Post 3: Mini Cherry Tomato

The other day, I finally harvested my 1st cherry tomato. Yes, you read it right, TOMATO instead of TOMATOES. Haha, yup, 1 lonesome wee yellow cherry tomato.

'Wee' because it's smaller than a 20 cents coin!

I bought a packet of seeds in June which the nursery owner said came from China. Planted out 8 seeds and 6 germinated. But only 4 plants grew to about 10 cm. 

Then they were in turn transplanted: 2 together in a clay pot, 1 into a recycled rice plastic bag and 1 upside-down in a hanging basket!

Leaves curled up and sickly looking.

Hanging basket. Notice the dying foliage.

Initially, they all grew really really well with thick strong main stems and healthy leaves. I was diligently fertilising every fortnight.

Then the leaves began to curl up one by one. Some at bottom of the plant and some on newer shoots. Flowers tended to drop off after blooming at first and eventually, they drop before even opening.


I'm not sure what happened. Maybe I over fertilised or didn't help by hand-pollinating the flowers or maybe the sudden change in weather from hot weather to heavy rains during end of July had a hand in it.


Thinking that I'll at least save a plant in event some disease were striking the tomatoes, I gave the plant in the rice bag to my mum and she got to harvest 3 big-gish oblong shaped cherry tomatoes, yummy!


There are currently 3 green fruits growing on the upside-down plant, but the leaves have all curled up and turned yellow and brown. Frankly, I'm not sure whether these will 'survive' or not. 


Plus, the weather has been acting up lately, it has been raining a lot in my area and when it isn't, the sky is overcast. So, no sufficient hot weather to help ripen the tomatoes. 

With the current condition of the plants, I don't think they'll be putting forth anymore new flower bunches and this is as good as they'll get. Keeping my fingers..and toes..crossed that the remaining 3 fruits will survive!

I've put aside some seeds from the sole cherry tomato harvested and once the weather turns more amicable, I'll be germinating those for Round 2 in "the War of the Tomatoes"! 

Yes, hope springs eternal in a gardener's heart!

Post 2 - What Do I Want From My Space?

After the initial greenery mess of the garden, I have now whittled down the number of plants in it tremendously.

Because the available space is small, careful thought and planning had to be made and for sure, I had to hone my self-control as well! Visiting plant nurseries and being unable to grab ALL the beautiful plants was indeed hard. So, I've had to stop visiting them and within the last 3 years, I've only visited 2 plant nurseries in total.

Since my house is separated from the neighbours by a chain-link fence, the issue of privacy was utmost on the agenda. But I didn't want to build a brick wall, which was the easiest solution and what most people would do. With the length of the driveway at about 16 meters, it would have been QUITE expensive as well!

I wanted a solution that would have 1. allowed light and air to pass between the houses unhindered; 2. allowed me to dismantle it easily for washing and cleaning ie. easy maintenance; 3. would not contribute more heat and pollution to the environment; 4. made from something sustainable and easily available; and 5. would not have cost an arm & a leg!

With these at hand, I settled on bamboo blinds and had decided to set them up to cover the chain-link fences nearest to my door entrance first. 

Bought 4 ready made ones from the shops, painted them bright yellow and hung on the chain-link fence! Occasionally, they'll be brought down, given a good scrubbing and hose down to rid accumulated dust, debris, wayward leaves and matted dog fur. 

Instant privacy for both our family and the neighbours! Its been in 'service' for 5 years now and counting! Hemm, I think the lick of yellow paint helped to extend its shelf life a bit as well. The lastest improvement to this was cutting a straight and long bamboo from our clumps and putting it up horizontally as a beam to hang the blinds instead of using the common chain-link fence.

Fig 1: Close-up of blind

Fig 2: Hanging from bamboo pole.

So, what do you want your garden/yard/patio/space to be? How do you want to use it? As an additional outdoor 'room' for the house? A place to relax or entertain? To grow fruits and vegetables? A spot to encourage local flora & fauna? A private area for the family/yourself? A place to hang daily/weekly washings? (sadly, the designs and sizes of intermediate houses in Malaysia means that the only viable place to dry and hang washings IS in the front yard in full sight of all & sundry!) The list is endless.

Currently, my garden/yard/patio/space is used for ALL the above and some, haha! 

Post 1

After leaving the blog idle since creating it in August, I think it is time to put up posts! 

Where shall I begin? Hmmm... maybe I'll start with an overview of my 'garden' space.

Staying in intermediate townhouse units means that space is at a premium, and my 'garden' really consists of 2 strips of land/lawn measuring about 1 1/2 feet on either side of the driveway, a strip of concrete-covered drains about 3 feet wide and a portion of the concreted car porch.

If you were to visit any housing areas in Malaysia, you will notice that most houses would have tiled or concreted all spaces around the house for ease of maintenance and any plants would invariably just be planted into pots and containers. With the already hot and humid weather of Malaysia as well as the added problem of trapped heat from tiled and concreted spaces, such plants really need a LOT of care to grow properly and most definitely, the occupants would need extra air-conditioning as well!

So we kept our lawn/land as it is. We've been living here for nearly a decade and in that time, our 'garden' had undergone a few changes in terms of layout and plantings. With limited space, most of our earlier plants were in pots and containers and any land remaining were planted with a type of tea-plant as a hedge. Boy, our garden was a veritable 'jungle' of plants and everything and ANYTHING were planted and stuffed into the garden with gusto!

Needless to say, without proper planning, our garden pretty soon became difficult to manage and was a veritable unsightly huge mess of greenery!

After the latest 'garden change', I think we have struck a balance somewhat now with a mixture of pots,containers, ground plantings and concreted areas.

But then again, which gardener would ever say 'Aha, the garden is now finished'? And that's the beauty of gardening isn't it?