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 ...

News Alert: School Kid Gardeners

Howdy,

Welcome to my Dubai based container vegetable gardening blog.

I was out & about today and came across the Sunday, Feb. 19, 2012 issue of 7DAYS and found an interesting article I wanted to share.  The article is "Sowing Seeds for the Future".  It is about some students at Dubai International Academy, who are members of the school's Eco Club, and their experiments with growing vegetables at the school.  It is a very interesting article and you can find out more about Dubai International Academy's green initiatives at www.diadubai.com/ecoclub.

Just something I wanted to share.

Thanks for stopping by!

Bubba

Bell Peppers my @$$

Howdy,

Welcome to my Dubai based container vegetable gardening blog.

Well ...... to say the least I am bit pissed off  upset!!!  I wash my face every day and if I am going to go out and buy vegetable plants I even give it a pretty good scrubbing!  I look at it in the mirror and it looks clean ... there nothing else there but my ugly old mug ... so, how is it these plant vendors can still see "Sucker" written all over my face?!?

Does this look like a Bell Pepper to you?

Recent Comment

Howdy,

Welcome to my Dubai based container vegetable gardening blog.  I recently recieved a comment on one of my blogs I posted last year.  I thought I would share it as others may be in the same situation.  Here is the comment from Divya:

divyaFeb 1, 2012 12:45 AM

hey , im new to gardening and this blog is exactly what i was looking for. i just wanted to know from where did u get the tamater seeds? which shop exactly did you get the tamater plant from? there are many many shops at satwa plant street, do you happen to remember which shop its from? please guide me.

thanks , and keeping up the great posting:)

Blossom Drop

Howdy,

Welcome to my Dubai based container vegetable gardening blog.

As many of you know we have had some rather cool weather lately.  Some of you may have noticed some of the flowers on your tamaters and peppers have fallen off  or have not been producing as many since the start of the cool weather.  Both low & high ambient tempertures can cause Blossom Drop resulting in lower yields.  However, temperature is not the only cause of  Blossom Drop  But, it is the one factor I am going to blog about today.  If you would like more info about "Blossom Drop" and it causes then click here & here.

Strawberry Update

Howdy,

Welcome to my Dubai based container vegetable gardening blog.

Just a quick update on the strawberries I planted a couple weeks back.  If you read the other post, you might remember that against the advice of the folks in the video I left the fruit on two of the four plants I planted.  I just wanted to see what the difference might be.  Well, one of those fruit has turned red!

And of the plants I planted a week or so before these plants and removed any fruit or flowers is starting to make flowers.

So, maybe there is some strawberry jam in the future!!!

For those of you that have not heard the song for awhile and for those youngsters who may never have heard this classic!

Thanks for stopping by.

Bubba

Quick Tip #3 - Labeling

Howdy,

Welcome to my Dubai based vegetable container gardening blog.

Today I planted some pepper seeds that had not germinated since late Oct. 2011(more on this later).  So, I decided instead of throwing them away I would plant several of them in small peat pots and see what happens when the temperature warms up.  As they will be in with other plants that will need watering it is not much extra effort.

As I was putting the seeds into the pots ... I thought I could remember which seeds I put into which pots ... WRONG!!!  Of the 9 pots I planted there where two that were moved around and I could not remember which was which ... so I had to guess.  No big deal as I will be very surprize if any come up but just in case they do I would be nice to know who is who.  So, make your labels BEFORE planting seeds and then you can stick it in right-a-way and not afterwards ... guessing!  A couple of years ago I did not see these plastic labels around but they seem to be everywhere now.

Use a waterproof marker of course!

Thanks for stopping by!

Bubba

Container Gardening

Howdy,

Welcome to my Dubai based container vegetable gardening blog.

I recently recieved a comment from a reader name Sandra.  She was asking if I had anymore information about container gardening other than what I have posted already.  More importantly she also share a website with such information. 

Planting Strawberries!

Howdy,

Welcome to my Dubai based container vegetable gardening blog.

I have just recently planted my first ever strawberry plants.  Mrs. Bubba & I were in the supermarket the other day and she spotted some strawberries but decided against them in the end as we have been disappointed in the past with the sweetness or ripeness of them .... not to mention the price of them!  So, I was passing through Satwa a couple of weeks back and checked out the plant shops to see what they have in the way of vegetable plants ... no I was not looking for pepper plants!  I came across some strawberry plants, i believe, grown by a large local farm produce company as it was in a box with their name on it.  So, I bought three of them.

Are you suffering from BER???

Howdy,

Welcome to my Dubai based container vegetable gardening blog.

Are you suffering from BER?  If so, you need to increase your intake of calcium.

Administrative Blog #1

Howdy,

Welcome to my Dubai based container vegetable gardening blog.  Just a quick note - I have added a new archive to the blog.  It is called Archive by Topic. You can find it on the right side of the blog with the other listings.  When I set up the blog it started an archive by date which is fine I guess ( I still kept it ) but if someone wanted to read blogs I have written about a certain topic they would have to go through the whole blog to find it.  So, this new archive I hope will be more useful for those of you only interested in say - Tamaters or Peppers.

I meet up with Billy Bob last evening and he asked me why did I republished my old blogs?  Huh, what do you mean, I asked?  Apparently, when I was going through my old blogs adding labels to them so they would archive by topic I must have done saved them wrong and they were republished!  I apologize to past readers for this and welcome new readers to check them out - I reckon we can call this Ying & Yang!  It looks normal on by computer but perhaps it depends on the browser you use - I use Mirosoft Internet Explorer.

Thanks for stopping by.  Got more to blog about just trying to find the time - this two finger pecking on the keyboard is slowing me down! :-)

A big thanks goes out to Dale for researching the info on how to set up this archive.

Bubba

Pepper Plants

Howdy,

Welcome to my Dubai based container vegetable gardening blog.

Today I would like to share an email I recieved from Dan (with his permission) about his problem with his pepper plants.  I hope this may be of help to others with a similiar problem or someone can post a comment that knows what problem Dan is having and can share it with all of us.

Quick Tip #2 - Pepper Pinching

Howdy,

Happy New Year and welcome to my Dubai based container vegetable gardening blog.  I came across something today I wanted to share now as some of you may be doing the same as me. 

If you are letting your pepper plants flower to soon then you could be stressing the plant of nutrients and growth.   As the plant is now concentrating on making peppers instead of establishing itself as a heathly plant then you could find smaller yields and fruit size.