In Today’s Video we are going to look at a bitter gourd plant life cycle
We will see how it went from a small sapling to a full grown plant, how it bloomed flowers and how flowers transformed into ripe fruits.
After seeing this 10 minutes long video, you will have a more than enough information to successfully grow a bitter gourd in your home
We used a bamboo support to ensure that plant grew vertically. We used a big pot whose diameter was 19 inches.
Come, let’s see how we prepared the soil for the transplantation.
We emptied half the pot and added the soil mix, which was 50% ordinary soil and 50% coco peat. We also added a manure mix which was 50% vermicompost, ¼ cup seaweed extract and ¼ cup bone meal. We then added more coco peat to the space that was left at the top., Approx 10%, then completed the whole process by adding some home made compost at the top.
It’s very important to prepare the soil well before planting any plant in it because if the soil isn’t healthy, the plant won’t be healthy as well and will have a very poor yield in terms of flowers and fruits.
Soil need to be mixed well, so that it becomes lightweight and there’s more scope for aeration and better drainage of water.
After the soil has been prepared well, carefully transplant the bitter gourd sapling you have in the pot.
We just showed you the easy way to take out the sapling out of the pot. Just up turn the pot as shown and tap it edge. This loosens the soil and the sapling comes out.
The bitter gourd is a climbing vine, so we will tie one end of the rope at the bottom of the sapling and the other end to the bamboo support at the top. So that we can train the bitter gourd to climb vertically upwards. We did this so that it doesn’t occupy much horizontal space at the bottom and we can use that extra space to plant more different types of plants.
After the sapling has been successfully transplanted, water it thoroughly, especially since it’s the first time. This will help in removing any air gap in the soil.
The bitter gourd sapling height doubled in about a week.
There are many ways of growing bitter gourd out there, but we are using the one where we won’t let any side branch grow.