Home Garden Secrets. Part 9

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

I would like to remind for indoor plant growing and a rich home garden, two more exotic crops such as kiwi and tea plant, or rather ordinary tea. Have you tried growing them on your own windowsill, and not somewhere in hot Asia? So let's give it a try

We grow kiwi at home

This plant will grow with us for a long time. The first fruits will have to wait for three to four years with proper care. But the main thing is not this, but the fact that we will independently grow an exotic fruiting fruit plant on our windowsill. We will not plant kiwi in winter, but we will have to wait with planting until summer, so that it will properly take root and grow.

For planting, choose a ripe kiwi fruit, soft to the touch, in the store. Wash it with plain water, cut it into pieces, mash its pulp with seeds with a fork and put it in warm water poured into a cup or glass. Stir with the same fork, let stand.

Drain the liquid, refill with water. Do this several times until the pulp is washed off and the seeds remain in the glass. Place them on a paper towel (nothing if some pulp fibers remain). Wait a couple of hours for the moisture from the seeds to go to the napkin. Now wrap the seeds in cheesecloth or a layer of cotton wool, put them on a plate, moisten abundantly with warm water, but only so that the fabric does not float in the water.

Cover the plate with cling film to help the seeds swell and place the plate in a warm place or on a windowsill where there is a lot of sun. Open the film slightly at night. Top up with a little (always warm!) Water in the morning. The seeds will be ready for planting in a week.

Now we prepare the soil for planting seeds. To do this, in a container for planting, you need to pour expanded clay with a layer of 1 cm. On top of the soil from a store for exotic plants, for example, for vines. It would be nice to warm up the soil slightly in a water bath (1-2 hours) before planting the seeds.

Make holes in a pot with a shallow depth, literally 5-7 mm. Put 3 kiwi seeds in each such hole. We cover with soil without tamping, pour it with slightly warm water and put it on the windowsill, where there is a lot of light. Cover the container with plastic wrap. Seedlings will appear on the soil surface in 6-7 days. After that, the film does not need to be covered. Seedlings should be watered with a small amount of filtered water. Remove any shoots from the pot that are poorly developed, weak plants.

Keep in mind that kiwi growth slows down during winter and watering should be done in moderation during this time. But in the spring and summer, you need to water the plant more abundantly. At this time, he has an active growing season and shoot growth. In summer, spray the plant with clean water.

You should also thin out the plant so that its seedlings do not interfere with each other's development. Leave only the strongest shoots in the pot. If these are still only small shoots, simply remove the weak plant by the root. Later, when the plant hardens, it will have a strong root system, cut off unnecessary shoots from it.

When each kiwi sprout reaches 10 cm in growth, it should be transplanted into a separate larger pot or another larger container, otherwise the development of the plant will slow down. Kiwi grown from seed will begin to bear fruit in about the third or fourth year of its development.

Self-grown tea in an apartment

This plant will not only look decorative in indoor conditions. You can also use its leaves and shoots to brew tea, the healthiest drink from your own grown tea plant.

It is better to plant this plant in winter. We will grow it from tea seeds, which you can buy in a garden store or subscribe to them in online stores. The seeds must be soaked in water for three days. Seeds that have firmly settled on the bottom of the saucer are not planted, since they will not germinate.

At the bottom of the planting pot, you should pour a few small pebbles or expanded clay as drainage, sprinkle them with soil and plant seeds at a depth of 4 cm in holes. Sprinkle them with soil and water so that the soil in the pot is just damp. Not dry, but not flooded either. You need to keep the planting pot in a bright place, for example, on a windowsill.

Seedlings will be only in three months. Yes, this is so, but tea is perennial and will delight you with new shoots for a long time. A full-fledged plant will grow up to 30 cm during the year. In a year and a half, with abundant light, tea can bloom. At the same time, the flowers crumble, and tea fruits in the form of small nuts will appear in their place.

After three years, the tea bush should be transplanted into a larger container. In the summer, put the pot with it on the balcony. When stretched to length, the tea "tree" is pruned as it is more convenient, giving its crown and appearance the desired appearance.

As a top dressing for tea, manure diluted with water is used, complex fertilizers for indoor plants. When the tea leaves from the plant will be used as food for making tea, do not feed the plant during this period.

The tea plant is practically not susceptible to diseases, attacks of pests. In two years, it will be a plant rich in tea leaves, from which you can use not only the leaves themselves for brewing a drink, but also the shoots that are the most delicious and valuable in terms of their vitamin composition.