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).

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.

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.

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 ;)

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 ;)

Its delightful ! - more fragrance, more colors

This Xmas sees happy nursery-shopping trips with Renee n Waimun.

Renee is excited about moving back to tampines. She picked up loads of flowers, greens n hardware overnite to start her lovely little corridor garden.

And after 1 year of watching Rummi-at-work, Waimun starts to displays interest in what's growing within his compound. He'll like more fragrance, which sounds like a strange request from a person who wakes up with stuffy nose most of the days, hehe !!

I luv how the corridor look now, with the ornamental greens n flowers.

The balcony air is 'puffed' with Wrightia Religiosa and Jasminum Sambac... waiting for the combination of blooming flowers paired with breeze from the river. Here's pic of left section of balcony.

These 2 colorful pots of Pentas added splashes of colors to Rosemary n Indian Borage.

Maidenhair fern is a Pot-Of-Elegance:)
However, the two pots of polka-dot faces are under stress from repotting, some leaves are curling up at the edge, and some 'faces' losing their polkadots. Opps.

Here's a close-up of the little red lantern flowers on the hanging pot of Abutilon Megapotamicum, in the balcony. Ohh, its a conversation piece ;)

Jaminum Sambac is the flower that is used for chinese jasmine tea.

And finally, a pot of must-have =Wrightia Religiosa. After re-potting in small pot and trimming, it acquired kindofa bonsai-look;)

Pak choy -harvested

Here's KY-early Park Choy harvested and cooked into soup.

Seeds are from Known-you. Veg are short and compact (around 20cm tall), nice-stasting greens without fibrous stems.