Wednesday 26 August 2015

Ulam Raja Flower

Finally get to see how the flower looks like after many weeks..





I guess seeds will be coming next !

Thursday 20 August 2015

Tea Time

ah .. the mint pot is full

mint tea time.. one indian borage mint added to the mix.

Sunday 16 August 2015

Balcony plants - ≈5 weeks aftermath

Was away from the apartment. Left a couple of mineral water bottles but apparently not enough for 5 weeks.







Thursday 13 August 2015

Why steal lah ?

This is a food restaurant in Tanah Rata, Cameron Highlands. I ate here before and noticed they had some pretty flowers hanging at the side railings were now replaced by these Spider plants.

I asked the owner and found out the flowers with their containers were stolen outright some time back so were replaced with these spider plants.

That's so discouraging when some business goes out of their way to add some green to their shops and some itchy fingers can't help themselves. So instead of colorful flowers decorating the shop, they opted for these less 'attractive' spider plants to discourage would be thieves.

To my surprise, the owner said that even the spider plants and their containers were stolen!

Those above are actually the replacements.

Still, I commend the owner of the shop for not giving up and replacing those stolen plants.


... some strawberry scones I had at the shop

DIY Budget Aquaponics

Today I took the plunge!

After watching countless, YouTube videos on how successful budget Aquaponics is on growing herbs and vegetables, I am inspired to try it myself. 

Just take a look at the success of this 'window' gardener (hydroponics instead of aquaponics but it is the same basic principles).




So today, passing by an aquarium shop @  Ikano Power Centre(PJ), I bought the tube and air pump for the water irrigation to the plants. The air-pump is probably the highest cost  (RM 25.50). The tubing for water and air is only RM 3.07. Both of which is to make a cheap 'air lift' system to bring water up to the grow beds for the plants. (see youtube video right at the bottom for how an air lift pump works)




I'll probably need to get some fishes (goldfish most probably) and a small firstwater tank.

Picture courtesy of Vinil Ratnakara (inventor of the 'miniponics' system above) 

Here in this video he goes about showing how cheap and easy it was to set up his aquaponics system :



Air-lift pump in aquaponics:




Of course, I am no expert in doing all of the above, so wish me luck!

My setup in next blog post...

Wednesday 12 August 2015

RM 2 succulent

bought this succulent (together with that small pot) for RM 2 @ Big Red Strawberry Farm, Brinchange, Cameron Highlands.

Tuesday 11 August 2015

Only in a month!

I was here at the Tanah Rata, Cameron Highland holiday apartments last month. It's the Green Hill apartments just 5 minutes walk from the town centre of Tanah Rata, Cameron Highlands, Pahang.


I was surprised at how fast the newly planted flowers sprung up in just over a month !!


I guess things really grow faster here in the highlands.


Amazing to think all the below flowers are relatively newly planted !



The size of the hibiscus is bigger than my palm !




Thursday 6 August 2015

Transfer from water to soil





Using this concrete pot to transfer my mints from the water to soil.

See that small bottle cap there?







Burried the bottle with holes for watering purpose like in this diagram..






Before..

After ..


Not all is transferred though.

I am keeping the "success" cases with strong root growth like this one below..


Wednesday 5 August 2015

Re-organised bottled plants


I am sure you've seen this before on Pinterest on bottled garden.


Influenced, I tried to plant some using recycled plastic bottles.


Of course I never got it right and just hung them randomly.

They are all over the place on the staircase.



So today, I decided to line them up..


Saves water too, now that I only have to water the top and let it drizzle down to the other plants.





Tuesday 4 August 2015

Mint in water - results after 2 weeks

2 weeks ago I started a small experiment to find out if mint can live in water.

Here's the results :-


This bottle did fine.. all the leaves are healthy and some root growth.


This one had the best results


A close up of the roots. It has the most root growth compared to the rest of the mint.



This one didn't do so well. Many dried up and died leaving the pitiful few on top.

This one is ok but with one of the three stems totally drying up and wilted.

Conclusion:

Mint can leave in water but looks like only 60% of mine is okay. I guess I will return those wilting back to soil and only keep the successful/strong ones in water. 

I still don't know why some did better than others. Perhaps like the one with lots of root growth it was because only half of the root was in water? The other half could "breathe" exposed to air? Just an assumption.

Monday 3 August 2015

My combo herbs for tea

Bought another one of those small RM 2 pots from Giant supermarket to make this herb combo pot.

Mints + Indian Borage + Pegaga Gajah.

All three can be used in my tea. :)

Benefits for each herb:

Indian Borage : cures cough and wind.
Mint: Relieves sore throat, high in Vitamin A and antioxidants.
Pegaga gajah: Good for memory, skin and anti viral properties.


Won't be taking the pegaga gajah for some time because it only has 3 tiny leaves!

Staying in an apartment I don't have a garden, so potted herbs like these is quite attractive for me.

Sunday 2 August 2015

Durian Tree - 3 weeks old


Durian tree is now 3 weeks old. You can see pictures of it a week earlier here.
What a difference. The shoots is straigthening itself upwards.

Small leaves are forming.

Some growth in the middle..



Saturday 1 August 2015

Ulam Raja omellette

Ulam Raja from the garden.

Usually I eat it raw but here it's added to egg omellette. Ok but all the leaves should be young if you like me like this soft and not  that hard and chewy bits. :)




Mint rooted

Some leaves are yellowing after being in water for over 2 weeks. So I guess better move them to soil.

Look at the roots !