Some Herb Plants

A few months ago, lots of Thai basil plants seems to be popping everywhere in my potted garden. Must be from the seeds that are found in the soil in some of my pots. Many months ago, the last of my basil plants have dried and wilted due to the extremely hot weather, and now the seeds from those plants that must have dropped into the soil have sprouted new seedlings. I sometimes transfer my other plants from smaller pots to bigger ones, and I supposed that was how the seeds got distributed when the soil was mixed, and also because I placed the pots rather close to other plants due to limited space, the seeds must have fallen into the other pots as well.

Thai basil plant, growing happily at the corner of the rectangular pot of my sawtooth coriander.

Two young seedlings which I planted in two separate pots, are doing great, growing well right now.

The ones here, sprouted on their own and I left them in their own chosen spots, which seems to suit them fine. There are a few more plants in separate pots, and I even had to discard some of the seedlings, as there are just too many, and I do not have enough of space! 

Sweet Basil

Thymes, it was growing really well until..... see photo below.....

...it was infested by some sort of white fungus. I was really disappointed as the thyme plant has been thriving  so well and gets so big, and now this! 

Rosemary, have been growing rather slow, but have been supplying me with fragrant leaves for my bakes and cooking pot.

Chilli Plant, which I bought from a nursery about two months ago, could not resist getting this plant when I saw those cute little tiny chillies growing all over. They are all ripe now, red and ready to be harvested. There's even more small chillies growing! 

What are the herb plants that you are growing in your garden?

Happy Gardening!

Rangoon Creeper

My Rangoon Creeper has started to flower with beautiful blooms after more than a full year since my hubby transferred it to a bigger pot and placed it outside of my main gate. It was formerly placed at my front porch. I last posted about this plant back in October 2010, and that was two years ago! The plant was not doing well shortly after that, so my hubby trimmed  it down to a short slim stump, transfereed it to a bigger pot and with TLC, it has grown and here are the first blooms after more than a year.

These photos were taken about a month ago, the flowers have now wilted and hopefully, new blooms would appear soon enough!

Happy Gardening !

Malabar Spinach : A Soupy Harvest

I bought a bunch of Malabar Spinach about two months ago, the leaves are small but the stems are very green and healthy, planted them in the styro containers and am happy that they are growing very well with very huge leaves!

The Malabar Spinach are from the container on the right. The stems have grown out of the container, going over to the container on the left and some of the stems have even grown longer and seems to creep up on the wall. Have harvested some leaves and will be clearing the mess soon after my next harvest. Time to replant the stems of the soon-to-be harvested leaves.

 The leaves are rather huge, about the size of my palm.

 Harvested some of the bigger leaves for my cooking pot.

 Malabar Spinach soup, with some fish balls and eggs. Garnish with crispy fried garlic.

Harvested some belimbing for the "nasi-lemak makcik" last week. Seen her today and ask her whether does she still want anymore belimbing, she replied "Oh, yes!"

Happy Gardening !

My Golden Harvest!

I have harvested my Yan Kee pineapple!

My Golden Harvest!

First spotted the little fruit on 21st January 2013

Photo taken on 4th February 2013

The many flowers that makes up a whole fruit.

Signs of ripening, 14th May, 2013

Beautiful golden yellow, fully ripe, 17th May, 2013

My Golden Harvest !!

This Yan Kee pineapple is extremely sweet and juicy! It has a light coloured flesh and the juices are oozing out as I sliced the fruit! The fruit is not as big as the one I bought, but then it is really worth the long wait! Pineapple plant is so easy to grow, they are really fuss-free and do not need much attention at all. Occasionally, I would feed with some organic fertilizer, and leave them as they are, they grow really well even in very hot condition. I have some other pineapple plants growing at the moment, of different varieties, will share on another day. Meanwhile, try to find one of these Yan Kee pineapples, enjoy the fruit and plant the crown in a pot, put it in a corner where it can get lots of sun, and you shall be rewarded with a juicy and sweet pineapple! But you have got to be very patient, it's along wait, about 15-16 months!

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Update on my previous post, as pictured below :

Thank you to everyone on the feedback of this weed known as Plaintain or Plantago Major. I have completely forgotten about this plant, until I've read from some of your comments (Autumn Belle, Stephanie, Stiletto, Sowie, The Novice Gardener, Lrong, Anonymous, Louise) that these plants have medicinal value especially for kidney and urinary systems. I instantly remembered then, that I sowed the seeds almost half a year ago! I should really take some ginkgo biloba for memory booster! (Knock my head!)

Here's the "story" (smiling sheepishly) :

The seeds was given to me by a lady whom I saw harvesting the plants sometime last year. I was curious and asked her about it as I have never seen this plant before. She then told me that it is good for urinary system and that she's harvesting it to boil with some barley. She then gave me a long stem of flowers for me to take home and sow. To me the flowers are still "green and young" and there are no seeds visible. I was sceptical that it would grow and when I reached home, I just scattered the flowers in one of my empty pot, and that was about November last year! Seeing that nothing sprouted after about many, many weeks, I threw into the "vacant pot" some other vegetable seeds which had already past their expiry dates. I was clearing my stock of seeds and instead of throwing the expired seeds away, I just threw them into that vacant pot. So when these Plaintain starts to sprout, which I have completely forgotten about in the first place, I began to wonder on the young sprouting plants. They definitely do not look like veggie, yet do not look like just any weed! So my curiosity got the better of me, and start to look for more info from the internet and finally post it in my blog, hoping that maybe some of you may recognize it. And you did! Thank you so much for your help! 

Who would have thought that it took almost five months for the "seeds" to sprout! But then I'm glad that they finally did!  

Happy Gardening !

Weed or Vegetable?

Found these plants in one of my pots and have no idea what they are! A couple of months ago, I threw in a handful of seeds, and have thrown away the empty packet, now I could not recall the seeds of which veggie that I sowed. Or maybe those seeds did not germinate and these are weeds instead?  They do look like weeds to me.

If you are familiar with this plant, could you please enlightened me? The closest that I've found out when I googled for more info is this one plant, called Plaintain Weed, from here. Could this be one of the species of Plaintain Weed?  If it is then I have a treasure in my pot, as this weed, Plaintain Weed has remedial properties. Until I know what these plants are, they will remain as they are in the pot for the time being.   If anyone should know or recognize this plant, would appreciate if you could share! Thank you!

Happy Gardening!

Curry Leaf Plant

My curry leaf plant is growing in a pot, it is about 5 years old. I bought the small seedling from the nursery, and over the years, I have cut off the stem several times, leaving only the small main trunk as it was infested with the Leaf Beetle, which is a threat to the plant. As as always, this plant has sprung back to life with new branches and leaves. I have found to my horror, a couple of days ago, these beetles and their larvae on some of the leaves. I cut off the top branches since the ones below seems healthy and green and do not have any signs of being infested yet!  I'm keeping a close watch daily for any more of this irritating pests. The only way to get rid of them is to remove them manually, to read a little about this yucky creature and how disgusting they look, you may refer to one of my earlier post, here. And the most effective way to save your plant (from my experiences) is to cut off the stems and branches, don't worry, it will grow again rather quick.

I found this pupa on the curry leaf plant. I googled and found out that this pupa belongs to the Swallowtail butterfly, here.  Notice the way the pupa is being supported. At one end, it seems to be attached itself to the stem, and if you see the picture closely, you may notice a thin line of thread that is supporting and going round the  pupa in the centre, almost like carrying it,  attaching to the curry leaf stem.

Another one, could this belong to the same swallowtail species? 

Can you see the thin thread supporting the pupa? I did not notice it when I took the photo, it is only visible when I downloaded this photo. It has been raining everyday and as I am writing this post, it is raining very heavily right now. Hopefully the pupa would hold on against the heavy downpour. But then, nature always has a way to survive against all odds.

Update on my pineapple fruit. It has grown so much bigger and the crown has developed beautifully!  I'm all smiles!

Happy Gardening !

Pineapple

I've made a long-awaited discovery at my potted garden! My pineapple plant finally has a small fruit growing! I have been looking out for the flowers, for the last couple of weeks, as I have a feeling that it will start to flower very soon. Last week, when I was not paying much attention to it like I have the previous week or so, as I was really busy baking cookies for the coming Chinese New Year, the plant has been busy, growing a small pineapple fruit! I have never seen the flowers of a pineapple plant before, though I have planted pineapples a number of times, I never thought of looking out for the flowers! From what I've read from Wikipedia, some pineapple plants can produce to about 200 flowers and the fruits of the all these flowers are joined together to create what is called the Pineapple Fruit! Wonders of nature! 

I planted the stem of a pineapple which I bought almost 1-1/2 years ago, if I remember correctly, this is of the Yan Kee variety. It has a long and tapered shaped fruit and is juicy and sweet. The price is more expensive than the regular Morris pineapple.

I did not see any flowers, perhaps more flowers will appear as it gets bigger, since it takes more than 200 flowers to  make a complete fruit, keeping my fingers crossed for that! Pineapple plants are really easy to grow, they are practically maintenance-free! I did not do much, except for the very occasional sprinkling of fertilizer. They love the hot sunny sun, and do not need that much watering like most plants. Really fuss-free and maintenance free! And I grew it in a 12-inch diameter pot. From my past experiences in growing these wonderful fruit, it takes about 18-22 months from the day I planted the stem right to the harvesting day! That is a long wait, but definitely worth it.

Such a beauty! Am now waiting patiently for this little beauty to mature. Thinking of planting a couple more of different varieties right after CNY!

The photos above are all taken about 5 days ago, except for the ones below.

 This photo was taken this morning, in search for new flowers. The fruit has grown longer and bigger.

  And there are new flowers growing! Can you see the purple buds peeping out from each little pockets, all the little fruits from these flowers joined together that makes the complete fruit known as pineapple. Wow, now, whenever I see any pineapple, I would think of all the flowers that "created" this lovely fruit.

 One flower already bloomed. There's a couple more at the bottom already wilted.

 Have you seen or notice the flowers of a pineapple before? Now I know why the pineapple fruit has so many "eyes"! 

According to Wikipedia, the colours of the flowers may vary, from lavender to light purple to red. My pineapple plant above has light purple flowers. I'll just have to grow different varieties, it would be interesting to see the different colours of the flowers, and I intend to do that after the Chinese New Year holidays!

Pineapple is one of the auspicious fruit to have during Chinese New Year, besides the popular mandarin oranges. Pineapples are known as "wong lai" in the Chinese language, meaning "lots of luck coming your way". So hopefully, I'll have lots of luck this year! I would definitely love some luck in my gardening area!

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I would like to wish all my Chinese friends and readers :

Gong Xi Fa Cai

Wish you good health, prosperity, longevity, and happiness!

May you have success in everything you set out to do!

Yam Seng!

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Ginger Harvest

Happy New Year everyone!

I harvested my ginger, not much, but enough for my various cooking in my kitchen.

 Ginger plant, growing quite well a couple of months ago.

See the side of the container, where the ginger rhizomes has grown, pushing the container to the side.

The ginger flower

 A couple of months later, time for harvest, plant is showing signs of wilting leaves. 

Harvested the ginger rhizomes.

Washed and cleaned. I used some for my cooking and they smell really fragrant and nice. I'm  nuts about ginger, I love ginger and constantly use them in most of my cooking!

Save some rhizomes with young shoots, to start over.

Happy Gardening !