Sunday, June 26, 2011

Growing vegetables @ office

Now that my home patio space is fully utilised, I'm growing vegetables at our office balcony. The space here is ideal because of the amount of sunlight we receive during the day.

We sowed a handful of lady's fingers seeds a week ago and they have all germinated. The pot is overcrowded, we've got to transplant them soon.

We put two brinjal seeds in the soil and they both germinated as well! All the seeds are quite old and we're really surprised by the good result.

The spinach seedlings are growing steadily. Just a week ago, they were so tiny, but they seemed to have shot up over the weekend.

Today, we added another new vegetable in our collection. I hope they'll do well in our balcony. Will keep you posted.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Easy peasy

You will be surprised to know that growing vegetables can sometimes be as easy as this. My parents grow the Malabar Spinach vegetable in their backyard. After harvesting the leaves for eating, I poke the stems into a box of soil and now I have my own tiny patch growing in the patio. So simple!

I seem to get quite a few of the wild spinach growing in my garden. These must be the work of birds who leave their droppings behind. I'm not sure these can be eaten but I usually throw them out as they grow too quickly and become a nuisance.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

More vegetable seedlings

Encouraged by the robust growth of chye sim in our office balcony, we started sowing more vegetable seeds. The kang kong seedlings proved to be the fastest grower.

These spinach seedlings are so tiny! So far, spinach that I've grown in containers tend to grow very slowly. They stay stagnant for weeks, sometimes even months, before shooting up suddenly.

On the other hand, those grown by my dad in his farm (on fluffy soil) mature much faster. I can only conclude that spinach is more fussy and will do well in well drained soil.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Pride of India

I couldn't resist taking pictures of the gorgeous flowers of the Pride of India tree (Lagerstroemie Indica) while walking my dog one day.

The flowers are so delicate, they don't stay fresh on the tree for long. I was lucky to be there at the right time.