Duckweed disintegrating

These are the 3 types of duckweed we have. I think technically they aren't all duckweed but anyways, here they are...

If I zoom in onto the bottom right, you can see half the leaves disappearing...

And they aren't a deeper shade of green like they were before.

Chinese Cabbage attacked

Some creature got to our Chinese Cabbage. These eggs were on many of the plants. and it was rotting away as a result.

Recycle Reuse

Over the years, I have accumulated heaps of cables... network cables, telephone lines, those red and white RCA audio cables, etc etc. I have been sending those to the recycle centres, but I am almost certain they won't get recycled, just end up in some dump sites. But these cables are really strong, so why not use them as ropes.

Today's harvest and baby grasshopper

Boxing Day's harvest...

And this little fellow was on our brinjal leaf...

The basics are in place

The last major piece in the puzzle was the watering of the plants. So now it looks like this.

We will just keep adding plant boxes on the right.

added Climbing Perch to the pond

Got 2 adult climbing perch from a friend. The biggest one had only one eye!! but they both looked healthy.

Now I have to look for a few more to increase the chances of having both sexes. I could buy them from the local fish shop but rather not. Better to get them from the villages or from someone rearing them.

In the pond now are...

- 2 climbing perch
- a handful of baby guppies. Hopefully they become food for the perch.
- some floating plants, also a source of food for the perch.
- banana leaves for shade
- indian almond leaves for the fish health
- netting to prevent the perch from jumping

An hour later...

Looks like they have settled in fine.

Second pond can't take the pressure

First time trying to build a pond 5 bricks deep. Without water it looked good.

I had a feeling that the bricks wouldn't hold the water. And unfortunately that was the case. The lower level side began to buckle.

Placed some bricks at the bending wall to reinforce it temporarily. I've now siphoned out the water to reduce the pressure. Tomorrow will be a long day trying to figure out a solution.

17Dec2019 update: the day after... i was toying around with a few ideas. One was moving the plant boxes to lean against the lowest wall. But due to its shape, the box would only press against one layer of bricks.
The second idea was to get all the spare bricks I had and double up the wall. I didn't have enough bricks. So did that for 80% of the wall. Pray that sorts it out.

With full water, the double wall looks better. I dont know if it's my imagination but now the opposite wall looks like it's tilting under the pressure.

Green Peace Lily Flower

All the flowers so far have been white. Then came this one...

Ran a search and the results said it could be due to over fertilizing or too much sun. All the lilies get the same aquarium water. And this lily is not in the sunniest position of all the other lilies. Anyways, it's a nice contrast.

Don't buy Bettas

I just saw this video and am not going to buy another Betta again.

Water supply timer

This was the cheapest (RM24) I could find that was semi programmable.

Runs on 2xAAA batteries. First problem we encountered was that used batteries from an AC remote didnt work on this. The timer had difficulty switching on or off more than once. On the AC remote the same batteries were good enough. The display was clear and all buttons worked fine from distance.
A set of new batteries did the trick for the water timer. So I wonder how long they will last before the same issue pops up.

Here it is installed. I didn't turn on the tap too much. Figured the less pressure the better for the timer.

I set it for 3 mins per 24 hours. The water output was about 16 litres. It will feed into the water reservoir in the evening. The reservoir has a pump feeding the fish ponds. The output is about 2 litres/minute. I set the pump to 3 mins at 11am and 4 mins at 2pm. So the ponds will be fed at the warmest hours. If my calculations are right, the reservoir should overflow a little in the evening and that will water that tiny patch of the grass.

11Dec2019 update: the day after. i looks like it worked but my calculations slightly off. The reservoir didn't overflow. Almost to the top. Lets see over the next few days

13Dec2019 still ok

Kangkung Microgreens

Trying microgreens for the 1st time. Out of all our seeds, we had the most kangkung. Used peat moss in a baking tray.

Wet the surface and covered it. Will leave it covered and in the dark for 2 or 3 days.

14Dec2019 update: Looks gigantic!!

17Dec2019 update: Most have sprouted. It's been 8 days.

I can see the true leaves just starting to appear on some.

The experts say harvest at 7-10 days.

18Dec2019 update: day 9... off with their heads!!!

It was tasty but was different from the adult leaves. Also quite a few had the hard seed shell stuck to the leaves. It was too hard to eat, so came the tedious task of removing those.

Growing container prep

We got these from Tesco and Lulu supermarkets for RM10 each. They are at least 10 inches deep which will be enough depth for the soil. Used a heated metal point to make the drainage holes the last time. This time we tried the drill. It was a lot easier and faster.

Peace Lily update - totally aquatic one doing well too

I bought my 1st peace lily a couple of weeks back and divided it up to individual shoots.

Most of them were replanted into pots containing 50-50 mix of soil and coco coir. Those are all doing ok. The bigger ones are all flowering.

The smaller ones that had next to no roots from the repotting process are all still alive which means they have definitely grown roots.

4 shoots of varying sizes were put into water... The 1st one was in sitting on my indoor aquarium and did not get adequate light.

It didn't show root or leaf growth, and so was relocated to a pot with earth.

The 2nd had indirect sun from a south facing window and was sitting in a bowl of water. I thought it would do well because of the light levels but strangely the roots started to melt away. Also there were more yellow leaves compared to the rest.

On the plus side, it did sprout a flower and there was a single root that showed new growth. But being a novice, I didn't want to risk it any longer and finally potted it in soil.

The 3rd was in a small plastic cup with aquarium gravel to hold the plant it place. It sits at a north facing window. It is still alive and just sprouted a flower, though it looks smaller than the other outdoor earthbound ones. The leaves all look good. The roots are running out of space so it will need a bigger container soon.

The last water bound peace lily was placed in a pot outside that is shaded and south facing. The pot's inhabitants... mostly feeding guppies. Plants wise... it has a large fern that grew on a piece of exposed driftwood. Submerged there is mostly vallisneria. The peace lily was placed within the submerged roots of the fern for support.

It now has well established roots tangled with the fern's. The leaves look very healthy and the flower too.

Note: We mostly use aquarium water for all the plants. Maybe 10% we use tap water just because we don't have time that day.