Hot Changes

Weather is getting hotter of late. I suppose it helps my edibles in growth but it overheating my hydrangea! Two days away from home had my hydrangea burnt. Will be away again from home soon so I've invested in Ikea's self-watering pot which also has wheels. I might be wheeling it in the living room when I'm gone. Repotting was rather easy but wasteful as I had to break the terracotta pot. 

Moving onto seedlings. The arugula is doing fine but I can't say about the bok choy. The heat got the best of them, 1 1/2 patch kaput.

Most of the pots are super dry. The moment I reached I watered them. I lost one of my lavender seedlings.

Kaffir lime seedlings doing fine.

 The aster seedlings are ok. This one is definitely not aster.

 Just one Raap Rapini seed germinated. 

Fortified and A Little Crack On on the Gemüsegarten

I'm officially on leave for holiday today and we have a late noon flight out so I'm spending the first half of the day doing a bit of gardening. I noticed that there are small flies flying around the gemüsegarten after the last round of fertilizing - it's either the vermicompost or the coffee ground that attracted them. Or both. Heh.

Kaffir lime seedlings and basil seeds, still not germinated yet.

I transferred the larger kaffir lime seedlings to the newspaper pots so I can give them to FTS. It seems one of the seeds grew another seedling so now I have 8.

Some unknown seedlings growing from the carrot seedling pots - I wonder if they were poppies because I reused the pots when poppy seeds didn't germinated.

Yippee. Two more lavender seedlings! They germinated quicker this time as I moved them to a different place. I also moved the bigger seedlings to the plumeria area for more sun exposure.

The kaffir lime seedlings growing nicely. I also planted some shallots from the kitchen that had shoots growing.

 Amped up my self-watering game. Hydrangea itself has 4. The rest has one each.

Arugula on the left, Red Romaine on the right. The Arugula seeds have germinated but not the Red Romaine. 

Can't wait to see you soon, Bali Hai Gold!

Seedlings Update

The solo lavender seedling now has a buddy :). Threw in more seeds in few days before.

 Tomato seedlings.

Arugula, fennel and carrot seedlings.

The self-watering system for the hydrangea. It seems to be somewhat working as I haven't watered it for the last 2 days and it still looks ok. I will add another one or two more to be on the safe side.

Hello avocado!

 The basil seedlings dried out suddenly. -_-

Took out the kaffir lime seeds and voila! They grew! Will choose the strongest one and then will give the rest of the seedlings to FTS.

A Little Dress Up for the Gemüsegarten

A short trip to the bookstore at my workplace turned out to be awesome - I found some colourful popsicle sticks that I can use to mark my plants. MYR5.90 for about 40 sticks, not too bad! The purple one is gorgeous and I need to buy a white/silver marker to write on it. Will stock up the sticks for other purposes!

BF's having some dinner with colleagues and I'm skipping gym today to rest up my legs thus I had some time to myself after work. Too bad it's too dark to take photos. I hope I would be able to tomorrow.

I washed the pebbles that I had on the desert rose pot, cleared up some of the pebbles from then-lemon-tree-now-powder-puff-aster pot and washed them to fill the desert rose pot, re-marked all my seedlings and vegetables with those playful popsicle sticks, rotated the hydrangea plant. The hydrangea actually has a self-watering system which I bought from the DIY store near the workplace. It's a pack of two, the other one I used it for Kauka Wilder and I'm planning to switch the Kauka Wilder one to the hydrangea to see if it works.

A single lavender seedling. 

Hello my potatoes! Growing away like they are on steroid!

 Slow and steady tomato seedlings.

A Little Update

December is a busy month - having to have guests coming over almost every weekend, I had very little time for gardening. Arugula seedlings are rather stagnant in growth.

Carrot, fennel and tomato seedlings.

Avocado seedling is pretty big now. I notice the shoot growth is visibly faster than the root system.

Super growing potatoes!

One of my cut hydrangea bloom rooted so I stuck into the soil for a chance of growing.

Trying out a new self-watering system using a wine bottle.

Picked this pack up from Starbucks at my mom's! The Starbucks at our place runs out quick.

The Medium

I usually shop my gardening tools at Ace Hardware in Mid Valley but a recent visit to Ace Hardware in Publika just wowed me - they have a wider and attractive range. Today I bought a 12-litre New Zealand sphagnum moss and more perlite to repot BF's pitcher plant. I also bought some coco peat save for future plumeria rooting too. The Saree cutting had rot too I had to cut them away and dry the tips again. I'm just missing one thing - neem oil. I suppose I could buy it when I'm visiting Europe this month. Yes, I'll be traveling again and I will bringing a couple of plumeria cuttings for BF's mom and partner. They love gardening, I hope they would enjoy plumeria as much as I do.
I'm very happy that the guppy has given birth - last count was 16 babies. I have removed some of the evasive duckweeds, I can see the guppies are happy about that. BF seems happy to see the babies. I think at one point I would have to donate the guppies to the neighbourhood fish shop for sale.

I was pretty industrious after spending the weekend with a bout of stomach flu (fever included) - I cleaned up the filthy floor at the balcony. I pulled out the dead hydrangea and cleared the soil. I changed the position of the stick that straightens my Kauka Wilder. I fastened the tall lotus leaf with wire so it would stand straight. And oh, I'm experimenting garlic growing too.

I should be investing in another fiddle fig leaf for the living room after I return from my European vacation. My kitchen is a bit dark so I'm unsure if I should put a fiddle fig leaf there, it's looking a bit sad there.

And just wanna share that I felt so good that I did some gardening today :D

More Plumeria

The plumeria got even more wrinkled and soft I transferred it back to the pot and am not watering until next week after getting advice from a local frangipani enthusiasts facebook group.

The moderator of the group sells huge variety of plumerias and I ended up buying three varieties and am having them shipped to me after we move to the new place. I got these:

Salmon Pink Plumeria.

This is called Maung Pani.

Gina Red.

The Bf bought me a great stuff when he was in Berlin:

Scheurich Bördy Water Supplier. Am using it on my Cameron hydrangea.

My 'red' balsam plants are growing. Oh yeah.

I got these succulents from dad's garden when I was back at parents' yesterday.

The mother plant.

DIY Self-Watering

Going away from home for a while? Can't find anyone to water your plants? Well, well. This is one of my worries when I first got my plants.  

Initially I thought of investing in a self-watering pot from Ikea but gardening doesn't have to be an expensive hobby so I'm opting for DIYs. Another quick search on the internet will show you a myriad of ways to DIY self-water. 

The best (when I say best, I mean easiest) option I found is using recycled mineral bottles. All you have to do is just make some small holes on the cap, fill the bottle with water, close it back and stick it to the ground upside down and physics will do the rest of the work.

Another option is to use the narrow-necked bottle e.g. wine bottle, fill it with water and stick it upside down with the neck at least several inches underground. I guess this one is a bit tricky if you have a very good draining soil. The water will just seep through in no time!

Photo credit: The Garden Glove

I will definitely try the mineral water bottle option for the water baby hydrangeas. 

On a side note, after consulting with experienced gardeners online about my unhealthy-looking acclimatized hydrangea, I found out putting fertilizer is a bad idea and I decided to repot it to a bigger pot. I also made some homemade pesticide (dried chili + garlic + onion concoction I found on YouTube) and sprayed it thoroughly, including the underside of the leaves, to get rid of any creepy crawlies. Hope that will help.