Weekly updates - October 31

Hey guys, in this part of the weekly updates, here's what happening in my rooftop garden.

A de-rooting of my 4 year old grape vine, which had been showing symptoms of stunted growth, because the plant had grown up to have a very dense root system, too much for the plastic container it was planted in. Even after my best efforts at giving it the nutrition it needed, there was not much happening in the right direction. A good enough reason for me to decide on whether I had to keep the plant with me (which obviously meant derooting), or discarding it for a new grape plant. I chose the former, sent on to remove it from the container, get rid of excess roots and then replant the grapevine in the same container, after changing the soil and adding some nutrition, compost, insecticides and such. Two days later, I got the indication that the operation had gone gravely wrong when all the leaves of my beloved grapevine dried up. Not really sure if this is the actual case, or the plant is in shock, after which, there's a possibility of having it bounce back to life. The good thing is, we had already removed and planted a small sapling from the grapevine, before proceeding with this operation, to ensure that we had the plant with us, just in case something goes wrong. This plant as of now looks good, though, has its leaves turning yellow and falling down, however, the plant is still green. If in the end I see that the main grapevine isn't responding, or is actually dead, I'll have to replace it with this new plant.

In other news from the garden, I've finally done a transplant of the two year pomegranate plant, which has been successful and the pomegranate plant is doing well in the bigger plastic container, than it was doing in the small earthen pot, it was born in. I'm still waiting to get a fruit this year, even though since end of August, the plant has seen two separate batches of flowering, but no fruits as yet.

My chilli plants which were having all blooms but no fruits for around two months now, have finally started bearing fruits, loads of them, after I decided to bring in some insecticides in my last visit to the plants nursery. The insecticide worked wonders, got the plants rid of aphids, and as red ants which came in because of these aphids. Twice a week I have to spray it on the plants as the aphids come back, and so do the ants, and which, I now know is negatively affecting the productivity of my plants. I'll just keep things in check for the time being, and expect a good harvest from the chilli plants.

Sometime back, disaster struck the garden, when a couple of squirrels started damaging my plants. I am not really sure what caused them to move down to my plants and start damaging them, when for these many years, they've been so calmly visiting the rooftop for grains and water we've been putting for squirrels and birds, pigeons and sparrows. A visit to the internet didn't help much. However an SOS call in one of the many gardening groups on Facebook got me some leads. One of the facebookers suggested me to use spare CD's and hang them in the affected places, which will probably ward off the squirrels. I tried this the very day, and I think I've hit success. The plants are these days seeing less squirrel attacks, though, I am still not sure if this is actually sorted out.

The coming posts will see individual updates on the pointers I've shared in this version of weekly updates. Keep gardening!