Growing Celery in Containers

Celery is known to be a cool weather crop, so I'm pleasantly surprised that my celery plants are growing rather well, although not as large as supermarket ones, under the scorching heat and high temperatures of the Malaysian lowlands. What started as an experimental scattering of a few seeds in a container of soil has turned out into these lush and lovely pots of greens. The seeds were given to me by my sister and when they sprouted I actually forgotten what they were. When the sprouts were 2 inches tall, I transplanted into other larger pots. I now have 6 plants with 4 growing well and ready for harvest soon. Since Chinese New Year is next Monday and my family will be cooking up a feast for Chinese New Year's eve prayers and family reunion dinner this Sunday, I plan to harvest 2 plants for my trip back to Melaka.

2 plants growing in my 1st pot

Another 2 plants in the other pot

Celery is said to be high in vitamin A, and also contains vitamin B and C. It has a fair amount of sodium, calcium and phosphorus, as well as potassium, chlorine, magnesium and iron. It is also high in roughage - must be good for the bowel system :). Other benefits of celery I read include good for calming and soothing the nerves; it helps clean out the kidney and promotes urine; it helps gout by increasing the elimination of uric acid.

Celery is a heavy feeder plant and I regularly used organic chicken manure to feed my plants. Frequent watering is needed - the soil should not be waterlogged but should always be damp. I read about the blanching technique for celery in order to make it less bitter by covering the stems close to the soil. For this, more soil can be added to create a mount surrounding the base or a thick cardboard can also be used to wrap around the base of the stem about few inches high. This will block light from reaching the base of the stem and result in white stem, just like what one gets from supermarket celery. Although it'll reduce the bitterness, blanching will also reduce the nutritions in the plant. I did the 2nd method on one of my plants but after 3 days, 2 stalks had begun to wilt. So I decided not to blanch it, esp with my limited experience. I'll happily settle for as green as can be celery, whether bitter or not. I can't wait to see how my celery will taste like. Can't wait to stir fry them this weekend!

Happy Chinese New Year to all!

Growing Mint As A Wonderful Edging Plant

If there is only one type of herb I am allowed to grow, without a doubt mint will be my top choice. I just love mint! I bought two pots of lush and healthy mint plant a while back, separated them into several clumps and replanted them in the narrow strip of soil at my porch.

They spread so fast and within a month, this lovely herb has shrouded over almost the entire strip. Mint is just perfect to be grown as edging plant.

If I have a big garden, I would even dedicate a huge patch just for mint and I wouldn't inhibit its growth. Whenever I need an aromatic whiff of it, all I need to do is to give the plant a gentle shake and its lovely minty fragrance will waft through the air. But if its a breezy day, I just need to stand near it to smell it. Aghhhh...lovely!

Mint leaves are great addition to a cup of tea. Chop some and throw in a salad is another delightful and easy to use option.

A lovely pot of mint at just RM5.00 which I bought at a nearby local nursery

I tore the plants into clumps and replanted them in the ground on 11 Sept 2011

Photos below were taken end of last month, October. Show just how fast mint can spread. Mint needs well-drained soil and a light occasional feed of fertilizer.

However as of today, I'm sad to say that so many of my mint leaves have been eaten by bugs - must be grasshoppers and caterpillars. My sister spotted two baby caterpillars today. Guess I'm not the only one who loves mint. Sigh...hope they will grow new shoots soon and be lush again.

Till then, happy gardening. Next up will be an update on my container veggies, in particular celery!!

Growing Turmeric Rhizomes

Yesterday was a happy day of 'yellow discovery'!

I got the grass cutter man to come over yesterday to clear the messy and uncontrolled weeds that have taken over my whole backyard. The current rainy season has sped up the foliage growth and it was an eye sore. Anyway, I had a new garden idea so I needed to get the mess cleared real quick before my enthusiasm fades away.

After the weeds were cleared, I spotted something bright yellow just slightly above the soil surface. I remembered I had buried 2 small knobs of turmeric rhizomes last year and knew that perhaps they had grown bigger since the turmeric leaves have all wilted off. Armed with a garden scraper I dug out that small patch and I found a turmeric. Then, it seems like there was another one next to it as I cleared off more earth. I continued to dig. And I found not one but another 3 knobs of this yellow treasures! On what seems like an endless joy, I found more and more of these rhizomes! I followed the trail of the roots underneath the soil and found a huge clump of rhizomes a feet away from the first spot. It was such a surprising and truly joyful find indeed!!

I collected almost a colander full of turmeric!!! Woooohhhhooooo!!! I did not expect that they could grow, much less multiply to so many, under the clay-like soil condition. What started as an experiment ended up as a victory yield and I am a very happy home gardener now :D)))

1. Freshly dug out turmeric rhizomes

2. All washed and ready to be sun-dried for a while

3. I collected almost 700 g of turmeric

How to grow turmeric:

Turmeric is actually the rhizome of the turmeric plant, much like ginger. Apparently these two plants belong to the same family.

Start by buying a fresh clump of turmeric from the market and nib off the small rhizomes where a bud or two have started to show. Plant the rhizomes about 2 inches in the soil and about 20 cm apart. Loamy and fertile soil are best for growing turmeric. It also needs full sunlight. Slight shade will not do any harm but it won't thrive under heavy shade. It takes about a year for the rhizomes to multiply underneath the soil.

The plant will grow bearing very fragrant long leaves that are commonly used in Asian cooking. Some plants will bear pretty flowers too. The plant itself is pretty and ornamental.

Turmeric is a key ingredient in curry recipes as well as in many of my Nyonya culture cuisine. It is said to carry a natural antiseptic property beneficial for healing wounds. Looks like I'll be doing quite a bit of spice blending in my kitchen this week. Yippee!!! I'm so happy!

Seriously, growing turmeric is so easy and maintenance-free! Now I can't wait to harvest my ginger which I planted in a container.

Happy gardening!

Capsicum

Each time I visit some of my favorite garden & veggie patch blogs, I get so envious (in a good way of course :) of the gardening space they have and the variety of plants they could grow which of course leads to bountiful harvest. As much as I would love to have a spacious garden, I can only be satisfied with my plants in my containers and cherish my small harvest from time to time.

For now, one of my containers is growing capsicum. I am happy that it works out so I've sowed some more seeds in 4 other containers. I guess other plants will have to wait for its turn to occupy the pots.

This is my second capsicum and I've eaten it before the ants could damage it, like my first capsicum. I hate those pesky ants! The crawl all over my capsicum and chili plants and they encourage the growth of the white powdery mildew. What I did was to boil a few dried chilies and use the water mixed with a few drops of dishwater liquid and cooking oil, give it a good shake and spray at the ants and powdery mildew on infected plant. This needs to be done every day in the morning or evening until the disease is gone. I tend to forget and the disease multiplied before I could control it. That was what happened to my beautiful marigold plants that I had to sadly pull out last month. If anyone has more lethal solution to get rid of ants and the powdery mildew insect...please please share :D!

I am really getting a hang at growing capsicums now. It was sweet and crunchy but a little thin. I should perhaps use more organic fertiliser to fatten it.

Capsicums are really easy to grow. Just scatter the seeds of a capsicum that you buy from the market and they will sprout in less than a week. It's easy to care too...just water as normal and feed with fertiliser once every 2 weeks.

Chillies & Some Green Edibles

Growing edibles in containers/pots gives a lot of versatility, although there are some limitations. Oh well, nevermind the limitations, I prefer to look at the positive sides of it. Resorting to growing in pots placed around my front porch gives me more control with regard to pest/disease control and fertiliser usage (can use less as the fertiliser is contained in the pot and does not get washed away).

I have had wonderful successes growing tomatoes in containers, and Asian spinach (bayam). Bayam grow so easily. Some of the earlier seeds which remained dormant are now growing in my other plant pots after I did some repotting of soil. Isn't that lovely. After I have harvested my 2nd batch of bayam (below pic), I am still getting some more growing out of nowhere.

Recent harvest. Top left are 2 stalks of crinkled pak choy; top right are bayams; bottom are 2 ladies' fingers (okra) and tomatoes.

I'm now growing three types of chilli plants. 2 out of the 3 types are growing in the same pot, just to make use of the available space. As expected I get smaller plants as they both compete for nutrients in the same pot but they still bear quite a number of chillies so it's fine by me. In the other pot is the 3rd type of chilli, looks somewhat like a miniature pointed capsicum. Here they are:

This above is the 1st type. It's bird's eye chilli that grows upwards. Below is the 2nd type, which grow downwards. Both are growing in the same pot.

This one below is the 3rd type. They're so cute!! I plucked the reds ones but much to my disappointment, a few were hollow inside and 1 had a worm inside. I saw tiny holes on the surface of the chillies and I knew immediately who the culprits were. ANTS!! I can't stand ants. Whether on plants or in the kitchen or wherever. On plants, they are the main cause of aphid disease!!

Below: Bayam growing randomly in my calamansi and rose pots...

Ok, I'm off to go make some burning hot organic concoction specially for the ants. Will share in my next post.

Enjoy gardening!

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.