Saturday, September 26, 2009

Amazing rose


I brought back some small rose stem cuttings from my parent's place several weeks back and simply chucked them into a pot of soil. Small leaves started sprouting from the twigs. This plant is barely 10cm tall yet a beautiful rose has already blossomed. Quite amazing really.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Harvest time


Some snails have gotten to my kai lan before I did. Some of the lovely leaves have been chewed up but that won't stop me from making a stir fried dish for dinner tonight. In case you're wondering, I'm cooking the vegetables, not the snails!

Sunday, September 6, 2009

An edible garden

Like the plants in my garden, I need plenty of sunlight in my life. Lately the sun has been creeping back slowly and I am feeling alive once again, so much so that I've started scattering vegetable seeds with wild abandon.

Gardening teaches one to be patient and I still have much to learn. As a result of my impatience, I don't often give my plants sufficient time to prove themselves. Take my frangipani stems for instance. I got tired of waiting around for the shoots to appear, I threw 6 pots away. The one that got spared is now producing shoots after many months.

I'm now tempted to throw away the sickly chilli plants in the corner. The leaves are curly and diseased from the lack of sun. I wonder if they can wait around for the sunlight to creep back and make them strong enough to fight all the pests that have been sucking the life out of them.

On the other hand, the chilli plants in the sunny area are doing so well, they are starting to produce fruits.

Some plants like the pennywort simply thrive in the shade. When I brought it home, it was small and limpy but this unimpressive plant has grown by leaps and bounds, it is outgrowing the container.

When I saw Petunia's blog about gotu kola or pennywort, I pinched myself for my impatience. After learning about the bountiful benefits of this plant months ago, I chewed the bitter leaves for several days only to drop out of this regime soon after.

Now that I am reminded of the wonders of this plant, I shall chomp a few leaves daily for the sake of my complexion and health. In fact, I found another species of Gotu Kola while I was out hiking recently and brought a small specimen home and plonked it in a pot. It is showing signs of growth albeit too slowly for my consumption.

The 'pai chai' seeds that I scattered a week ago have germinated.

Don't you think the seedlings are so cute! This is my first attempt at growing this vegetable.

I sowed some kang kong seeds and they've all germinated too. That means the seeds are still fresh.

The kale are about 3 weeks old now. Due to over crowding, they're growing untidily in the small container. They should be ready for eating in less than 2 weeks.