Banana flower

With the first banana tree we did not cut off the flower. Upon harvesting the fruit, we composted the flower and the tree.

This time round I decided to try cutting off the flower once the fruit stopped forming. There were about 10 combs before the rest remained small. 

Used a kitchen knife. Here it is...

Will be trying to cook it tonight.

Update... it was too bitter for my liking. Ate it anyways

Ulam Raja flower bud

The Ulam Raja might be flowering soon!

I hope this is a bud and not some creature's eggs.

25 Apr 2020 update:
My phone camera has trouble getting the focus right for this plant...

29 Apr 2020 update:
The first flower didnt make it. Probably damaged by the heavy rain over the past few days. A second one managed to bloom...

Okra worm

Our neighbour gave us a handful of okra.

I haven't had much luck with plants that bear fruit. My guess is that the fish pond water doesn't have enough plant nutrients.

There are 2 ways we normally cook okra. One is by slicing into small pieces and frying it up, the other is using them whole in a curry. Luckily we did the former today coz this is what we found in one of them...

Looks like we are cutting up all our okra from now on!

Duckweed as a food source for the Climbing Perch

These guys eat just about anything you throw at them. Duckweed is their least favourite but it will be all gone within the hour.

caterpillar and snails having a feast

I'm in 2 minds about the caterpillar. Yes, they eat some of the leaves but touchwood I haven't had major damage from them. Plus butterflies help pollinate plants.

And both caterpillars and butterflies as so pretty.

Now snails... I cant stand. Yes there are pretty ones but the damage they inflict on my veggies are just ____ . Here is a tiny bugger just getting started...

Quite a bit of Malabar Spinach

Our harvest today :)

The extra was split between my mum and neighbour.

Breathing room for the Aloe

Forgot about this pot which we placed outside our fence...

Pulled out all but one. Messaged the rest of my family if anyone needed aloe vera. 

All will go to the compost if unused by this evening. 

Amazing to see even damaged leaves with so much goodness...

I use aloe for Zoey our dog's skin. Certain parts have dry scabs from rubbing against the hard surfaces. 

This is the pot after the cull...

I think it looks a bit happier now that its nosy neigbours are all gone.

Did not guide our veggie growth

A lot of our kale stems look like this....

That's a result of not guiding their growth.

Repurpose an old document cabinet

This plastic cabinet didnt do much for us. It looked useful when we got it years ago but we ended up using folders for most of our paperwork.

So I chucked out a few layers and made it into a slipper cabinet at our entrance.

Colour difference between compost and garden earth

Our garden soil vs compost... the difference is like night and day

The garden topsoil has quite a bit of clay. Its the one on the left. On the right is compost just under 2 months old.

Mother Nature's Easter gift to us

Happy Easter!! From banana tree#2

giant Malabar Spinach

I harvested this from just one vine....

One of the leaves was the size of my face. Here it is next to Zoey for perspective (she looks better than me)...

She didn't appreciate me sticking that close to her face!!!

Reuse Repurpose

An old lanyard redirecting the Malabar Spinach

Pretty Ulam Raja

Water droplets from the overnight rain...

Happy Palm Sunday

Some new creature eating up the new kale leaves

There are a few different creatures having ago at my veggies. This is the latest one, and very destructive coz they go for the young leaves. No chance for the leaves to outpace the rate of destruction.

Scrap