I dont have a green thumb but love to see the little sapling growing and flowers blooming gives me lot of energy. I have just recycled some old water bottles to pot, have filled with mid. I saved few tomato seeds, bhindi seeds and Brinjal seeds and have sowed them once they dried. Could see tiny saplings (tomatoes only; no sight from the other two) sprouting up. I have two questions - 1) The bhindi and brinjal also try to sprout soo tiny and with thin roots. I sprinkle water very gently only yet they seem to be dying out. What should I do? 2) I put some onion peels and boiled potato skin peel, few pea pods into the pots. I see LOT of tiny worms in the pot for past two days. They are about half an inch length, white in color. I dont know if they eat the plants yet :-( but they keep coming out of the surface thus am sure it may not be earthworms. But still not sure. what should I do? If they are not earthworms, how do I get rid of them? Should I discard the entire lot and restart? I live in Delhi now the climate is dampy and drizzles every now and then with little to bright sunlight popping every now and then. These are being kept in balcony.
Don't put the peels in the pots directly. They are rotting .Remove them. Mix these in mud and make compost.Then put that in the pots. Are these pots in the sun.Keeping in sun might remove the worms. If you are sure they are not earth worms(they don't seem to be from your description) then try spraying a mix of water and soap (I add a bit of dettol too) on them . As for the brinjals...may be this is not the right season. Or may be you could get a thin spray (which sprays like a mist of water) for it. These saplings need to be supported with sticks . Good luck with your little garden. Don't get dis hearted by a few failures.Gardening can cause a lot of heartbreaks initially but the rewards are heart warming.
thank you yellowmango. Will do the soapy solution at once. as I said not much of sunlight now.. but when one comes I will keep the plant there. may be i will transfer the brinjal-bhindi stuff to a tray like area. I wonder if sticks are too early bcoz they just have two tiny dots of leaves and very very slender stem which I see one day but not the next day. I try spraying with tiny nozzles in bottle cap - is this fine?
I tried pouring soapy (handwash) solution. And have moved them to be under bright sunlight. The worms are ducking into the mud. After soap solution, they are trying to get out of the pot and they are not yet dead. I poured the entire balcony with the soap solution so that they cannot crawl elsewhere. ewww... Let me see... otherwise I will chuck off the bhindi-brinjal pots - anyway nothing is coming out of it.
I had this problem once Tuffyshree. I doused the pot with Agnihastra which is made from cow products, chillies and such stuff. It killed them off immediately.
Any luck with those worms @tuffyshri? Could you please post a pic of them here? If they are springtails, I read they are not particularly harmful to plants.
Sounds to me that those "worms" are maggots from the rotting vegetables. If so, they will do their thing for a few days, develop into flies and zoom off. Check out the composting threads...that is the way to go if you want to make use of peelings, etc.