Seeds Frenzy & Other Stuff Growing

It's been over a month since my last update on what I call 'burnt bottom tomatoes'. Thanks to all who posted comments to enlighten me on what the burnt bottom actually was and what caused it. Thinking back, I may have applied a tad too much of nitrogen-rich fertilizer on my tomato plant. Since my last update till now, I have harvested a bunch of my cute cherry tomatoes, a couple of my burnt bottom tomatoes, a tiny white radish and some stalks of Asian spinach (bayam). Now, I'm all ready to widen my horizon and grow more of other edible stuff with the variety of seeds I bought while on a work trip in London last week. In fact, I think I could almost open a farm with the amount of seeds I bought. I just can't help myself. Not only is the packaging attractive, they're cheap too. Got these at only 1 pound per packet at Poundland, where everything is priced at 1 pound. Here are the packets of seeds I bought...;D

To mention a few, the seeds above include broad beans, dwarf beans, italian beans, carrots, beetroot, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, tomatoes (moneymaker, sunbaby, garden pearl, gardener's delight and marmande), onion and herbs (basil, rocket salad, coriander, parsley, mint and thyme). I'm not even sure if all of these will grow, but gardening is all about trial and error, success and failure..so what the heck!!

I've cleared my cherry tomato plants as their time was up but the same 'burnt bottom tomato' plant is still standing and bearing some more luscious tomatoes for me. I came back from London on Monday night to find them delightfully ripe and red. Oh, here they are :)...(in the chicken curry pot these will go this weekend)

My pak choy are also growing well. One container has a few pak choy growing and ready for harvest in the next 1-2 weeks and the other with young plants still growing. As veggies like pak choy mature within 1-2 months, they are usually heavy feeders, thus fertilizer needs to be applied every other week. I use organic chicken manure.

Below are two ginger plants. They were planted at the same time but one is growing well while the other seems to be growing really slow. It's been about 2.5 months now but I hope the rhizomes are developing well underneath the soil. I really look forward to the day I can dig them out. Surrounding the ginger are pak choy. Just trying to make use of every inch of space I have in the container.

Happy gardening and more updates later!

'Burnt Bottom' Tomatoes

My joy with the four tomatoes growing nicely on one of my tomato plants is in question right now.

I spotted 'burnt bottom' on two of the tomatoes. So weird!

The other two are so far so good. Too much fertiliser? Too little water? Too much sun (which I doubt)? A kind of disease?

I am clueless.

If you have any ideas why and how this happened and what I can do to prevent this, please feel free to share.

A Hibiscus

It is a somber weekend as the world's attention is gripped by the unfortunate quake and tsunami devastations in Japan.

My heart and prayers go out to all those who are directly and indirectly affected.

I would like to dedicated this pretty hibiscus to all the victims - may all those whose lives were claimed be at peace, and may all next of kins and those who survived such harrowing experience be strong in moving on.

Growing Cherry Tomatoes

I'm currently hooked on growing cherry tomatoes after my recent success. It all started very simply and without any expectations at all. I had bought a pack of grape cherry tomatoes from the supermarket one day. While most went into the cooking pot, one got split opened and seeds scattered onto the soil in planting pots. A week later, some of the seeds sprouted and I thinned out by keeping 3-4 stronger baby plants. To my joy, the plants grew quite quickly. Within 2 months, they started to produce flowers. A short 2 weeks later, tiny cherry tomatoes had formed. They are so cute and what I like most is that they grow in bunches. I thought they looked just like green grapes before their ripening process. My experience from growing cherry tomatoes is quite different from growing the larger singly tomato (see my other tomato post) which took a longer time to grow, flower and produce fruit.

These are pictures from my 1st harvest of tomatoes that had ripened on the vine. My plants have grown really tall and I keep having to extend the height of the stake to support the plants. Think they've grown to more than 6 feet tall now. From one of these cuties, I repeated the process of scattering the seeds in other pots. They have sprouted and I can't wait to relive my experience in growing these wonderful cherry tomatoes.

I used some of these tomatoes to decorate my onion, bacon and parmesan cheese tart. Please hop over to my food blog for pictures and recipe of the tart.

Lotus

Lotus flowers are one of the most beautiful ever created by mother nature. Each bloom conjures up images of beauty, grace and calm. An important symbol in Buddhism, it signifies purity free from all defilement of greed, hatred and delusion, the bad roots of human sufferings.

Lotus plants are grown commercially in large ponds for its flowers and edible roots. The lotus roots are long tubers favored by the Chinese people who would use them in soups or stir fries.

The lotus plant make a beautiful addition to the home garden. It adds a certain charm and serenity for sure. A lotus bloom not only pleases the eyes but enchants the heart and contents the senses with its soft, subtle fragrance.

I bought this white lotus plant at a nursery on the last day of 2010. It already has a full flower bud ready to bloom. The bud 'said hello' to me 5 days later (pictures below).

Lotus plants thrive in clay, muddy soil and must be contained in water. The plant requires full sun and will not thrive in shaded spots. Tablet fertiliser specially for lotus can be used once every 3-4 weeks.

The petals are soft and gentle, with feminine curves. The downside is that the lotus bloom does not last very long. After a day or so, the petals would begin to dislodge, leaving the pod to dry off on the stem.

Lotus blooms are very fragrant. I could never get enough of smelling this bloom.


I read that lotus plant is pretty tricky to grow from pod seed. I collected the dried pod from this pretty bloom and perhaps I shall try to sprout it someday soon.

Just like the lotus, have a beautiful day and hope you've enjoyed the pictures.

I Can't Bear To Pluck It, But I Did!

I ate my first home-grown organic tomato last week! It wasn't big but it was so cute and pretty, so sweet, tasty and delicious! I treasured it so much that I couldn't bear to pluck it off the plant, let alone eat it. After admiring it for the longest time, I finally ate it! I cut it into two and shared with my hubby, and we ate it with fried rice. Yummy! Now I know what it meant when blogging home gardeners said they would never buy supermarket tomatoes anymore after successfully growing their own.

Technically, this is my second tomato plant. The first one died on me after I raked the surface of the soil around the plant to aerate it. That plant was already flowering and I thought by raking the surface of the soil before scattering some fertiliser would help. Sadly, a few days later the plant died. I guess some of the roots got broken. So, never rake the soil around your tomato plant.

I don't have the variety name of my tomato but all I know is it's the local variety commonly sold in Malaysia. It was grown from seed given to me by my sister, My Little Potted Garden. The fruits do not grow in clumps like cherry tomatoes do but rather, a single fruit on each stem. The first one which grew was the largest and the other nine that I have from this same plant were much smaller - just slightly larger than cherry tomatoes!

Tomato plants need very well-fertilised soil. I use pelleted organic chicken fertiliser every other week. I also scattered broken egg shells around the plant once in a while.

I also have three cherry tomato plants (grape variety) with bunches of tomatoes growing and ripening on the vine. I can't wait to harvest them and taste how good they are.

My first tomato

Two more grew while the first one begun its ripening process

More orangy in colour now

It has ripened! So so pretty and luscious looking!

By the time my first tomato was ready to be plucked, more tomatoes were already growing.

All my tomato plants are grown in containers.

White Radish

A gardening frenzy caught on me lately. I would sit in the office and day dream ambitiously (often after lunch!) about transforming my subfertile backyard into a lush, verdant patch of edible greens, fruit orchard and flowers oh glorious flowers everywhere!

As I'm new at gardening, needless to say that there will be many 'first time' plants I'm going to write about in this blog - at least for the next several posts. Like my sunflower and chili plants in my first two posts below, this was also my first time growing white radish.

Before I discuss my white radish planting experience, allow me to mention that I've also had my maiden attempt at growing carrots, last year. It was such a joyful experience and something I'd like to repeat again soon. My carrot post (mutated carrots to be exact!) is on my cooking blog. Click HERE if you wanna read about it. The flowers of carrot plants are just beautiful. If you haven't seen it before, do HOP OVER.

Okay, back to my white radish. As many already know, there are several variety of radish - varies by color, shape and sizes. The variety I've always eaten is the elongated white radish which is also commonly known as daikon. I did some reading on the web prior to planting them and most articles said that radishes are the easiest and fastest to grow - all of about 1 month from sowing to harvesting. I was excited at how fast I could reap the rewards. Seeing pictures on blogs and websites of the roots protruding a few centimetres above the soil truly intrigued me and that really added to my excitement. Infact, I've never seen a root plant that protrudes upwards like white radish does. I've also read that they grow so easily in containers, as long as the containers are deep enough.

So, with all the excitement and anticipation of what I could harvest in a month's time, I embarked by sowing four seeds from a packet of white radish seeds I had bought at the gardening section of Jaya Jusco mall. I sowed them in a paint bucket using black fertilised loose soil I had bought from a nearby nursery. And here is my experience (all of NOT in a month)...

Radish seedlings ~ about 1.5 weeks old

Young plants ~ about 3.5 weeks old

Looking promising! Radish leaves can be eaten, normally stir-fried. These are about 1.3 months old. I took a peep at the roots but there was no sign of radish at all during this stage. Hmmm... So I added some organic fertilizer again and let them be.

After about 2 months, the roots started to show. I was elated!! I curiously wondered how long they were growing beneath. "They must be quite huge" ~ I had thought to myself since the top parts protruded well.

I was looking forward to a huge pot of radish soup, boiled with pork ribs!! Slurppp!!

But that was not to be! I got duped!

Coz all I got was three teeny weeny 'dimensionally challenged' radishes after I dug them out. The ballpoint pen by the side gives you a gauge of their sizes. Nevertheless, it was quite a joyful experience along the way. I brought these home on my trip back to my hometown, bought another radish from the supermarket to add to these three cuties and in the soup pot they went. Although these were small in size but they were really sweet and delicious in taste. I certainly plan to grow more real soon.

Growing these radishes took me about 2.5 months from seed sowing to harvesting - unlike what the articles and information on the seed packet said. But it's okay, the process and experience are quite fun.

I've bought another packet of seeds (different brand) and have sowed 3 seeds which sprouted. Hoping that these future radishes will give me larger yields.

Till then, happy planting!