Tomato - Two months into rainy season...

The tomato sprouts well during this rainy season, much the same like all other plants in my garden. Their stems are still very soft though, so probably still a long way to go... I will keep updating this space for any progress. And I still haven't found the tomato heirloom seeds I was looking for, these are the ones I planted from seeds earlier.

Tiny tomato plants...

Roselle Update - 2 months after being moved to garden bed...

I woke up one morning and saw one of the Roselle plant actually had a broken stem, and the shoots fell flat. I wasn't sure what caused the stem to break and fell, but I am pretty convinced there's some tiny hands involved :)

So that happened...

That aside, the other surviving Roselle now has hardened stem and more branches sprung out. I still haven't decided what to do with all the flowers, so til next update...

Pumpkin

We had a few pumpkin sprouts in a tray that were growing so well. After a month I started moving them to our garden bed, surrounding Roselle plant in  a circle. Not long after, the pumpkin vines started crawling out in the garden big space and even into the drain! *which vines I had pulled out back on to the ground*. Excited and can't wait to see how these turn out :D

pumpkin plants at home...

Trips

During the long holiday on Eid's week we made a trip to nearby organic eco farm, a walking tour in a big group of tourists and visiting locals. Loved how the organizers keep the tour interesting while still surrounded by plantations and veges alike... As a daily coffee consumer, seeing coffee beans live on trees were just amazing! Not to mention fig tree as i had only known them from Nigella cooking shows.

Some pictures from the trip of the plants i had never seen before, and snapshot of the gardening activity :)

We were just amazed with all kinds of well planned activities in the itineraries. From crossing the river on hanging bridge and flying fox, to feeding the rabbits with the wild plants in the farm, to hands-on gardening activity where each group or family allocated to a tiny plot of land and there we get to harvest salad and water-spinach to bring home. It was humid, sunny, sweaty, and fun :D

Tomato - from fruit

Was trying to see if i can get the seeds from an overripe tomato to sprout. So i cut the tomato fruit into four and placed them on the soil, seed sides down. It worked for me but was slower than planting from seeds. After few weeks the sprouts grew about 2" long. So that worked but now i'm going to find myself heirloom tomato seeds/fruit. I'll keep this one as well for side-by-side comparison..

Seedlings...

Carrot top - A month into heavy rain...

The rainy season brought much delight to my garden. I no longer need to water the plants so often as heavy rain pours over every single day and night. We're enjoying the cool weather and all the plants seem to grow bigger, taller, spring up and branch out :) Here's the carrot top that i planted earlier which now has grown really well considering the last one died due to extreme hot weather. As I wanted to setup a garden bed of carrot tops, I will need to plant more of these...

We love rainy season :)

Carrot-top reset!

This is a carrot top that i keep temporarily at one of the turmeric pot, now already growing 2" leaves. The picture was taken after a heavy rain.

beautiful..

Garden - part 1 - reset :)

Most of the sprouts and mini projects we had started earlier went down due to many reasons, other than busy schedules of our actual day job that kept us away from home during daylight :) except i guess for the corn that grew tall, produced, and became our kitten's go-to scratching pole. The corn plant withered after bearing five corns.. such a shame that we didnt capture the progress. Turmeric made it out alive quite easily. My ginger plant finally grows after a number of attempts. 

Not as lucky were avocados, carrot tops, cherry tomatoes, and long beans. They didnt survive the dry season. Also a row of newly transplanted catnips were swept away by heavy rain and thunderstorms that came not long after the dry season! 

It suffices to say that i am starting all over again.

I've now got carrot top that i keep temporarily at one of the turmeric pot, already growing 2" leaves.

Roselle 6 months

It had taken us a long time to pick a spot in our lawn for the Roselle plants.. too much rain-pour... too much sunlight... too far from water hose... etc etc so that got really delayed. In the end we had them moved into the garden beds, surrounded by three rows of new pumpkin seedlings. Amazingly after a month some tiny rosebuds started showing and these are just perfect!

growing well in the garden.. should've moved the roselles earlier :)

Roselle 3 months

Growing Roselle was never part of my checklist due to the reason that it's a type of flower. Roselle plant is from hibiscus family, and I've had only planted green vegetables so far :D I heard from friends about drinking Roselle syrup too but never tried it myself.

It's only after getting these surprise free gifts from Kak Da Seed that i started looking for information. According to some, their Roselle plants could start producing flowers as early as 3 months, yet both mine still showing no signs since i last checked. I'm not using any type of fertilizer, and they are still in pots. 

didn't post the progress earlier, thought it wouldn't survive lols

1. I planted all five seeds in our germination tray, with the seeding soil that came together with them in the parcel. Spray daily.
2. After few days i observed only two seeds were showing first leaves.
3. Waited for the two seedlings to grow a bit steady before moving them to pots.
4. After three month they grew taller and taller in the pot but nowhere bushy. I didn't used any fertilizer, just rice water.
5. Going to move them out from the pot once the intense hot weather ends, and hopefully we will see some progress here.

Bunny Garden

So we setup a bunny garden under the huge mango tree, for the shades. It's a semi-circle area which was supposed to be a raised bed, but we haven't been able to do so as i've been busy lately and we've ran out of soil. We decided to start planting the water spinach anyway and moved the beans + tomato seedlings into the compound too. That row of water-spinach in the picture were grown from both seeds and kitchen leftovers as i always saved the roots for planting.

Lets see if the plants could spread as fast and invasive as i knew it should. The bunny has started sitting around the garden and munching just as i'd like it to...

Bunny in action

Water spinach from seeds

Kitty Garden - Updates - after two weeks

After leaving the seeds for two weeks, practically giving up hopes. I finally saw a number of catnip sprouts emerged.. although most of them didn't make it.

I managed to snap a few pictures *was busy untangling the roots from wet paper towel!*. They've now been transplanted into the seeding tray.

Catnips

Project Kitty Garden – kickoff

So i was looking for timothy seeds when i came across a seller on Mudah.my @kakdaseed. Timothy seeds seem to be sold-out everywhere these days including @kakdaseed. Nonetheless she sent me a long list of other seeds she has in store. I wasted no time ordering catnips and catgrass, as we've been wanting to adopt a cat soon to solve mice and rats problem in this house. Growing a kitty garden early sounds like a sensible plan, giving ample time for the plants to mature before being rubbed and rolled-over.

After spending some time browsing gardening forums and websites, i found out that Catnip is a perennial plan. Most perennial plants needs to undergo the stratification process and so does Catnip. So here we go, my first attempt on stratification let's see how it turns out lollz..

"Stratification is also known as Cold Treatment. By nature some plants require time on winter ground and meet certain condition before the seeds start to break-out from dormant state and germinate. Hence seed stratification is necessary for these types of plants to mimic the winter conditions they require. Lavender and Catnip are two of many plants that fall under this category."

As usual, for this round i will be experimenting a bit with the paper towel method.

1. Prepare some paper towels.
2. Spread the Catnip seeds on paper towel.
3. Fold the paper towels so the seed won't spill, and spray some water on it.
4. Keep the towel in a zip-lock bag or in my case a plastic bag sealed with masking tape.
5. Label clearly with name and date.
6. Store them in a drawer.
7. Extra step for Catnip: The next morning, i took the Catnip pack and put it in our freezer for 24 hours. Afterwards, i took it out and let it thaw with room temperature. Then i keep the pack on my patio with indirect sunlight.
8. Wait :)

Online order arrived safely with surprise gifts roselle seeds and fluffy seeding soil! 

catnip seeds on paper towel

spray the towel with water and seal in a plastic bag

label clearly, and i drew the leaf to remind me how it SHOULD look like :)

I will try on soil for the next round, following the instruction at the back of pack.

Lemon - four weeks

beautiful...

So here's how they look like after four weeks. We're due to move the seedlings into bigger pot as we've now ran out of soil!

Project Avocado - THREE TO SIX WEEKS

After 3 weeks – seed cracks getting bigger

By third week, i had lost two pits. One completely broken into two pieces *kids...*. One not showing any progress at all, so down to one. This is a slow process, with real patience needed. I've moved the surviving pit to  a smaller container filled with gel.

Finally by 6th week, i saw a single root shooting out from the bottom. Still waiting for the top part to sprout though. Don't hold your breath :)

After 4 weeks – we can see the tiny root of about half inch long

After 5 weeks – 1.5″ root is showing

Project Carrot – kickoff

Back in hubby's hometown to end a week long Chinese New Year holiday. While looking for some veges in the fridge i found a fat carrot with healthy top. Perfect for kids project!

So here I am trying to regrow a carrot top, first with water and then hopefully to plant it in the soil once i see some roots. If this trial works, i may be able to start a carrot tops bed for the bunny to munch.

As always i would google around to find the tried and tested methods, and i would land on Mr EastCoastMan youtube videos. 

i) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duV2Mit_uf8 

ii) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co3DEo1rRSg 

Steps in pictures below:

find one good carrot preferably organic

a small container, or a plate will do

toothpicks at work

balancing the angle

pour water in, carrot half submerged. i actually changed the toothpicks angle so the carrot top submerged more

place it somewhere with sun lights

While anxiously waiting for the greens, bear mind growing carrot top will not produce the orange carrots. The carrot is a taproot itself which cant regrow.

From www.carrotmuseum.co.uk:

The carrot top in time might flower and it is very nice for beneficial insects and butterflies. Carrots are a biennial and will flower when they are 2 years old. The plant will eventually produce a flower and then seeds. If you are lucky the seeds will be viable and you can plant them in the ground to grow real carrots.

Honeydew – a week later

Seems my honeydew "angpow" pack had been left in the drawer for a little bit too long. When i checked, the sprouts already measured about 3 inch. That's how easy it is to sprout honeydew seeds in paper towel, all the seeds made it through, and i guess 3-4 days should be enough next time.

The baby honeydews closely resemble bean-sprouts, looked really fragile. I had to carefully transplant them as some already showing leaves and growing very fine roots, that i just tear off the paper towel and bury them altogether under the soil. I don't even know if this is the right way doing it!

After five days i've got a full tray of healthy honeydew seedlings. Light spray and watering from bottom seem to work (i had the soil at the center like an island on a tray, so just pour water from the sides).

Honeydew cheers! :)

My fat pack of ang-pow :)

Sprouting happily. That's 24 hours on soil

(left) after 48 hours (right) after 5 days!

Lemon - After two weeks

Two weeks, almost forgotten about this pack after the long holidays, we can see the strong tiny roots developed..

The lemon germination pack almost slipped my mind after the two weeks holiday. They're still alive! Upon picking up i instantly spot solid tiny roots already breaking the wet paper towel that was initially surrounding them. So i'm just glad that all the seeds made it good.

I carefully transplanted the seedlings into a seeding tray, while being total meticulous to avoid breaking them. Due to hot weather, spray the tray with water often. We keep the seeding tray under shades at the patio, where we can clearly see the impressive progress of  tiny leaves breaking through the soil for sunlight.

On top of that i keep the soil moist by watering from bottom. Just pour water into the container which holds the tray, but keep in mind that stagnant water can be a breeding ground for mosquitoes. I read somewhere about a blogger who attached his seeding tray on top of a fish tank! I guess this way you wont need to worry about mosquito breeding and keeping the soil moist, self sustain :D

24 hrs... 48 hrs... 4 days...

Under the shades

My parents lawn consists of wonderful, various sizes of foliage. The same month that i had finally moved all my stuff here and eager to start gardening activities again, El Nino sets it. That certainly didn't help, with most of the plants being somewhat abandoned weeks after moving, some withered due to very hot temperature and no rain.

Except that i've noticed that our potted herbs and plants outside the kitchen are progressively showing new signs of life. Miracle! no. I found that my husband have been showering those pots daily with rice-water (water leftovers after rinsing the rice prior to cooking).

Here's my Belalai Gajah (Sabah Snake Grass) plants, they were just skinny and sticks before, now abundant with leaves.

Left: Early this week, they started growing new leaves. Right: Now a week after

A greater surprise, my curry tree was only holding on to its last leaves when i noticed new buds coming out.

New buds

the week after we can see the buds were all thriving. And look at them now growing  so well...

Papaya, another skinny chance. Now showing new leaf after leaf..

Growing new leaf each time i checked

With that i am officially content :)

Next post i shall write about our cactus garden we have just by the gate. The succulents came from Cameron Highlands. We can get them with more or less same price here in the "lowlands", with limited options available tho.. Til next time..

Succulents corner...

Project Honeydew - kickoff

It's Chinese New Year and festive season kicked in full swing as the week holiday follows :) This week i wanna try the paper towel method on honeydew. Now after reading more on sprouting, grafting, growing quality fruits and cross pollination, I've becoming more conscious on finding organic and heirloom seeds.

But for today, this is a honeydew that my MIL bought from the seller along the highway. I believe it's not organic otherwise the price would've been expensive. I'm just gonna give it a go let's see how the fruits turn out to be.

Get some honeydew seeds preferably organic

Spread them on paper towel and spray the towel with water to keep it wet

Label the plastic clearly. Gong Xi Fa Cai huat ah huat ah!

1. Cut the honeydew into two, get a few slices and eat :) you should already be getting a handful of seeds. Slimy, shiny, pretty, seeds.
2. I then cleaned the seeds to avoid mold forming.
3. Place the seeds down on a kitchen towel. Fold the towel so the seeds wont fall out from the sides.
4. Sprinkle some water to wet the paper towel.
5. Again i have run out of zip-lock bag so i took a plastic bag and seal it with masking tape. Put date and name label on it.
6. Put aside in a warm, dark corner. I keep mine in a drawer.
7. Set a weekend reminder on scheduler, and wait....

Project Lemon - kickoff

I love my lemons. They may not be the cheapest but they smell great, so i i always keep some in my pantry. I would have them sliced in my drinking bottle, have them squeezed on seafood for cleaning, even fixed me buttermilk for baking. I use lemons often, nonetheless i only need just enough at a time. In that sense i think it is a good idea for long term to grow the tree itself so i can pluck when i need it rather than buying a few and keeping them.

Again the steps below was adopted from Mr EastCoastMan youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57XoFG0QuMI

My daily lemon treats :) here's some of the seeds i had picked out, lose the gel with paper towel

Peel the white coating until we see the brown seed. Distribute evenly on paper towel, then fold the towel

Just pour some water on the towel, and seal in zip-lock bag

1. Cut a lemon to half and pick out the healthy looking seeds. I collected 14 seeds. I was not sure which were healthy so i picked the plump ones :)


2. The seeds were slimy with gel so i used kitchen towel to hold them. Some sites recommend sucking the seed until the lemon gel or flavor is gone which i did not do.


3. Peel off the white seed coating carefully, cause the seeds sprout easier without it. I used my nail to peel the coating from top to bottom, exposing the brown-colored seed. I came across a website that peel off the brown coating too but again i didn't do that. Probably will try that next time.


4. Peel all the seeds and place them down on a kitchen towel. Fold the towel so the seeds wont fall out from the sides.


5. Sprinkle some water on the towel. Many blogs mention that the towel needs to stay damp, but mine was quite drenched in water.. oops


6. Also i have run out of zip-lock bag so i simply took a plastic bag and seal it with a tape. Put date and name label on it.


7. Set aside in a warm, dark corner of your house.


8. I've set a two weeks reminder on my scheduler, so now we wait....

My bonnie is over the sea...

So hubby went to a pet store with the kids looking for some quail chicks to breed. They came home with a white bunny...

I prefer to let my pets run free cause cleaning their cages would be a nightmare for me :) But considering all the thug-cats we see daily in our compound, we keep bunny in her cage at night and let her free during the day when we're outside.

That brings the idea to rationalize growing a bunny-garden. Sure i can't rely just on just carrots. Plus, carrots are slower growing than water spinach that the bunny munches all..day..long. I'm saving my thoughts for another day, will post them once i have something in place.

we named her puteh

love it when bunny does the binkies!

Exfoliator – Rice and Honey

Daily cleansing for me is easy breezy as i don't use any makeup other than lip balm. Besides the place i work is not as dusty compared to the city so i keep it simple and held on to my trusted Body Shop aloe line, or as lately just rice and honey!

I ran out of my trusted Body Shop aloe exfoliator recently. Considering it is only a small amount i needed once a week *cheap* i might be able to whip up something while not having to buy another tube. So I googled, headed to the kitchen and....

Blend a handful of rice

I sift to separate the powdery from the sandy texture. My first attempt was rice powder and honey but nowadays i add in milk powder too

1. Grab a handful of rice. I have two types of rice so i took a little bit of both.


2. Using dry blender grind them finely as suited to preference.


3. Some will like it coarse, but I prefer extra-fine texture that doesn't scratch my face, much like the Body Shop gentle exfoliator that i've been using. So out of the blender and into the sift it goes, to separate the fine texture from the sandy texture.


4. I then poured a few drops of honey enough to form a thick paste.

I have been using the rice honey scrub for quite some time now, exfoliate as usual and leaving it for a few minutes afterwards. Sometimes i added milk into the mixture.

Just as the same recipe seen all over the place on Internet, i presume it works for many others too. Although not to all. I believe the mix and match very much depends on your skin needs. Now this is just right for me, it's inexpensive, cleans as needed, feels all natural and smells good :)

The recipes are adopted from https://beautyhealthtips.in and avalaible for reading in lot of other websites too, i'd say lets give it a go.

Project Avocado - ONE WEEK

avocado seed - 1 week

Two out of three seeds now showing cracks at the fault line. The other one was intact. I have been adding water instead of replacing them as the hot weather here dries the water pretty quickly.

I believe in yesterday

My ideal abode, i wanted a butterfly garden, with river flowing, tiny shrimps and fish swimming through aquatic plants around their own natural surrounding, which were not possible to setup unless I own a lake or I dig my own small pond hehehe. So i wanted a butterfly garden, and hubby couldn't stand caterpillars eating the plants. Deadlock happens :) but i got my lime tree to attract the butterflies in the end lols..

The house i own in town originally had a small porch that fits two cars. We converted one side to a permanent raised bed of which afterwards appears like an elevated lawn, and then planted grass (picked the type that's easy to maintain, no fancy mancy grass here). I used to cut the grass at night. Strangely it's a quite a stress-relieving technique..

One unique view of the garden that i loved the most were surely the concrete container which hubby converted into an aquarium! Those tiny duckweeds and goldfish were just marvelous to look at. He had the water pumped through a vertical wall stuffed with coconut husks and water-spinach. The sound of water splashing down were heavenly.

Then there's two wall containers which i planted my chives, turmeric, chili and lemongrass. I use these a lot in my cooking so having them just outside were just handy. These wall containers used to be aquaponics for again the water-spinach :) they were connected to each other and to another aquarium by pipe. At the time we often found tiny fish fry swimming inside the containers, amazing.. cute! So the water that carries our fish poop waste fertilizer were pumped to the plants area, while the root cleans water back into the aquarium.. self-sustain!

I have a long pot that houses the aloe-vera and desert rose outside the gate, both given to me by a friend. Gotta love plants that thrive under sunny skies, low-maintenance. And in a small corner just above the garbage bin house was where i lined up my thorn-less succulents collection from Cameron Highlands *cactus for the cowards lah*. I used to have mini cactus garden in a small pot, then i realized the cactus seem to grow sideways :) because of a cat who regularly squeezed in!

Thoughts...

The garden here has always been luxuriant and green. Some people say we have fertile land, a person could throw any seeds or anything with roots. Unfortunately the greens had grown out of control to clutters over the years, invaded by mosquitoes to say the least.

Prior to moving in, we spent months reworking the garden layout, grouping plants of same type together, and have them lined up along the fences. For so long we had big mango trunks spread across the roof. They are now causing damage and leaks at the kitchen area, that we had to prune them much to my father's dismay :| Some small trunks of our rambutan tree grew over the neighbor's fence too so yeah.. what's gotta go just gotta go. The last thing we wanted was for the branches to fall on their side and crack those vases nicely lined up near the fence lol..

I'm much happier now sitting at the verandah with clear view... a few tree stumps wont hurt, we'll deal with that later.

Back to basics

This shall be the journal where i keep notes about my tiny garden, my off-hours kitchen, my work cheat-sheets and occasional travelogue.

Hi i'm Mrs Well. Pleased to meet you :)

Last year was the year of toll n price hike like nobody's GSTs business. Economy and currency was at its worst. It was also the year I moved my family to this small town, keeping my father company after the demise of my mom.

The decision of moving back to hometown was a definite major life turning decision. I now travel 60 miles a day to work for a start. Nonetheless marks the foundation of an incredible little adventure. Here's to a blessed journey ahead..

we move forward...