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...