Hi All,
Woolies currently have that discovery garden giveaway. So we decided to try it out as it is a fun project with kids. Now some of them has grown taller and it seems that it is time to move them to bigger pot. We live in apartment so we do not have a garden bed and planning to use a pot instead. As we are new to planting, any advice on below from seasoned gardeners out there?
- Is it better to have one pot for each plants or it is also okay to get a long rectangle pots and put different plants side by side (considering space when they grow) within the same pots?
- For potting mix, any recommendation on a good one? Preferably the one with fertilizer so that we do not need to keep adding them (lower maintenance).
- For potting mix with fertilizer, I assume one day the soil will runs out of the nutrients/fertilizer. Any recommendation on the fertilizer? Is there a different fertiliser for different plants (e.g. flowers vs root vegetables vs fruits vs herbs?). Can we use food compost here instead of fertilizer?
- Any advice to prevent infestations or animals eating the plants (Birds, spiders, insects, roaches?) e.g. Is building a mini net over the pots necessary? Any advices on these?
- In parallel, we also started with regrowing plants from some of the greens' root that we had (spring onion, celery, etc). I heard regrowing celery is a waste of time as it should be more for fun project rather than expecting a good harvest from it. Regrowing celery? Any other plants that would be on similar boat of "Waste of time" when it comes to expecting a harvest?
- Any other advices for the first time planters like us?
Ps: I did try to grow chillies from seeds in the past. It grows during the first summer. However, the leaf wither and the small stalk coming from the soil did not survive the winter. I only watered them in the past. Now i learned that that a plant require fertilizer, doh!
Many thanks for the advices.
Regards,
Novice Gardener
I think you're massively overthinking this for basic plants, especially for an apartment setup. Individual pots are definitely better to avoid roots tangling and plants competing for nutrients but you can certainly plant them in long pots with sufficient spacing (generally 20-30cm spacing is recommended).
Any soil with built in fertiliser is generally fine. Don't think there's any exotic or special needs plants in that collection (e.g. succulents or orchids would need special soil). It's not 100% required anyway but will certainly help grow larger, healthier and heavy cropping plants. For indoor pot plants, just get a liquid feed and add it as per instructions when they start to fruit/flower. A general purpose one is fine.
If you need to protect plants from "birds, spiders, insects, roaches" in an apartment, then I think you have bigger problems there.
Don't overdo it and spend tons on very basic plants that are unlikely to survive long. You're not getting top quality heirloom seeds with the Woolworths freebies.