Produce that I don’t have to buy anymore

Maintaining the edible garden to always be in good shape is challenging lately because of the return-to-work albeit alternate weeks. It survives so far nevertheless and I am proud to say that I no longer need to buy the following from the market. I have sufficient fresh supply of them.

• Ginger
• Tumeric (and its leaves)
• ‘Ulam raja’
• Curry leaves
• ‘Daun kesum’
• Aubergine
• Green vegetables like spinach & pak choy
• Kaffir lime leaves
• ‘Limau nipis’
• ‘Daun pandan’
• ‘Cili padi’
• ‘Daun sup’

Quite a number for such a small garden. Proud.

Experimenting with upside down planting

This is an option when space is limited where we can not only look at the ground for the needed planting space, but also the space above the ground.  Using used bottles that are cut into half (or quarter depending on how much soil do you want to put), we insert seedlings into them such that the leaves pass through the opening of the bottles like below.  We then create the holes such that the bottles can be hanged.

Day 1: 17 July 2021

Used bottles are abundant at our house and we have this one kaffir lime that has grown so big with lots of branches and twigs such that it offers lots of room for hanging the makeshift pots.  So I have no reason not to give this a try.  Note that this technique is only suitable for plants that creep or climb.

Stages of a long bean

This is what, among others, keeping me occupied during this work from home period.  First thing every early morning before starting my office routine, I wake up looking forward to see the progress of each plant that I grow.

Long beans grow at dedicated stem, different from where the big leaves are.  The stem shoots from between the main stem and the stem of the leaves.

Flowering

Like most other vegetables, it will first flower.  Once bloomed, the flower will fall and you will see the tiny little bean like below.  

Blooming

Drooping before falling

Tiny long bean appearing

Mandarin orange anyone?

After the successful attempt with lemon, well, at least so far, my edible garden adventure continues with another species in the series, mandarin orange.  A pack of them bought recently tasted so naturally sweet unlike others before.  So I decided to try to grow some.  

I collected some 12 seeds from one orange.  I dried them under the sun for a while, the same technique used for the lemon seeds last time.  I peeled three of them and left the rest as they are.  Just to see if this makes any difference.  Experiment.  As usual.  Scientist at heart.  I then covered them with moistened kitchen towel folded according to my creativity and put them in a not-so-tight container for about two weeks to hopefully germinate.

The 12 seeds

The reused container

Putting it on the blog also helps me to keep track of the important dates.  So next update would be by the end of the month, some two weeks from now.

'Ulam Raja' at our edible garden

After a year of dealing the with the COVID-19, it looks like we're all going to return to the office beginning next week.  So ...  No 'new normal' I guess.  Everything will be back to where it was before COVID-19 struck.

While still having some spare time early in the morning due to the work form home, I am experimenting with Ulam Raja, less famously known as Cosmos Caudatus to be a new edition at our edible garden.  Trying to grow them from the stems, after a friend successfully did it.  Yes, the English garden that we once had has now turned into edible garden, which I think will be more beneficial economically 😊

Below is the progress of this experiment.

Day 1.  Not so promising, except perhaps one stem

60 days later on 2nd June 2021

We officially have Ulam Raja at our garden and they have offsprings!

90 days later on 2nd July 2021

So full of Ulam Raja that we can barely see the ground.

Stone painting

This is one of my very few DIY projects for the garden.  I have twelve river stones, ten of which are being been used to create border that separates the grass and the gravels.  The remaining two are randomly placed in the garden.

Two are heavily covered in moss and need cleaning

I had recently managed to transform one of the remaining stones into an artwork that is not that artistic at all.

Before ...

    

Base colour done

Painting began

After ...

It is now nicely placed at the still and will forever be in progress English pocket garden at our house.

Excuse the background.  The wall is in dire need of repainting.

Wordless Wednesday #3

It's spring in our little garden!

We don't have 4 seasons in Malaysia for sure.  And lately we only had downpour and drizzle.  However, when all plants in our garden are blooming, that's what I call 'spring'.

An angle that can show most of the flowers

The yellow roses, miniature daisies and orange bougainvilleas

The purple rose

The orange, pink, peach and red roses

The purple wishbone flowers

The peach roses again ...

So full that a stem can have up to five blooms at a time! 

The red roses

And the bright orange hibiscus

Due to the space constraint (sob ...  sob ...), I had to place the hibiscus and the other bougainvillea outside the fence.  They are still thriving though, because they still get the same love and care.  The roses apparently need dead heading soon.

My peach roses

My peach rose plant has grown so much, after just a few months.  It flowers a lot too.  A stem usually has three buds.  Some even have five!

Was ...

Now

It suffered from a bout of thrips attack recently and fully recovered now, Alhamdulillah.  I could hardly spend my evening in the garden lately due to the unfriendly weather.  It rains heavily during late afternoon, leaving the soil wet in the evening.  I don't like gardening when the soil is wet.

Roses in the garden

Roses in the garden are doing fine so far.  Please continue to thrive in our garden, under my care :)

Three on the still-in-progress flower bed

Two in the pots

One (at the far end) is yet to be transplanted

I didn't plan to buy the last one.  Five rose plants to me are more than enough to keep my hands full.  But I just couldn't resist its beautiful, bright yellow colour with large petals.  And sold at only RM8.  So here it is, waiting for the second round of bloom.

Blooms of the first round

New shoots coming up



My wish list for the garden

I have no specific theme for our little garden.  However, I notice my inclination towards English garden.  I think it is cute and it suits my taste.  Not long after, I found myself in the lookout for the following items.

Wooden wheelbarrow planter

Urn planter

To have a complete English garden is costly.  Therefore, I am going to dedicate just a section of the garden for this. I am going to place garden fence, wheelbarrow planter, urn planters, hanging sign post, hanging planter, solar lantern and large white pebbles there. Sounds too many? We'll see the result later. Hopefully soon.

The making of a raised flower bed - the sequel

After a month of part time hardwork, the raised flower bed is finally taking shape.  It was not without compromise though. The retaining wall blocks that I thought were perfect for the flower bed of my dream was found to be too big for our little garden.  When I was about to give up, stop dreaming and accept the fact that I have to resort to using the ordinary bricks, my handsome little brother shed some light into the dashing hope by sending me this photo.

Credit to Genius Greenway Sdn. Bhd.

They are called the IBS interlocking bricks.  Well, I thought that they are at least better than the ordinary bricks and I should give them a try.  A series of short messages and replies led us to Jalan Jelebu, Pantai, Negeri Sembilan where Genius Greenway Sdn. Bhd. is located.  It was about an hour drive from our house.  With the help of the GPS and of course, my beloved husband, we managed to locate the place and met the owner, whom I forgot to ask the name :( but whom hospitality and courtesy we would never forget.  He took us to the production site after listening to our intention of coming there and looking for the bricks.  To make the story short, we came back with 30 wall bricks, 16 curved bricks and 3 half bricks after paying a total of RM72.

It took us another one week or so to stack the bricks together according to our plan and by the end of last weekend, tadaa !!!

The still incomplete flower bed

It is still very much under construction.  I need to clear the existing soil in the flower bed from stones and dried grass before it can be filled with fresh soil from Sungai Buloh.  That will probably take another month to complete!  Ha ha ha ...  But at least, 80% of the hardwork was done, I guess.  I will post the final part of this raised flower bed story when its construction is complete, Insya-Allah.

The making of a raised flower bed

There is this one area at a corner of our little garden that I have cleared up and uprooted all the grass.

It was hard work, no kidding.  But with proper tools, it was bearable.  The plan is to have a raised flower bed, something like below, but not in a circular shape of course.  However, until now, which is more than a month since the project started, the flower bed is nowhere to be seen and the corner remains bare.

I have difficulty in finding the kind of stones that I want.  I guess I was searching using the wrong term.  Only recently that I got to know the right term for such stone.  It's called the retaining wall block.  Hope to be able to give some positive updates on this soon :)

It's white rose

I think the bud is taking a longer time than usual to open. As if it knows that we are eagerly waiting to see who would be the winner of the guessing game. I was beginning to wonder if it will ever bloom at all. There was no sign of thrips attack though. Hopefully it is just the gene.

Finally ...

A peach rose

Here we are. Not fully bloom yet, but already revealing its colour. It's light peach. It may turn white when it blooms. So, the winner is ... Along!  Clap, clap, clap. 

Presenting the first bloom in our little garden ...

From bud to bloom

posted from Bloggeroid

Guessing the colour of roses

I bought a small rose plant that day.  It was amongst the three pots of roses left in the nursery.  The soil was dry and I think it was going to be on the to-be-disposed list.  I managed to get it for the price of RM 7.  A bit expensive and not worth it maybe, but hey, this is not Sungai Buloh okay.

Fresh from the nursery

There was not a single bloom when we bought it.  After a week, it has started to have buds and shoots.  So we played a guessing game yesterday.  Along guessed that the colour of the roses is going to be white.  Angah said that is will be red roses.  And Achik said it is going to be pink.  We'll see ...  Hopefully we will be able to see the result in a couple of days.  I am kept in suspense too!

After a week