Topic: Curry Leaves

[mickyp]

During nice weather keep it outside, use citrus feed in the water each time you water it and let the soil dry before watering, they dont like wet feet. If its cooler than 4 deg c at night i bring my plant into an outside building. Next year in the spring cut it back to induce more growth, good luck

[vinotinto]

Thanks Micky.  Phil - if it ever turns into a tree I'll send one out to you 
 

[mickyp]

I have tried taking cuttings without much success, however when you get shoots from the roots they are quite easy.

[vinotinto]

OK thanks Micky I was going to try it.

[George]

Nearly 2 years after my previous attempt, I bought some further curry plants from sellers on eBay and am having another try. The first two plants were from the same seller and are relatively small. The other two plants are something like four times the size, from a different seller. Three are being grown in soil. I am experimenting by growing one of the smaller plants in nutrient solution (hydroponics) in a beer tin. I think some people here previously mentioned the idea of getting cuttings to root from grocery-sourced curry leaves. So I tried that, too. Only one stem has sprouted some roots, in water with air bubbles for oxygen, and I don't know if this will lead to some new growth higher up. Far right in photo. My house is now between 3C and 5C so the cutting and plants are in a chamber I made. It is heated to 20C and has a small LED based growing lamp. That's where the colour come from in my photo.

[George]

Here's a further photo, just over 4 months after the previous one. For anyone who likes the flavour of curry tree leaves, the plants are recommended and quite easy to grow.

[Robbo141]

Looking good George. Curry leaves are great in some dishes and I’m looking forward to planting season for those and chillies galore.  Let’s see pics of your curries with them?

Robbo

[George]

Robbo - I have only used curry leaves bought from an Asian store, in cooking so far. I will wait a while longer before trying leaves from my relatively young plants. In June, at the start of the brief British summer, I will put them outside in a greenhouse. My aim is to see if I can get them to flower and produce seeds, so I can try to grow even more plants.

[foureyes1941]

After being given a couple of curry tree seedlings from the bottom of her huge curry tree that my friend in Goa presented to me, I brought them home and have had them on the window sill where one is doing better than the other about the same size as yours George. My moan is that I can never get them to grow large enough to enable me to take enough leaves from them for the amount of curries I cook.A previous specimine I had which was larger got covered with tiny red mites and was discarded after being unable to eradicate them. I will persevere as I love the smell of curry leaves.

[George]

Update: more than two years after my previous post on this thread. All but one of my curry tree plants have died. For a start, none of them grew a very dense root system. I'm not even persuaded that my variety of curry leaf plant has aromatic leaves. I gave up using energy to keep them warm in a heated chamber.  Last winter, and so far this summer, the two surviving plants were being grown hydroponically in nutrient solution. But they can't have liked the winter temperatures, down to almost freezing in my house. Not only did the leaves all fall off but the branches fell off, too, leaving simple upright stems, now 4 or 5 years old. I think one of the two plants has now died. The remaining one is growing new branches and leaves fast and there is a new plant growing out the bottom of the pot.