Category: Gardening

The first ladies’ finger didn’t grow so much this week, but the bud on the other plant bloomed and now there is a second ladies’ finger growing!

The second pot of ladies’ finger plants is also doing better now that the young plants are getting more sunlight. It’s interesting how a couple of the leaves are shaped so differently from the plants that are in the photos above.

I’m also pleased to say that the prayer plant is looking like it is happy. There are little shooty / rooty things growing out from the old leaf sheaths. I was a bit clumsy and broke the one in the photo right after I took it. Oops.

The spinach leaves have gotten bigger now that the pot is on the ledge where it gets more sunlight. I should have enough leaves to add to a dish soon!

Here are the kumquats I managed to harvest from our bush. I also have two limes! I hope to cook this down into a kind of syrup that I can use to mix with soda water.

Sadly, the fish tail plant suffered a shock from being transplanted. It’s dropped all its leaves except for the one pictured. It looks like there’s a new leaf growing to the right of it though. I’m keeping my finger’s crossed.

And finally here are my rescue plants for this week, a mint and a basil. The mint currently has tiny tiny leaves and looks like it’ll be a goner in another couple of weeks. The “soil” that it came in from the nursery was a weird cork-like stuff. My father said it was coconut peat and probably didn’t have much nutrients in it. It was the same for the basil. Unfortunately for the basil, it was also neglected so the stems have already turned woody. They’ve both been repotted into bigger pots with proper soil that’s been mixed with worm castings. Let’s see whether these two survive in the upcoming weeks.

It turns out that the little “finger” was a flower bud! Sadly I didn’t manage to get a photo of it in full bloom, but it looks like the flower has a light yellow colour with dark brown spots.

The fruit itself grew amazingly quickly. The flower bloomed on the 12th (Tuesday) and by Saturday, the finger was already about 3 cm long! Wonder how big it’ll be next week…

Here are the other ladies finger plants that I started from seed. The seedlings were placed on the floor and didn’t get as much sunlight as the ones above. You can see that they landed up being quite scrawny and scraggly. I’ve now moved them up to the table as well and hopefully they’ll do better.

The spinach cuttings are also doing well. The leaves are starting to get bigger on some of the stems. A couple of the stems (not shown in photo) seem to have been gnawed on by some critter. I’ve also moved this pot up onto a ledge where it’ll get more sunlight.

Here is a very sad looking prayer plant that I’m trying to rescue. My friend’s dogs had been chewing on the leaves and it’s taken a couple of tumbles. I’ve taken it out of it’s original pot and split the plant into two. I hope the transplant helps the plant to survive!

I found this very pretty little fishtail plant growing from a crack in the garden! I’ve also transplanted this and placed it in the backyard.

This is what the backyard table looks like now with the new fishtail plant, repotted prayer plant and ladies finger cuttings. May the universe pour loving healing growing energy on these beauts!

I learnt from the Singapore Vermicomposting Facebook group that a store in Serangoon North was selling boxes of worms for $10, so I visited the store on the 4th of Jan.

Above is the box the worms came in.

The comment in the Facebook group said there’d be about 20 to 30 worms in the box, so out of curiosity, I decided to count how many there were. Below is what they looked like after they were tipped out of the box.The Facebook group mentioned two types of worms, Malaysian Blue Worms and African Night Crawlers. I’m guessing what I purchased were the former because they had a really interesting shiny blue colour to them. The Facebook group mentioned two types of worms, Malaysian Blue Worms and African Night Crawlers. I’m guessing what I purchased were the former because they had a really interesting shiny blue colour to them.

Turns out there were about 85 worms!

They’ve been popped into the compost bin together with some wilted salad leaves and a banana peel.

The little “finger” is getting larger!

There are little leaves starting to grow on the stems.

I rooted a bunch of left over spinach stems by soaking them in a cup of water for about three days. There were plenty of roots so let’s see how these turn out.

I’m not sure what the little pointing thing at the top is but it sure looks like a little fruit! Can it be? The plant looks way too young to be able to fruit!

That’s an old dragon urn we had lying around in the garden. My dad and I filled it with torn up cardboard, shredded banana leaves and soil. We don’t have a proper lid for it just yet so we’re using this plastic tub. Fits pretty good actually! Just gotta get some worms now…

That’s all for now!