Cherry Tomatoes

I had the dried cherry tomato seeds sitting on the island counter for quite a while. And finally before heading off to Japan, I quickly dumped them into one of the pots in the back garden.

When we came back, it grew and had flowers. This week, there were fruits too. Kakak even covered the fruits with a plastic bag to ensure that they are not eaten.

Look at the flowers. I even shook them as this is supposed to help with the pollination. 

And guess who is the one eaten them cherries?

Evelyn's Pet Cactus

We decided to go out for brunch today since daddy was not playing golf. Ended up in Maccallum Connoisseurs which I had called and was told had tables available. 

While waiting for our food, you noticed that they were selling plants; cactus and succulents. You had spotted the cactus and after we'd eaten, I said that you could have it if you'd buy with your allowance. Of course, you happily agreed to that. 

Our brunch:

But I told you that it was your responsibility to take care of the cactus: watering, talking to it and petting it. You gave me this bewildered look when I said that you needed to pet it. 

Here we are at home with you unboxing it:

*If you look carefully, Ko-ko's reflection can be seen. He's goading you to pet it!

But you did pet it in the end.. much to my laughter and finally admitting that I had tricked you that the cactus needs to be petted.

 

Ladies Finger's

The plant has been having flowers lately. It falls off the very next day and it is replaced with a ladies finger. 

There are another 2 more plants. One is tinier with two branches as it had broken as it was growing. But luckily it survived. This plant does not have any ladies fingers yet. Another plant is starting to have small little ones. Looks like we will be having ladies fingers next week.

In fact, Kakak has already harvested 3 ladies fingers to date. 

Planting Journey Part 4

Today we decided to move the very long "Mr. Bean" (French bean) seedlings from the egg trays into a larger pot. I had missed one water session yesterday evening and today, the leaves shriveled up. Luckily they managed to revive after I sprayed them with water this morning. I'm not too sure about the survival possibilities of the bayam plants as they are so small. Will not be transplanting them until they grow bigger.

Adding soil to the larger pot 

Digging a hole to place the seedling 

Removing the seedling from the tray to be transplanted 

Planting the seedling into the new pot 

They are all so thin, which was why we added the sticks for them to (hopefully) creep up

Ta-da.. our newly planted french bean plants. We have 5 of them. Hopefully we will have some french beans to eat soon. 

Planting Journey Part 3

It rained so heavily the whole of last night. I woke up wondering if the whole tray would overturn in case the winds were strong. I had propped the tray on an overturned planting pot. 

Luckily this morning, it all seem ok. Other than the fact that the tray was super soggy, all the seedlings were doing fine. In fact, we spotted more shoots today than yesterday. 

I moved the tray to the floor as I was afraid that the tray might tear. 

Our tray of seedlings 

A closer look at the shoots. Can you spot them?

Today, I also added the bitter gourd seeds to the tray. I do not seem to see any roots, but hopefully it can grow in the soil. 

Planting Journey Part 2

The seeds did not really germinate yesterday. Maybe because you decided to sleep in the room where the seeds were kept so it was too cold. So we waited another day and voila! The roots were growing in most of the larger seeds and on the little seeds too. So it is time to grow the seedlings.

Oh by the way we had germinated: bayam (tiny seeds), ladies fingers (from our own plant), french beans (large red seeds which lost color when being germinated) and one sunflower seed. 

1. We used an egg carton to grow the seedlings. First you put in the soil. 

2. Then you dig a hole to put in the seed. Try to put the roots facing downwards. 

3. You labelled the tray so that you'd know which seedlings were in which tray for transplanting. Spray more water on the soil.

Now we wait a while for the seedlings to grow and to transplant them to larger pots.

Oh and quite a few of the bayam seeds did not germinate and we didn't want too many plants either, so we decided to keep 5 more slots for the baby bitter gourd which we germinated. 

Planting Journey Part 1

Have decided to start our little vegetable garden. Well, we have a ladies fingers plant which was growing well. It was the one and only one which would germinate of the many seeds we tried to grow.

Today we are doing a proper way to germinate after I learnt it (or part of it as the video I watched was in Mandarin). Step 1 is to germinate the seed:

1. Spray container covered in tissue with water 

2. Put the see in the tissue or wrap up in tissue for larger seeds (larger seeds need to be soaked in warm water before being wrapped up: I missed out on this step.. oops!) 

3. Spray more water on the tissue paper. Keep the covered container in a dark area. The seeds will germinate by the next day