Post 8: Colourful Wonders

With the ongoing monsoon rains over here, I had thought I won't be seeing many flowers in the garden until the arrival of warmer weather and was resigned to just looking at wet soaking or limp greenery for the next few months.

Thankfully, some plants have put forth flashes of colours in the garden to keep me cheerful, haha.

Desert Rose (Adenium): grown from seed

Okra/Lady's Finger/Gumbo/Bendi flower: only lasts for 1 day

Tropical water lily

Slipper Flower/RedBird Flower,Devil's Backbone (pedilanthus tithymaloides)

Purple Wishbone flower (Torenia): grown from wind-borne seeds

Heliconia parakeet with yellow & orange bracts(?)

I hope YOU are cheered too looking at them!

Post 7: Rainwater Harvesting

It has been raining cats & dogs recently in Shah Alam and the water level in my 3 rain barrels had hardly gone down much. Nowadays, instead of using the water on plants, I'm using it to wash my porch, car and err, also my dog! 

I have found that plants thrive when watered with rainwater and my fishes (and dog!) prefer it too. For sure the absence of minerals and chlorine is a reason.

I am using 3 blue plastic barrels that previously stored chemicals in powder form. 

Capacity-wise, the 2 shorter barrels fills 120 liters each and the taller barrel 160 liters.

It was quite difficult to find these barrels at our local hardware stores. At the end, the shorter barrels were sourced from a neighbour while the other from a friend working in a chemical factory. 

From the existing drainpipe, I had cut off the lower end and re-use the 'elbow' part as a spout.

Ideally, it is much better to actually connect the drainpipe into the barrel by cutting a hole in the cover and connecting a tap (spigot) at the side of the barrel to access the rainwater.

Since I am not crafty with drills and connecting bits and pieces of pipes, I left the barrels as-is and take the covers off when collecting rainwater and manually connect the drainpipe 'spout' onto the cut-off point.

I will wait for the barrels to fill-up and then re-position the 'spout' to drain directly into the bath-tub pond if so needed. 

 

With the current tropical thunderstorms and heavy rains, the barrels fill pretty fast.

These pictures were taken this evening all within 10 minutes. 

 

 

 

 

Notice the small trickle of water from the 'spout' in the 1st and 2nd pictures. 

 

Then the bigger gush of water from the 3rd picture and the "mini waterfall" in the last 2 pictures.

 

As I am typing this post, it is STILL raining heavily. Sigh....rainwater is good for plants but too much just may kill them.

All excess water is channeled into a make-shift washbasin placed under the drainpipe and thereafter into the main house drains.


These rain barrels have been in service for a mere 2 years and I hope they will last for a long time, haha.

For a look at a much more presentable rainwater harvesting system and cute rain barrels, please visit Myrtle Glen.

I apologise for the quality of the pictures in my blog as I am using the 3MP camera in my handphone/mobile to take pictures. It is handy and small enough to bring around with me in the garden, haha.

 

 

Till the next post, please have a great week ahead!

Post 6: Sweetcorn Part Deux

  
It was with much excitement that I finally harvested my sweetcorn last weekend.

A firm push downwards and a twist later, I was running into my kitchen gleefully in anticipation of my buttery corn on the cob!

And the results??? 

Welllll, anyone remember the saying "Don't Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch?"

Sigh, only 3 corn kernels were successfully pollinated!! Wahhh, sob sob! I was SOOO deflated.

Although the kernels were plump and sweet, it just wasn't possible to imagine them as a complete corn on a cob!

Appearance-wise, my sweetcorn was more like a young/baby corn wherein the corn kernels are unpollinated and still in undeveloped stage.

But size-wise, it was on par with a store-bought 'normal' sweetcorn. 

So, should I consider this as an example of "the best of both worlds?". Haha

Reluctant to consign my sweetcorn into the compost heap, I cut it up and added it into my pot of boiling "ham choy" soup. 

[It is a type of soup made from boiling pickled sour mustard leaves, tomatoes, meat and bean curd together. The resulting soup is salty, sour-rish and a real thirst quencher! Yummy!]

And so, my buttery corn on the cob remains a distant dream this round. Next time, I'll make sure to hand-pollinate my stalks for better success! 

Post 5: Of Tassels, Silks, Ears & Suckers!

Aha, are you curious about the Title of this post?

It is actually the name of parts of a cornstalk ie. corn plant! I only knew this after surfing the net for information about sweetcorn, haha. The Net, done right, truly is an amazing place!

F1: Spent Tassels

F2: Cornstalks

Planted 5 corn kernels (seeds) in early August and within 2 days(!), 4 of them germinated. However, courtesy of the pesky grasshoppers (which by the way, are the bane of gardeners right on par with snails! Young leaves, stems and shoots are damaged overnight..grrr), only 2 plants survived.

They grew tall SO fast, it was amazing. They were adding height everyday and I used the bamboo stakes nearby to gauge growth.

F3: Young ear

F4:Drying silks & growing ear!

F5:Suckers & more suckers

The gist is, 'Tassels' are the male flowers with pollen and grow right at the top of the cornstalk. 'Silks' are the female flowers with filament-like strands to catch pollen and grow on lower parts of the stalk and an 'Ear' is the "fruit" that'll grow into a sweetcorn upon pollination.

Do you remember being taught counting "An ear of corn", "A Flock of Birds", "A Stalk of Flower" etc in school? No? Well, anyway it makes sense to me now, haha.

'Suckers' are like aerial roots that grow out from the stem towards the ground to anchor the cornstalk more firmly. Being slender plants, cornstalks are normally planted in a group to withstand wind. 

What really surprised me was finding out that each cornstalk normally produces only 1 ear of corn!! Further, all the corn kernels on the ear must be pollinated as well to complete the process. Wow! Isn't that complex? I'll never look at another sweetcorn the same way again after this, haha. 

 

I've just discovered this evening that there is another smaller ear growing inside F4. Not sure whether that'll be successful though because the tassels are all dried up. Maybe I'll be able to eat them as "baby corn/young corn" instead?

Oh yes, I'm anticipating that buttery corn-on-a-cob on my dinner table soon, haha.  

Post 4 : Bath-Tub Garden Pond/Pool

Having read & perused a number of gardening books, one of the main item on designing a garden is on creating a focal point. 

A focal point could be anything from a striking structural tree, a unique sculpture, a mass of flowering shrubs, a gazebo, a painted wall/mural and well, anything attractive that draws our eyes to it upon entering. 

Mine is a re-cycled 2'x5' bath-tub placed in the middle of the garden on 4 concrete blocks for stability and filled-up with rain-water harvested from my drain-pipes (more on this in future post!). 

Instant garden 'pond'!

It is planted with submerged pots of tropical water lily; kiambang air (errm, can't recollect the english name for this plant at the moment); a type of reed as well as floating water hyacinths. It's also home to a resident spider, 3 Goldfishes and a  Neon Tetra fish. Its guests have included a dozen tadpoles too, haha!

I consider it a part of the garden's hard landscape but it can actually be easily moved if so needed to as it is not cemented onto the ground.

Sun-kissed surface always looks magical!

2 of the current 4 fishy residents

Keeping the 'pond' clear of decaying leaves/stalks and fallen leaves is an easy job because its size is compact and since its right smack in the middle, I'm always keeping a look-out for yellowing leaves, floating debris and spur-of the moment-type cleaning sessions. When the bottom of the 'pond' looks too murky, I'll use a manual hand-held air pump to clear it and if I'm feeling really lazy, I'll wait for the next rain-storm to do the job by channelling the rain-water right into the pond!

I tend to just stand around the tub and look at it....its really therapeutic and when the purple blooms of the water hyacinths burst forth after a round of fertilising, that's when it's a truly lovely sight! Ahhh, if only the purple blooms are scented too, sigh.

I'll admit that neighbours and passers-by gave puzzled looks when they spotted the bath-tub in the middle of the garden while it was a work in progress (*snerk*- what? are they going to bath in the open?), but hey, I've learnt to just trust my visions and instincts for my garden and it's now the talking-point of our friends and guests!

So, just GET ON with that project you have in mind for your garden! :D