Garden updates- European Cucumber

Today I wanted to share the star of my garden at the moment- European Cucumber from geekgardener.
I sowed the seed on 27th December and it germinated in just four days.

After that, I have been watching the growth of this plant keenly. I have never been successful growing cucumbers- the plant gets infested with aphids, leaf miners and poor growth frustrates all my attempts to get decent fruits.
But, look at this plant-

I have grown it in a 15L container and it has grown to over 3 ft. There are female flowers on each node with two side branches. Geekgardener's blog describes European cucumber as a parthenocarpic type ie formed without fertilization and each flower will grow into a fruit. No messing about with paintbrushes for pollination, which I do for brinjals and even capsicum.
So, if you have a flower, you will get a fruit.





I have been keeping my fingers crossed for so many days now, spraying with neem oil and vermiwash. There is some infestation with leaf miners, but no aphids yet.
Finally the first flowers bloomed, four at a time!

And now the agonized wait for the fruits to develop well. According to geekgardener, it will take approx 14 days for the fruits to mature. So a fortnight of waiting and waiting!





Crossed fingers and all, I am praying for a full life cycle of this baby...
Happy gardening
Chitra

Basant Utsav 2012

Hi All
The residents of CBD Belapur Sector 9 locality celebrated Basant Utsav on Sunday 29th January 2012 with a lot of fun filled activities. The idea was to encourage the local residents to go green, spare a thought for the environment and follow the three Rs- reduce, recycle and Reuse.
A Plant and Flower show was arranged for display and competition in various categories. We had a good collection of Bonsai and cacti. I surprisingly didn't see many kitchen garden plants though a 4ft tall sapota (chikoo)plant laden with fruits stole the show. Workshops on terrace Gardening and How to recycle your waste provided the educational aspect.
Children participated with great enthusiasm in an activity solely meant for them- Create your own Green Land. It was a real eye-opener to view the task from a child's perspective.
A dog show was organised for dog lovers to show off their pets.
And for all, there were mouth watering delicacies prepared by the local residents.
A few pictures which don't really do justice to the whole event-

Plants for sale

Life's simple! From a kid's perspective

And one more

Yet another!









Happy Gardening!