New European Babies

Me being me, a crazy plant lady I acquired some new ones. 

Olive sapling - Olea Europa.

Never a Calathea fan but this one captivated my heart. It is Calathea Musaica 'Network' Goeppertia kegeljanii Network.  It also happened to be my first Etsy purchase and she came from France.

Moving on the outdoor plants - my mother-in-law got me this balcony planter with thyme and rosemary while I added in the Basil that I have. 

Husband bought me a pot of yellow mums. I didn't care for it well the blooms were gone by the time Autumn started.

I bought some Dahlia tubers and some spring bulbs that I don't remember to plant but I had to leave the country due to visa complications so they were planted into ground late by my MIL. 

 A single bayleaf from my MIL.

Horseradish my MIL planted whilst I was away.

Our new apartment comes with a lanky fig tree. 

Garlic chives, also from my MIL.

And of course, my life is not complete without hydrangeas. Yes... I finally get to enjoy many of the wonderful varieties! I got these two half-priced from Bauhaus as they were not pretty but it's ok! They will be pretty next year!

Autumn bulbs like tulips, Crocus and Daffodils are in the ground few weeks ago. 

Phantom Gourd and the Rest

The phantom gourd creeper grew a fruit today and I found out it's luffa/petola, one of my favorite veggie. That means, I have to fertilize it and wonder if I should move it to the patch. I mean there's some free space on the patch now. I pulled the red okra today when I saw them infected with something. One Japanese cucumber plant and french died. So I think I can grow this next to the french bean.

I finally made something with the first cucumber that I harvested - cucumber yogurt sauce for grilled fish today. I'm leaving the second cucumber to seed and harvested 2 cucumbers.

Sun was in full force today my carrots withered. I pulled one out and it was quite fat but short. 

So I noticed one zucchini plant grows a lot of female while the other two don't,

A couple more young fruit rotted.

My neglected seedlings. Those are spinach, leek and more spinach. The 3 newspaper pots were chili, they didn't germinated.

Another tray of neglected seedlings. Front to back: Giant Italian parsley and coriander, tomato with parsley, etiolated white radish, onion and Columbine with 2 rogue strawflowers.

I still haven't move the cotton plants to the ground. I really should but the mosquitoes are really crazy right now it's discouraging me from going out there.

My patch. Zucchini and sweet potato are overgrown, another cabbage head kaputted by insect. I accidentally pulled out the kailan that's growing seed pods. It was on my way.

Fruits section is doing not too bad - Longan is still at flowering stage.

At least6 jackfruits are fattening up on the tree. I really wish I know when to harvest because the first one that I harvested didn't even form fruit inside.

Mulberry shrubs are shooting shoots with a lot of fruit in vengeance.

Herb patch is also pretty wild. The latest addition - rosemary is not doing ok.

Harvest of the day.

Overdue Update

 Basil has started to seed.

 Kaffir limes, onion, rosemary and mother of thousands.

The magnolia seeds I bought from Sydney turned out not to be magnolia. WTF

Aussie Succulents are growing super well! Yay~ 

Morning Update

 Ms Nancy the Hydrangea is flowering again!

 Gardenia flower buds all dried up after repot and they started to bloom again. I hope to see them this time.

Tomato.

Shifted my mint to the sunnier side of the balcony after not doing well. Started to thrive again. 

Solo survivor. Lavender 

Not just at the tip, the avocado starts to branch out at the mid section. Going to be branchy, this one.

 Basil doing alright.

Trimming made my rosemary very happy.

I lost the biggest raap rapini. Don't know what happened to it.

Sowed more sugar snap peas.

Weekend Project and Gemusegarten Update

This weekend saw me kicking off a project that I've been putting off due to holidays and such - vertical garden for the other apartment. Spent RM500 just for the plants. The planters cost even more, if I'm not mistaken. Bought them months ago. This project isn't cheap. 

Plant shopping was done in less than 2 hours which was not bad considering that it started out difficult despite having to prepared with this excel sheet beforehand. 

What threw me off was that I was not able to find the plants I wanted and also keeping track of what I've chosen. I'm a bit scatter-brained. Halfway through, I just gave up on being a stickler on the plant variety and I selected whatever I thought was nice-looking. I let nature play its part. 

The project involved much more time, soil and courage that I expected. It took me about 8 hours and 2 packs of soil. I participated less than a pack of soil which translated into another trip to the nursery.  Courage was for me to face acrophobia. Nevertheless, it was a very satisfying project and a very good Stairmaster workout. 

I bought about 60 plants for 72 stations of vertical garden. I divided some of the plants. Here's the result.

This is the inspiration by the way.

I got this dwarf birds nest for free.

Moving on to my gemusegarten, my raab rapini is doing great.

So is the tomato plant.

 Snap pea seedling and green onion.

I cut the wrong (yet to flower) branch of the hydrangea the other day so I'm doing water propagation. The shoots are growing nicely but there isn't any roots yet.

 BF let Odyssey out at the balcony the other day and she stealthily put out a lavender seedling. 

I thought I lost my basil. They bounced back to life after I trimmed them. The trimmed leaves, I nuked them in the microwave and freeze them.

Did the same thing for the rosemary. She's fattening nicely.

A lot of my plants including the cactus were infested some really shit white pests. Bought 2 bottles of neem oil. I mixed it vigorously with water in a spray bottle. Worked perfectly. My grey flower plumeria took the worst hit but it bounced back after 2 sprays of neem oil mixture. 

What's left of my Maung Pani plumeria. Odyssey pulled it out. So sad. 

This is Odyssey, the nemesis. She's recuperating from hips dysplasia surgery. She will be banned from the balcony for the rest of her life.