First aid to broken stem

What can a gardener do to a Roselle plant with broken main stem, who has shown great determination to continue staying alive for the last two weeks? -Splinting with chopsticks;)

Retro-parties for Portulacas-Gals.

These gals, they love to party, the 60s style. Look at their silk dresses!

These brainy-looking chaps are really, just average performers.

ID : German heirloom tomatoes, Riesentomate Aus Siebenburgen. Translated as 'brain tomato'. Indeed they look like lumps of brain...

Let's say, this tomato will make its presence as a talking piece, but hardly as a tasting piece.

So *strike out*, no more brainy-looking tomato plant.


Pic was taken before ripening. These are red tomatoes.

The balcony evolved...

120kg of pebbles, One happy kitten, and A slimming plan, led to the maturing of our balcony-garden.

The pebbles clearly demarcated the growing strips. Water drained out of pots flow right under the pebbles, keeping the feet and the paws out of the dirt. Thus, the balcony-garden are free to roam again :)



This balcony-garden started at the beginning of 2008. Took a few months to settle into the first completed look in this photo (last Oct), which I liked very much for its dreamy feel sans the congestion (which was a problem this year until The Slimming Plan was written).

The corridor evolved...

Then, it was bare. We lived with a naked corridor for half a year when we moved here.
Now, we rejoiced in the jolly entrances and exits to work everyday. Much skill and confidence were built up along this long journey, gathering up this neat little corridor-collection.

Pests attack our green-pets frequently. Strong wind had blown some down twice in the past. Blankets from above had flown down and broke a branch of the maple tree... yet, we are not dampened in our spirit.

Grow and flourish you will, kids!

Amusing fittonias

I have a soft-spot for fittonias. It started with the first touch at Maggie's garden, feeling the raised veins as I rubbed the leaves between the index finger and thumb.

Then I set eyes on This Fittonia. That must be Love-at-First-Sight! ...though gardeners frequently fall in loves without being able to identify the drive.

Dear Waimun, sweet as he frequently (not always) is, put together a box of four varieties of fittonias, now standing joyfully at the corridor (his designated gardening zone).

Thumbelinas- i cheer & i wept

Ms Togo Trifle African, such a beauty! Most heirloom tomatoes are. Wonderfully lobated... though I must say that some people think these to be ugly or deformed. Lol.

It will have been a tomato-feast IF all the few dozens fruits grew up to full size. But they didn't. The growing condition and hydroponic solution is right, flowers bloomed in abundance and loaded with pollens, fruits are bountiful. Yet, the fruits are merely little prunes (these are regular round tomatoes), and the plant started to wilt soon after the last vine of fruits set...

The fruits continued to ripen, hanging on the tomato vine, yellowed right to the tips. Amusing and saddening.


Good view of tomato hairs.

Photo taken a minute before green-heaven.

Wailing for our Laotian-tom

...who just broke his spine in a sudden gust of wind. I shouldn't have left him unsupported at 15cm. Full of remorse.

New era - Period of Toms

Changes bring new lifes!

I am excited with the new direction coming Nov. Then, new lifestyles spells adaptations for the existing. Kimi will have to adapt. The garden will have to adapt too.

The present balcony garden is slowing growing out of the existing planting list. We are downsizing the plant list so as to upsize the produces. Too much riddle? Simply, the new lifestyle coming Nov do not give me much time for gardening. Thus a very selective collection will be grown, and whatever is growing out there has to be 'independent'. Too much to ask for from pampered indoor plants? Not really! Tomatoes, cucumbers and many herbs grow wonderfully in hydroponic, which is so addictive cos working-time was reduced from watering everyday to topping up nutrients one/twice a week. There will be lots of heirloom tomatoes in future. And the rosemary, thymes, bay, lemon myrtle, pandan and curry plants in soil are happy to continue standing in lesser-sun and drinking only every 2/3days. The remainings such as mints and basils are really easy-going plants too.

So now we have (on the way) a balcony-garden with more walking space and less work :)

Btw, my dear toms are fruiting again. Looks like a bountiful harvest this round.

Joy-machine

Thymes are my Happy-Herbs. They witnessed some most enjoyable periods of my life- the Hawaii and New Zealand.

Bring them into our house is like installing a Joy-machine: Brush brush-> Sniff sniff-> Floated with sense of joy:)

Chrysoberyl

Chrysoberyl, a gemstone that's commonly known as 'cat's eyes'. See pic below for comparison ;)

A month's breezed past and I have no new posting. Thought I'll put Kimi up then ;)

We are counting down to a whole week in Bali in June. So plants that were take down (all due to 'natural expiry', none diseased), no replacements were sowed in their places. By now, the previously little and packed balcony-garden looks like its been on some kind of diet-program, obviously down-sized... And looking very much better now with less plant and more space, despite my unwillingness to admit this.

Harvested some veg- hydroponic vs soil

Grown a few rounds of vegetable on hydroponic, and am able to finally draw some conclusions on hydroponic vs soil media. I mean, these are nothing new, many laboratory experiences had been conducted to give experimental results... i just want to see for myself ;)

XiaoBaiCai on left is grown in hydroponic solution, on the left in soil media. At harvest time, the XBC on the left looks obviously 'fatter' & juicier = larger in size, thicker petiole. Kimmi-the-kitten sure knows her food too, she chose the hydroponic XBC. I can even hear the crunchcrunch as she chews on her salad! Good thing it is pesticide-free on our little balcony garden:)

I'd posted previously on the colorful silverbeet. How its impossible in soil media but grew wonderfully in hydroponic nutrients. Here they are, harvested.

Colors (2)

Silverbeet Brightlights. Pink and yellow petioles;)


In the 06Mar2009 blog entry, i wrote about them. Now they have already grown up to be big-kids, upgraded to their own pots.

Colors (1)

These fair ladies are cheerful additions at the door. They seem to enjoy the bright location (=no direct sun) very much, throwing out flowers continously since they came few weeks ago.

Orange & yellow dwarf Crossandras.

Balcony update

Our green-pets on the balcony are enjoying their lifes, generally.

Those perched on the low balcony wall get good wind and nice views of the communal garden downstairs.

The siverbeets especially, are enjoying their spa-bath while taking in the views out there.

Missy Picotees (the morning glories) climbed to get an even more advantages viewpoint.

Bay-sir grows himself up and out of the gap between the wall and railing.


All's good. The Hydroponic box of PakChoy (KY-early fr Known-You) was harvested a few rounds before being 'taken down'. Purple french beans are harvested too, and they continue to throw up flowers and new pods. New vegetable seeds are sown. Sweet basils grew up to 40cm tall, and upgraded to their own container. Ditto dills who stand in their own tub, perched on the low wall, looking out of the balcony.

... Except an unlucky chap, Bonsai-Shuimei, who's infected with black spots on the leaves. Skyfiery came visiting yesterday, smelled rat, and got diagnosis from Sixhunter that its probably black spot disease. Tat is a messy problem.

Poor handsome Shuimei got trimmed down brutally (ALL leaves n secondary branches gone), soil changed plus a root trim to downsize the root ball. He probably will take a long time to recover from tis brutal trim down. IF he survives :p

Today will be an April Fool's gardening day -making concoctions to spray down the plants from fungus-growth (in case of spread), and continue fixing the spider mites problem in the mint box.

Old grannies' tomatoes are flowering

They are known in their politically-correct names as 'Heirloon tomatoes'. But HT-growers know that they are (mostly) old grannies, slow to grow, takes their rocking-sweet time to flower and fruit; and production can't beat the new-age commercial tomato kids.

Yet we fall in love with their good old taste, and will wait patiently for our good old grannies.

Thought they are flowering now, but it is impossible to put a date on the calendar for that Togo Trifle African Tomatoes salad, and Fautome Du Loas Tomatoes salad... cos we'll never know when they are ready for harvest. LOL

Here's two Trifle African babies.

Textures are fun

Herbs need not be just an aroma-thing. Give the nose a break, and use the fingers some times ;)

Sage (above)
Lavendar Goodwin Creek (below)

A backpacker's garden

What does a backpacker do when she needs to hang a set of 4-feet growlight with adjustable height ever 20cm?

2 ceiling hooks, 2 S-hooks, long polyester strings, plus a couple of knots (Tarbuck knots, Trilene knots and Alpine butterflies)

Job done !

''Your jasmines are blooming, Munmun!''

Well done your first pruning-job, MunMun.
The girl went into full-blooms :)

Growing up in spa-bath

Different treatments for different plants. Some prefer mud-bath (soil media); others like spa-bath (hydroponic)!

My plants... hmm, still experimenting to determine who prefers what...

Pakchoy (KY-early from Known-you) grows faster and taller in my hydroponic boxes.

These are the happiest sweet basils I'd ever grown! ...in hydroponic too.

Silverbeet Bright Lights (from Mcgregor, NZ) is a variety that i had not been able to grow beyond the seedling-stage in the past. Note : in soil media.

Yet they look healthy enough in hydroponic, and should grow to maturity ;)

Mornings glories

It's Morning Glory Picotee, from Milkbone. They are just as pretty, in or out of bloom :)

Purpose of life for a cat

What's life if u have to live behind meshes and closed windows, even if it is to secure your safety? What's life if u get unlimited food without having to lift a paw? Yet u can only watch the 'outer space' beyond those windows, and imagine what is the world like outside this tiny 142sqm 'world' that u are not allowed to walk out of?

So do u, a cat also have a purpose in life? Or does your purpose lies only in my life?

What is Kimmi doing when Rummi is studying

The stepping-stool under my workstation.

Making plans to chomp down a balcony

4x2metres balcony is all we got. Did an inventory this afternoon. There are already some-34 varieties (see 'What's growing' on left column) of herbs, vegetables and fruit-vegs within this little space.

To maximise natural sun locations for growing, the double-tier planting rack has been moved to form a continous 4metres sunny-frontline with the existing heirloom tomato collection and suspended herbs rack.




Leafy vegetables -> Started; to expand.

Grown in hydroponic boxes. With 4weeks rotations, and harvesting 4 cooking-days a week, there will be a need for one more hydroponic box. What I have now is Pakchoy, Choysum, Lettuce and Silverbeet. Looking for Spinach and Kailan. Do drop me a note if u will like to propose more greens, or your prefered variety ;)

Root vegetables -> To research & start soon.

This catergory of edibles is completely new to me. Maybe grow some radish or carrots in a soil box? How deep should it be? What kind of soil media? Which varieties? ......

Fruiting vegetables -> Started; to improve lighting condition.

Im partial to heirloom tomatoes. They will all grow up to be giants. However, being indoor, I only allow them grow up to 2.2metres, after which, chop it down and grow new plant. Still, this arrangement is good enough to keep me happy with my little collection. Only problem seems to be that more and more sunny days have been replaced with cloudy (though equally high temperature) days. There is a need for setting up growlights to fill in 2 extra hours of artificial lights a day.

Amidst growlight selection right now... Once set up, the edible-balcony blueprint should more-or-less remains stable till 2010 at least. And I look forward to the exciting actions-days for the following weeks ;)

Divide the 'land'; together we will grow.

These are days of mudfish-morale : you know you are a fish, yet you can only crawl on your stomach on the muddy floor of the ocean-of-unlimited-opportunities.

To keep the morale afloat during this period where things just dun seems to go the way they should, i chose to work on one aspects of our life. Knowing and doing at least one thing right/victorious feels uplifting now:)


Now that Wm has chosen also to 'taint' his fingers green, we divided up our gardening area into two sectors :

- Corridor will be ornamental. This will be Wm's domain.
- Balcony will be edibles, thus strictly organic and hydroponic combo. Tis will be my domain.

Let life breath into our gardens !

Favourism killed the Toms

These are my precious heirloom tomato plants- expensive and scarce seeds, carefully monitored to grow to this healthy stage of plant's life. I spray down the balcony-garden with cooking oil and detergent mixed with water once in a while to keep pests in tab (or kill). Timing is crucial in sprays like that, strong sun rays will cook the plants through the oil deposited by the spray.

That morning, I took too long to feed and play with Kimi-the-kitten during her breakfast hour. By the time I sprayed down the plants, the sun is right at my tail, winding up the day with its best rays, which on this unfortunate day, will see the cooking of the tomato plants straight in their pot!

Here's a big blow to a gardener's work morale; an especially heavy one that came with clear knowledge on the burning effect of oil spray, and time of the killer-rays, yet I'd blatantly ignored them.

The Toms are buried with remorse. New seeds are sowed in their places. Hmm, will these new kids be willing to germinate for me after 'tasting' the unfortunate death of the generation before them... ...