Leaves
Iceberg Lettuce
Spinach
Okra

This has been really dissapointing ! I got some new earth for these seeds, mixed it with the old - and sowed them at the right depth covered lightly and watered gently everyday - and usually i never have to wait more than 3-4 days for seedlings to come out - but none of them are out yet. Save 1 okra seedling and 2 spring onion seedlings.

It's really hot in karachi most of the year - and i've got these herb seeds that should go in nowish - because the temperature is 18-28. Is the new earth just bad - and I should sow these in different soil ? ... or could it just be that its getting cooler - and they're going to take far longer ?

Thanks for any help on these,

Best,
A

[rainbowgardener]

Well, I don't know much about your conditions there in Pakistan (incidentally very glad you found us and welcome to our forum! ) and some of those plants like the lychee and phalsay are totally unfamiliar to me.

But I can say that it sounds like a very mixed bag of stuff you are planting. Part of the secret to real success in gardening is learning about your plants and their individual requirements, which are very different from one plant to another. Plants have different needs for temperatures, light, water, soil, etc.

So in your late October planting you did spring onions, salad leaves (is that lettuces?), spinach. Those are all cool weather crops. 18 -28 C is 64-82 F for us benighted folks who haven't gone metric yet. That should be ok temps for sprouting those things, but it depends a bit on what your soil temps are. But it's still pretty warm days for growing them, they might not do real well and might bolt (go to seed) pretty fast.

The okra and peppers are warm weather crops. They should sprout ok now and do fine right now, and in general if it stays hot most of the time. The broccoli you planted earlier is another cool weather crop, that may have difficulty with your hot climate.

But I don't really know why your seeds didn't sprout; it sounds like you did everything right. How long has it been? This is just 11/4, "late October" could be just 5 days ago. You might just need to be patient a little longer and keep taking care of them.

[Architect]

Hi !

Thank you for your encouraging reply! I'd planted them 24/10 and excellent advice on waiting a little longer - they're all here. Minus the iceberg lettuce... maybe I need to wait some more for it.

I’m really glad I signed up for the forum. It’s something a little strange and exotic to do in Karachi – to grow vegetables…. And if I bring it up at afternoon tea, I’m more liking to get ‘awws’ and ‘wows’ rather than any helpful advice.

Pakistan is a large country – with … all sorts of climate from snowy to dessert - and I'm in Karachi. It's a sea side city, with lots of sun all year round - short burst of rain in august and slight drop in temperature in winter.

Here's a link to some information about those two plants – if you’d like to read up on them - phalsas - http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/proceedings1999/v4-348.html

and lychee - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lychee
The Lychee has reached a height of 10 inches as seems like its just stopped growing. Out of 15 seedlings ... I took some and kept them at different places in the house to see if different lighting conditions would help them - but they're alive and happiest in the shade. So... down to 6 seedlings and not happy to experiment with moving them again.

It is a very mixed bag of stuff isn’t it. It’s next to impossible to get vegetable seeds in the city, so all these things listed here are grown locally and ... there's a tiny obscure shop in an old part of the city that supplies seeds to individuals. The chap who owns it doesn’t have too much information he volunteers about it, so apart from graciously selling them to me... I really know not much else.

We've got a gardener who tends to all the other plants (not the eating variety) - and he's been really helpful - teaching me how to transplant seedlings... prepare a seed bed (all potted) et cetera. I don’t think he knows too much either about what the plant needs soil / sunlight wise. He killed two of my very healthy watermelon and a cherry tomato plant.

So where do I find information about what soil temperatures - ph - nutrients should be ? and how does one test it ? At the risk of sounding really ignorant, do I just use a regular thermometer, the ph testing strip of paper? ... I'm not sure if I can get my hands on any fancy equipment here. The soil is all organic - to the extent that its even delivered on a donkey cart! The gardener ( 'mali' in urdu ) organizes it and is pretty defensive about the quality of it. How do I know if the big bunch of manure I've got is old/new good/bad? Should I invest in chemical fertilizers ?

Also ... it's really hard to decide when descriptions read ' full sun ' 'part sun' ... I'm sure that varies... if the sun is really hot ? ... and... is part sun morning sun / afternoon sun?

I finally planted those herbs 13/11. Thyme, sweet basil, dil, parsley, marjoram, and lavender. Just watering them in the evening when I get home – although I think I ought to wake up a little earlier and water them before I leave for work. We're still at 64-82F or 17-27C.

Oh ... and I ordered some more herbs and salad leaves from Thomas and Morgan. They should get here in a month or so. I think they'll be more or a challenge to grow.

So far gardening is really simple for me - simply because its so hard to get any of the tough technical information. But it would be great to be a little less dependant on luck and a little more garden wise.

Thanks again !

A

[applestar]

Your description presents, to me, a fascinatingly exotic environment.

Let's see -- For cool and part shade plants, you could try setting up a lathe or woven shade above them. Amount of opening in the lathe/weave will dictate the amount of sun reaching the plants. Iceburg lettuce, in particular, tends to bolt - go to seed - very easily, and need to be grown during the cooler months like 50~68ºF 70ºF+ and pfft!

As rainbowgardener mentioned, different crops are suited to different times of the year, and there are appropriate growing seasons for them. Your 'mali' could probably teach you a lot. You're lucky to have someone like that to turn to. It would be interesting to find out what kind of edibles his family grows. He might also be interested in the kinds of vegetables you're trying to grow (and may appreciate it if you share some seeds with him). Something like watermelon, for example, there must be a local equivalent vegetable/plant. Was he aware that they are related and would have similar requirements? As they grow, they may get similar pest insects bothering them that he would know what to do about.

The seeds that hasn't sprouted, if you had added fresh manure, then sometimes, it's too much nitrogen for the seeds to sprout and/or it can burn the tender seed roots. Do you have a compost pile? One way to ensure that the donkey-delivered goods are garden ready would be to compost them for a while, at least a month.

Some gardeners are still in the thralls of the agricultural chemical revolution, some have always used organic methods that some of us are at last learning to respect, and some organic methods have been re-invented and improved upon. (Can you tell which way *I*m leaning? ) It's a good idea to read up on these methods and decide how you want to go about it. But as always, gardening is a process and there is always something new to discover. Good luck!