God-given malabar spinach harvest

 These are some of the prunings from a malabar spinach vine I didnt plant. 

Papaya tree

Tons of papaya seeds all over the garden. They keep sprouting like weeds. I have let some grow but none have survived until now. This one is about my height  and has reached the flowering stage.

15 April 2022: The flower looks like a tiny fruit now...

compost day

Harvesting and moving around the compost. Surely have back pain after but the rewards are really nice to see.

Snail invasion

 Caught one in the morning munching on my kale. 

Came back at night to see if there were any on my plants. This was the haul...

They have been feasting on my sayur manis and kale...

The following night haul... 

The big monster mama too.

Them in action... 

Veggie for today

 Lunch and dinner veggies... moringa leaves from our tree and brinjal from neighbour.

lean on me

 Sort of propped up the leaning banana tree...

Not the best but it will do for now.

Banana tree leaning angle problem

Banana #6 fruit have appeared. The weight normally makes the tree lean to one side. So far the lean has mostly been away from the closest wall or fence, so we have tied it quite easily to the opposing structure. This arrests the increasing lean due to the increasing weight of the fruit. 

Btw those planks on the ground are just to prevent the dog digging up that area. 

With this tree's position its impossible to tie to the nearest structures coz the angle is not opposing the anchor posts.So we will have to go about the harder approach of wedging some strong wood. It will hurt the tree a bit but no choice.

banana#6 flowering

 Nice greeting this morning...

companion plants

These 2 plants have been growing side by side... a chili padi

and this thorny weed. 

I kept this thorny guy coz I noticed very early on that the insects loved it, and it was such a fast grower that it could survive with both insect attacks plus my pruning.

The chili padi has so far shown better condition leaves and less white fly attacks. I hope this God-planned companion plants carry on helping each other out.

pan mee veggies

Wifey making pan mee today. Veggies have to be light/soft type. So harvested sayur manis and spinach.

fyi I didnt plant the spinach... it was from a God-given shoot left to grow out.

The pan mee...

easiest to grow and maintain in 2021

The easiest veggie to grow and maintain with zero chemical pesticides and fertiliser was hands down the kangkung, followed by chives. 

Kangkung was just plain hardy. Even when ravaged by pests, and I didnt harvest for some time which meant the pest had undisturbed time to do max damage... after pruning heavily the affected leaves, the plant would bounce back like new. On top of that I have yet to add new seeds. This was the first plant I attempted to grow, and it has continued to feed us for years. I have limited it to just 2 small boxes so that we don't have an oversupply. 

Chives was the only plant that didnt get attacked by insects. The only problem was weeds, especially one of the grass species that looked exactly like chives! Who knows, we might have eaten quite a bit of grass over this year. 

Happy New Year

ginger leaves affected by rain

I think its the bad weather we have had. Since the top part of the shoot is dying, I thought I'd harvest earlier.

Also maybe leave a couple of shoots in the ground to see if it will carry on. My finger isd pointing at the point where I broke off a section.

Previously I have harvested completely. This is the ones I pulled out. 

Finally enough for 1 meal

 Finally grew enough plants to harvest for one lunch veggie dish.

This veggie is really good for you but I read somewhere that it's toxic if eaten raw! Anyways all the Chinese restaurants have this in their soups so the cooked version must be healthy.

A drop of water is all it needed

 I left some ulam raja seeds outside to pass to a friend. I didnt notice a drop of water from the rain. This morning the one seed that was wet started to grow.

Chive (kuchai) flowers

 Nice delicate white flowers

yummy ginger leaves

 Yummy for these buggers...

So many leaves gone!!!

This is what it looks like when that caterpillar makes a home...it seals the 2 sides of the leaf...

zero care vinegar

 Pineapple scraps put in water and just let outside to ferment. It worked but because I was not checking it at all, a lot of the water evaporated.

I use this vinegar to add to my pest deterrent sprays. The spray itself is a mixture of neem leaves water. cooking oil, dishwashing detergent and this vinegar.

long beans and ginger leaves attacked

These little fellows look like butterfly caterpillars. Lost quite a few long beans...

and their cousins gobbled up my ginger leaves...

long beans

What a beautiful flower....

market coriander

Used the coriander. Left the roots. Have tried growing them with no success so far. Trying again. Some growth after sitting in water for a day.

Planted in the ground. Will update