Showing posts with label rock melon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rock melon. Show all posts

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Today I celebrate ......

.... my first earthworm!


Think me crazy if you will, but seriously, earthworms are to be celebrated and welcomed in a happy garden! Earthworms are garden helpers as they help to aerate the soil when they burrow, and their presence is an indication that the soil condition is healthy. But I wonder where and how this first citizen migrated to my little plot!


The second resident that I found today, the snail, is not so welcomed as snails are considered pests. Exactly why, I don't know!

Two toadstools, different from the umbrella gang, that appeared near the aloe and turmeric are also not welcomed. The bulb-head burst into a wet yucky slimy blob when I removed these two with my garden spade. Yucks!



White spots - on the underside of the chilli leaves are worrying. Guess this is the time to test out Irene's organic pesticide. I sprayed on the spots after I split the seedlings into two and replanted them, giving them more space to flourish. Maybe it was the dense foliage that resulted in the white spots thingy.


Constance's rosemary doing very well and sending up new shoots. I think I will pass it to her next week.


A melon is a melon - the leaves of the rock melon look similar to the winter melon's leaves. I topped up the soil for the rock melon to level it as it was a bit too waterlogged when it rains.




The two creeper plants, old cucumber and winter melon seemed to have settled down and are slowly climbing the fence.


The winter melon leaves look sizably impressive. I like the delicate serrated edges!!


In the picture above, some coiled tendrils ensure anchorage without growing pains for the winter melon.



It was so easy to prepare the lemon grass for planting. After peeling off the outer leaves and shortening the main stem, I soaked them in water for 3 days and voila, the roots and shoots appeared. I hope I have not planted them in the ground too soon but I think they should be all right!



The big bulge at the base of the turmeric must mean that the ginger is growing very well and I suppose I can harvest the tuber if I know what to use it for! Hahaha!



Nice to see these pinto bean shoots racing each other for the sky. I wonder when the pods will appear!



View from the top after I moved the cherry tomato plant to the centre as I felt that it was too crowded out next to the chilli. Hopefully it will do better from now on because some of its foliage have withered :( but there is one tomato ripening for my snack the next couple of days.:p

Monday, March 14, 2011

Weed defined!


What makes a weed? A wanted plant can become a weed if there are too many seedlings and the crowding makes the rest unhealthy. The over-zealous papaya seedlings were thus weeded out though I am not sure I chose the right ones to survive. I guess in the wild they would have weeded themselves out. The picture above is of the casualties of over-population!





The 3 new plants are lime, limau perut and pomelo planted in their respective spots. The pomelo is still looking sickly but hopefully when I use Irene's organic fertilize on the leaves they will improve in colour.


This ornamental plant has sentimental value. Originally from Indonesia more than ten years ago, it is quite hardy and the few times the shoots died off due to my neglect, they resurfaced when the conditions improved :) I even have a pet name for it "Batu Bulan" which means moonstone in Malay.


I really hope that my garden will rock soon - that is, the rock melon seedlings here will survive and give me the "rocks". For the record I threw these seeds into the ground about ten days ago. The seeds were from the juiciest sweetest rock melon I had eaten in a long time. I hope they are fertile seeds and have not been genetically modified at the original farm to prevent propagation.