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!

My Hands Itched...

So I couldn't help but to do a little more gardening after posting the last entry! Equipped with my wide-brimmed summer hat and suede gloves (I forwent the latter as I was not able to have a good grip of everything, I made a mess), I braved the hot weather and I:

1. transplanted my arugula seedlings to a planter after I noticed the roots grew out of the sowing pots, maybe that's why they are yellowing. I hope I'm right.

2. halved the arugula seedling planter with sowing two rows of Red Romaine

3. also transplanted the English Lavender seedlings to a pot as the roots also grew out

4. transplanted the strongest kaffir lime seedling to a pot. Yes I knew I said I would do it after holiday but I couldn't help myself

5. sowed more basil seeds as the last failed. I'm doing the sandwich style - I figured I failed the last time because the roots were exposed and they turned black before the shoots did so it had to be the problem.

6. Fertilized most of the plants with Starbucks coffee ground and vermicompost.

There you go. I feel so much better as I haven't been doing much gardening lately. Truth be told, I wouldn't stop doing more, if only I wasn't out of soil. I could have transplanted the basil into a bigger pot and maung pani plumeria which has been making the cut mineral water bottle as a residence since day 1 to a lovely pot that I bought long time ago. A trip to the nursery is in order to stock up my soil. And stocking up Yates' Fish Emulsion which my hydrangea loved so much. It seemed the blooms were bigger when I used that compared to Miracle-Gro. The shade also shifted from pink to lilac.

One of the earliest blooms which was almost true pink. I noticed as it has now a slight blue tinge to it.

I want my pink back!

Enough of hydrangea whining. An update on my ginger. It's growing!

This is fun!

Fickle Weather and A Quick Garden Update

The day started with overcast dark heavy clouds and it was pretty cold to be honest - the BF had to cover himself with a throw whilst sitting on the balcony reading his book. 

Within an hour, the clouds blown over to another area unveiling a happy sun. Oh it was so hot we had to evacuate the balcony. LOL. I suppose my plumeria troop would be happier.

The Spanish aloe vera BF's mom brought from Germany. It was dying after it was potted but I withheld watering for almost one month it grew a new leaf.

My cute purslane. It seems the left side is diseased whilst the right side is growing fantastically!

 BF's monkey pitcher's growing taller that it hooked itself onto the rope for stability.

My water-loving hydrangea withered a bit despite lower-than-usual-temperature. Gotta amp up my self-watering system on Monday!

My arugula seedlings turned yellow. Have I done something wrong? Shot an email to the seed seller for advice.

Went to the local florist after breakfast and bought this cute cactus for BF. He has a bowl of cacti at work. A few died so it's time to replace them.

And some roses and 'mums to brighten up the apartment. :)

A broken rose and a few stray 'mums at the balcony. Never waste!

Meanwhile, my kaffir lime seeds are growing pretty well despite at different rate, in fact one of them has a set of true leaves already. To encourage growth, I removed the husk of some of the seedlings and re-positioning them. I can say the success rate to this germination is 70% which is very high. :) I should potting them soon after I come back from a short new year holiday. I will be keeping two and giving away the rest to a tree society unless any of you local gardeners want it I can give them to you. Let me know at the comments section!

This is the mother plant.

Second Batch Arrived!

Seeds from Kebun Bahagia Bersama arrived yesterday - well it arrived on Saturday but the postman left it in the mailbox. Anyway, I got Celtuce as a freebie. The packaging was much less impressive than My Lestary Seeds so I printed the info labels like what My Lestary Seeds does myself and relabeled them for easier reference.

Sowed just kohlrabi in homemade newspaper pots from this batch as space is limited, lavender is in the toilet roll pots. Will be sowing them in succession. 

Read online that saving seeds in plastic bags may sweat the seeds and ruin them, I made an envelope to store my tomato seeds instead.

 Oh look! Carrot and fennel seedlings!

The tomato seedlings are going great.

A huge of muhsrooms on my Bali Hai Gold Plumeria. My mixing soil is contaminated with mushroom spores I noticed. Mushroom grows randomly from one pot to another. :/ 

What A Difference a Couple of Days Make

The tomato seeds all germinated I'm happy to report that it is a 100% success rate! It is so encouraging that everything goes so well! The roots are getting bigger and they are starting to weave into the paper towel. I've moved them outdoor and the paper towel dried so quickly I probably should move them back to the kitchen.

The fennels sowed! I can see about two shoots.

Lavender will take much longer to be sowed so... let's be patient. I've waited 6 months for my Malaysian Red Plumeria to be rooted so a month or two for lavender is ok.

Speaking of plumerias, my plumerias are rather slow - no flowering or whatsoever - just controlling whiteflies issue. *shrugs*

Made another order from My Lestary Seeds!

Ready, Get Set, Go!

The seeds I ordered from My Lestary Seeds arrived today, how brilliantly quick is that! The seller threw in a packet of bok choy/Chinese Cabbage (v. Nai You) as a gift. I was going to do an excel sheet on the planting info but well, all the packets are already labeled with them! Happy!

The other order will arrive next week instead (bummer!). I can't wait to grow the kohlrabis!

 I sowed carrots & fennels first as I'm short of sowing pots. I didn't have any markers so I DIY-ed using cable ties. 

I then scrounged through the bathroom bins for toilet rolls and found enough rolls to sow some lavender seeds. As the rolls are on the smaller side, I cut less to make the base and lined them with folded toiletpaper instead. A quick look at the kitchen bin got me a slightly soiled (by ddeokbokki we had for dinner last night)  kitchen roll which should make me at least 3 more sowing pots. Will have to wait for it to dry out after I washed the ddeokbokki off. I will be doing some origami boxes out of newspapers too since toilet rolls can be scarce. 

An update on composting, I have to put it on hold as the BF is rather against it - he's worried that the compost bin will attract flies and also produce stench. Let's see how it goes.

I've also cleaned a bit up at the balcony and cleared some space for the potager, or perhaps I should call it Gemüsegarten since I should improve my German instead French. Heh.