To Bee or not to Bee............

Howdy,

Welcome to my Dubai based gardening blog about growing vegetables in containers in the UAE and the Arabian Gulf region.

Ok, so I think I'm a comedian.  Anyway, I recently received a comment the other day on an older blog I did in April 2011 - What vegetables should you plant.    Bradder asked:  Hi, I have a question for you - I was wondering whether I have to pollinate my flowers by hand?  I haven't seen much in the way of bees etc (I'm in the Springs) and concerned now my aubergines and tomatoes are flowering that they will come to naught!  Thanks.

This brings up a point that I would like to mention.  Do not kill ANY honey bees as they are having a tough time around the world surviving for some mysteries reason as I have blogged about in the past here and here.   If some bees decide to make a home in your garden - just leave them alone and they won't bother you.  The little local arabian bees are very docile and you will learn to be able to get very close to them to observe them and they don't mind.  The only exception to this is if you have small children that can reach a bee hive and are too young to understand that the bees can hurt them - then try to find a way to make them leave without killing to many of them.

So, I'll get off the soap box now.  If you do not have any bees buzzing around your vegetables flowers then YES you will need to start buzzing around  some of your vegetables yourself if you want a better harvest.  It might bee a good idea to dress the part so your plants do not get confused as to who is handling their reproductive bits.

But, before you start buzzing your vegetable plants you need to know a few things first to take the sting out of it. :-)

Seedlings Dying?

Howdy,

Welcome to my blog about growing vegetables in containers in Dubai, the UAE and/or the Arabian Gulf region.

 I received a comment some time back that I am only getting to now unfortunately.  The comment was  "waiting for ur next post eagerly since this is a good time to start potting in dxb. i usually have an issue with my seedlings that i am hoping u can help me with. my seedlings are very weak and they dont grow more than 1-2 inches after which they die. any tips? i planted flowering plants btw."

I had and still have a similar problem in that my vegetable seeds never came up and/or the seedlings are dying off. So, I thought that perhaps some of you may be having the same problems.  Let's look at some of the possible causes of this.

Bokashi revisited

Howdy,

Welcome to my blog about growing vegetables in containers in Dubai, the UAE and/or the Arabian Gulf region.

Some time back I posted something about a way of composting your garbage at home called Bokashi.  I had voiced some concerns about using it for containers.  Well it seems a regular visitor to the blog has tried it and came back to me about it.  More after the jump

Onions

Howdy,

Welcome to my blog about growing vegetables in containers in Dubai, the UAE and/or the Arabian Gulf region.

I was checking an old You Tube clip to make sure I planted my onion seeds correctly.   I then came across an interesting clip about how to re-grow green/spring onions you might be buying in the store to cut up for your salads & soups.  So, I thought I would share it.

If you are interested in planting onion seeds or onion sets click here.

Thanks for stopping by!!!

dxbcharles

Part 1 - Planting your seeds - Pots

Howdy,

Welcome to my blog about growing vegetables in containers in Dubai, the UAE and/or the Arabian Gulf region.

Today I would like to write about the way I plant my seeds.  I guess there are just as many ways of planting your seeds as there are types of seeds to plant.  What size pot and what type of soil is best?  What vegetable seeds do I plant? 

I have planted several different vegetables seeds this time.  I used different methods depending on the seeds and what I have on hand at the time.

Back for another growing seasons!!!

Howdy,

Welcome to my blog about growing vegetables in containers in Dubai, the UAE and/or the Arabian Gulf region.

Sorry for the lack of postings.  Being  "IT Challenged",  I was having a very difficult time for the past six weeks trying to get to my blog to post.  For some reason, I was not able to get to my dashboard - no dashboard - no blogging.  I was pretty sure it was lack of my IT knowledge or something I did to my Google settings (Google seems to always be changing things - I am sure to keep us off balance) but that did not stop me from sending irate messages to Goggle blaming them for it.  Well, today - somehow - I managed to get to my dashboard - how I do not know for sure and hopefully I will be able to do it again!

Important Information

Howdy,

Welcome to my blog about growing vegetables in containers in Dubai, the UAE and/or the Arabian Gulf region.

 

I was googling for some information about vegetable gardening in this area and came across a 151 page PDF document  that came out in 2007 called " Growing Vegetables & Useful UAE Climate Information" compiled by Saqer bin Zayed S. Al Nehayyan. 

 

It is not about growing vegetables in containers but  it is about vegetable gardening here in the UAE so there is going to be a whole lot of helpful information.   It is very comprehensive, there is a planting calendar, all types of conversion charts & tables, temperture chart, Vegetables from A-Z and how to grow them, a section on herbs, a section on Hydroponic production ... as I said 151 pages of useful information.  I have not read the whole document, as I just found it, but I am going to download it and look at it when I have the time.  But, I thought I would share it with you now before I forget  to do it later (oldtimer is creeping in with age). 

 

Hope it is useful to some of you.

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

dxbcharles 

The AGRAME is in town.

Howdy,

Welcome to my Dubai based hobbyist vegetable gardening blog.

The AgraME exhibition in on for two more day ( April 2-4 ) at the Dubai World Trade Centre Exhibition Halls.  I went on the opening day to have a look around but did not find much of interest to me.  But for you hard core country boys & girls that love the smell of hay and like to nibble on livestock feed you will feel right at home.  There is a bit of everything down there if you just want to have a look around.  It is in Hall 6&7.  This is what I did find interesting however.

What vegetables should you plant?

Howdy,

It has been awhile since my last posting.  Various reasons - it is near the end of the growing season for me as most of my tomatoes are now dead or dying. My chili plants have made there chilis and I have harvested & given them away.  As regular readers know, I was really trying to grow bell peppers not chili peppers.

I am in the process of transforming my blog ( a summer project ) and because of the dusty weather we have been having I have not really been as keen as I should have been to work with my plants.

I did recieve a comment a couple of weeks back that I would like to share with everyone as I feel it might be something others could also be thinking about - what vegetable should I plant in my garden?

"the dxb gardener" is under going a transformation

Howdy,

I recently attended at Blogging & Social Media workshop here in Dubai by David Hobby of the blog Strobist during GPP 2012.  If you are interested in taking photography courses here in Dubai check out GPP's website. If you are interested in learning how to use your flash off of your camera check out David's blog.

One of his workshops at GPP 2012 was about blogging and social media - he had a few other course as well. It was a  great course but I felt it was too short - it left me wanting more.  It really needs to be a 2-3 day workshop to get some hands on experience.  Unfortunately for me, I learn by monkey see monkey do (with a few bananas needing to be thrown in).  I also want that safety net if I have a question right then and there I can get a response.  I KNOW there are places on the internet that explain it but if your a bit thick as I am when it comes to internet technology it is nice to have someone hold your hand and explain it. :-)

Anyway, back to the course.  David complied a list of 50 Rules to Blogging and Social Media which he handed out to the class.  There was a rule on the list that gave me pause and convinced me that I should come out of the closet ...