Monsoon is here!! Time to grow!!

Summers have ended and Monsoon has arrived. It's that time of the year when humidity is high and temperature is warm(but not hot). These conditions make it fairly easy to grow anything. Be it any plants from seed. Or any cutting from plants.

I have started sowing some of the seeds that I had saved last year. I prepared the growing medium myself.
It includes Coco peat, compost, Perlite, Vermiculite and garden soil. For containers I am using paper cups and old plastic tubs with holes punched in at the base.

Soaking the medium

My experience is that if the medium is well soaked, then I will get sprouts very early. This time I got Gazania, Petunia and Stock sprouts in about 3 days!

Gazania sprouts

Petunia seedlings

I'm gonna take care of these little seedlings for now. Hoping they grow on to produce beautiful flowers.
Will do an update when they are big enough to transplant.

Collecting Seeds - Petunia

Petunia in Spring Season

 Well Summers are officially here. As temperature rises with the passing of each day, Winter/Spring flowers are dwindling away. It's a good time to collect seeds from spent blooms. I usually stop deadheading just before the end of Spring to allow production of seeds.

If you want free plants next season, you just need to put in a little bit of effort this season in collecting seeds. In the past I have had success in seed collection and producing plants with Petunia, Gazania, Marigold and Dianthus. This year I want to add a few more flowers to that list.

In this post I'm going to talk about Petunia seeds. Petunia seeds are very easy to collect. Allow the flower to dry up and fall off. After that the seed pod will turn from Green to Brown. As soon as the seed pod has turned brown snip it off and collect the seeds on a paper by gently pinching it in a twirling motion. Seeds are minute and Dark Brown/Black colored. You can get around 50 seeds from a single seed pod. Don't wait too long after the pod has turned Brown, else it will split open and disseminate the seeds.

Petunia Seed pods

Petunia Seeds

Once you have the seeds you can place them in a paper envelope or plastic bag, label it and store it in a cool dark place.