Ginger #6

Some market ginger. This time I am trying one really small piece (left, at the tip of the spade) and one big one (right, on top of the fork), just to see the difference in 5 months. 

9July2021 update: the smaller piece is growing faster. First shoot is visible...

23 July 2021 update: Larger piece still struggling to get started. It's the tiny bit of green growing 5 o'clock from the base of the stick...

The smaller piece is showing more leaves.

attempt 3 at potato

 The potatoes at Tesco...

The ones from US showed signs of growth. The ones from China had zero shoots. I read somewhere lots of the veggies we buy have some kind of growth inhibitor on them.

Anyways I bought just 1 piece of the US potato. Only concern is that it's native temperature would be a lot different from ours. So I'm not holding my breath for this to succeed.

Here goes...

5 July 2021 update: Leaves have been visible for a couple of days now. Unique looking leaves with green on top, with a furry purple bottom. 

I moved away some dirt to check if the potato was still intact. Lots of little roots around. Neighbour said that it won't work. She tried and all she got were leaves that eventually died off, and nothing in the ground except roots.

banana #5 about to fruit

The short and chunky leaf that hides the flower/fruit just sprouted.

19June...

20June...

23June...

26June...

Moringa aka drumstick tree

fyi there are a few different spellings for this plant... moringa, muringakka, etc.

This tree is amazing. We just chopped off a branch, cut off all its leaves and stuck the bare branch into the ground. The patch we chose was mostly stones and clay. I put a little compost and shrimp shells at the bottom.

I was told not to water it for 3 days. I thought that would surely kill the plant but one week later, and with hardly any rain, the branch started to show signs of growth.

Even one other branch which I just chucked in the compost pile started growing. 

If it continues to grow well I will prune it aggressively coz the plant can grow into a huge tree. I've seen some in the neighbourhood about 50 feet tall.

Moringa has numerous benefits. I borrowed this pic from here. It illustrates quite well.

4 July 2021 update: Its growing nicely.

recycled bed base

 Someone threw this out. Looks like half a bed base frame. It was heavy. The longer pieces of wood were much better quality than pallets. 

Painted it with used motor oil. That should give it some protection from the rain.

4 July 2021: Found another bed base last week. More than 10 pieces of reasonable quality wood. Here are 3 of them...

They were joined together by some thick fabric. After spraying with bug spray, and leaving all out in the sun and rain for a few days, it was time to clean and cut it up. The staples holding the fabric were a pain to remove.

trying bitter gourd again

I had reasonable success with bitter gourd before. The hassle was keeping pests at bay coz they attacked the leaves and fruit. The leaves were the main target. Here is a new juvenile...

 

pump died

I have 2 pumps running. one is a powerhead with 2 outflows... the first to move water around the pond and the second goes out to an external filter and flows back in. the 2nd pump (the one that died) was on a timer and pumping dechlorinated water into the pond 3 times a day.

Bought this small powerhead to do the job.

Cut the 2pin plug off (voids the warranty but its so cheap I wouldn't claim it if it died under a year) and replaced with a 3pin power cable from some old device.

grasshoppers must be super healthy

 Caught this fellow feasting on our veggies. 

It finished off quite a bit of kale.