Following the progress on the Gooseberries and the Papino's in the Nursery

It is hard to imagine that just a few months ago this beautiful plant was nothing more than a tiny seed.

These seeds of these papino plants were readied for germination about three months ago, and I bagged them out into individual bags as tiny seedlings just over a month and a half ago and left them under 50% shade for about 15 days, since then the plants have been moved out into the a sunny area with partial shade in the late afternoon, and this was done with the idea of strengthening the plants up in order to ready them to be planted out into full sun at a later stage, as you know the African sun can be really harsh at times, and if seedlings that have been germinated in a nursery environment are not gradually introduced to their new environment you might end up with a much lower survival rate on the plants once they are planted out.

Above you can see the progress that's been made through the different stages of this plants life. So far this plant has not required any insecticides or anything thus far, and they have been pretty resilient to whatever nature has thrown their way - and I am left very happy that I can host lovely, strong growing resilient plants thus far.

And then of course there are the gooseberries - these are taking a bit longer as far as the growing goes - these were planted from the fruits of a mother-plant and the germination rate was exceptionally well.

I planted these seedlings out into individual bags about three weeks ago, and they are developing at a reasonable pace - these plants will be moved out to the net-house soon, and be grown under 40% shade in order to increase productivity. They will be planted out alongside other berries, such as elder berry & blueberry.

The mother-plant, although doing very well and baring constant fruit thus far, ended up getting a few spots of white fly a short while back - and for this I sprayed her as well as the young seedlings with a home made concoction that works very well as a natural pesticide and insecticide for most plants.

I used about 5ml of bio-neem oil and 10ml of bicarbonate of soda to one litre of water, then added a few drops of dis-washing liquid, and lightly sprayed the leaves with that, this took care of the white fly on the plant, and also served as a pest deterrent on the seedlings.

Please not that some plants may be a bit sensitive to this mixture, what you can do, is do a spot test with that mix on one of the plant leaves then, leave it for about an hour and see how the plant responds - if the leave shows any negative signs after spraying - simply add more water to your mixture to dilute it.

“A seed neither fears light nor darkness, but uses both to grow.”
― Matshona Dhliwayo