Started seeding on the April 9th 2024
Here are my city version of planting trial. I got these biodegradable seeding pots from a hardware store. I placed ~ 5 seeds per pot and sprinkled soil lightly on top and padded. I seeded all 3 kinds of seeds (W,R,F). For now, I will keep them on my balcony or inside until the plants sprouts and get warm enough.
April 17. 2024
More than one week passed and I am expecting some sprouts. This morning, I finally see a little sign! The last days has been quite cold in Berlin (~10-15 degrees in daytime, ~ 2-4 at night) and I kept them inside in the room. I was not sure if it was too cold or too less sun.
As I see a little bit of sun today, I am experimenting this method. I saw some growers did it this way to cover with plastic bag/foil so the moisture and warms stay inside. I was afraid that it will mold the pot if I do this inside and did not cover until now… but since there is a sun, it may work. I will try this for the day time, and bring them in at night to the room. This week is predicted to be 1-10 degrees (where is the spring!!). I hope it is not too cold for my baby indigo.
April 20, 2024
After letting them into the plastic bag and getting some sun/warmth for few days, baby indigo started to sprout! They look still very fragile. I am keeping the plants inside at night, also opening the bag so it does not get moldy inside (I was not sure how much moisture I should keep). These are first batch of seeding I did. I hope the second batch is also sprouting soon.
April 27th, 2024
Accident! I am keeping the plants indoors in the living room as it is quite cold outside at the moment (2-15 degrees). Last night someone ate my indigo plants and pots, and walked around on the baby plants…. the suspect is here.
April 28th, 2024
Finally Berlin is warming up! It is predicted to stay above 20 degrees for the next week, and it is the time for the baby plants to go outside. Ingo has built a protection frame for the plants on our balcony, as we get visits from pigeons who likes to dig our planters and eat all the baby plants and seeds. The white protection layer is something I bought at hardware store (Obi), sold as protection layer for salad plants.
May 22, 2024
Ice saint time is over, and it feels like temperature is stable around 20+ in Berlin finally. The baby plants on seeding pots are growing nicely, and today I am replanting the first batch to bigger balcony planter. These planters are the ones with water reserve on the bottom. I got few used ones like this from ebay-kleinanzeigen. I will keep it on my balcony, which gets sun in the morning, but not in the afternoon. I wonder how they will grow.
end of May 2024
I have extended the “plant capacity” to maximal at my balcony, and also expanded to the “hof” space of the apartment. I was lucky that they let me place hochbeet. This one is from Bauhaus and is 120*80*20cm. I have also got Oya/Olla terracotta pot which keeps water in the soil and helps moisturizing in dry times.
Someone has been eating the plants at hochbeet. Not sure who…
June 2 2024
Plants are doing very well. it is surprising how quickly they grow after they get enough space and sun.
June 13 2024
It is growing very fast now!
27 June 2024
16 July 2024
Now the indigo plants on my balcony is about 20-30cm high, and since I will go to holiday soon, I decided to make my first harvest.
I have trimmed the plants to ~5cm high, making sure to leave a small leaves that are coming out. It is like a summer haircut.
I saw in the video from Japanese indigo grower that they press/roll the leaves after harvesting and hang it to dry, instead of chopping the plants and dry. As I do not have space to dry the chopped plants, I decided to try their methods. I hope my press/roll/massage was enough for the leaves to release enzyme.
Two days later, the leaves are drying and you can see it turned blue. Some turned more blue than the other… I guess this is the difference between”W” and “R” kind. I lost the track of which is which, but one of them has curly leaves and the color seems deeper green when fresh. Also it grows bigger in the Berlin climate. I am planning to take seeds from these plants.
For Sukumo making, only the leaves are used, so I separate the leaves from stems as it is dried up. The whole balcony plants are now ~80grams of dried leaves. It is surprisingly little!
14 August 2024
After being away for 3 weeks, I was worried the plants could dry up… but they are doing good. I guess it rained enough in Berlin (and thanks to our friends that our balcony pots were watered!). One plant on the balcony looks like starting to flower soon. Hopefully we harvest the first time from the backyard hochbeet and second harvest from the balcony soon.
7 September, 2024
The hochbeat on the backyard is fully grown and I am harvesting today.
I left few for flowering/seed harvesting. The rest is cut small.
I had hard time deciding if I would harvest this pot on the backyard or not… and decided to leave it for flowering. It grew tall but it lost a lot of leaves inside. I guess there were a dry time while I was away.
September 14: In the mean time, the plants on the balcony started to develop flower buds. Hopefully they make some seeds!
October 11: Outside is very windy, so I bring some of the outer layer one on the balcony to inner side. Wind drys them and plants seems to suffer from it. Otherwise it is till green and growing. I brought the one that started to have flower inside the house. It is also warmer here… But then it started to get a strange bug. I was told that is because it is too warm inside. Few days later, I brought it outside again and it seems to stop the bugs taking over the plants.
I harvested the plants on the balcony few days after this. I even forgot to take photos of it. Few planters were starting to develop flowers, so I cut only 3 planters fully, and left the flowering plants as it is.
October 29: The white planter in the hinterhof is growing tall, but no flowers. I am not sure if I should harvest this one now.
The hochbeet in the hinterhof is doing very good, even I did not water them for a while. Actually there has been construction in this part and I did not come check for quite a while. Quite many of them got flowers. I hope I can take some seeds from them.