Tomato disease?

I just discovered this on my one month old tomato plant that's been growing on my apartment balcony. Can someone tell me is this some kind of disease?

Water wicked bottles

These are the bottles that I think are "successful" in keeping my poor balcony plants alive for the 3 weeks I was away. Nothing fancy just some parcel strings in plastic bottles.

It worked because I think  water very slowly seeps out  and after 3 weeks about 1/3 the water is still left in the bottle. I placed the string wick touching the soil.

 

The smaller bottles ones were completely dry of course.


This one with open top has holes at the base to wet the tied string at the bottom and was almost empty when I got back. Made this by making the holes and then tying the string twice over to cover the holes.

May have an issue with mosquitoes in other places because of the open top but here at the 10th floor I see no mosquitoes.


The string wick is always wet and the water gets out for sure because you can see the bottle is compressed already.

Balcony plant - 22 days without water

Surprised to see a completely new tomato plant already out because only seeds were planted before leaving these balcony plants all by their lonesome 22 days ago. The tomato leaves looks dry and withered but still alive.

All the rest of the pots is ok!

 

 

 

 

This pot was completely empty but some new shoots have grown. Chili plant I think..

 

The funny thing is the water bottles with tiny holes in them are still full. Guess the holes were tooo tiny.

 

 

 

The one that worked was water botles with the string wick attached.. the water very slowy seeped out. Guess that will be the preferred method to keep the plants alive next time their left alone for lone periods f time.

 

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Padang converted to edible plots

I passed this taman several months back in Teluk Intan when there was some event with VIPs opening this community padang and converting it into plots of land to plant edibles.

It looks like half the padang is now growing edibles.

I guess as a recently "pro-green" person I am all for this conversion but I imagine it will be a different sentiment if I were a kid. My playground is now taken up by some old geezers planting vege.

So I guess it's a matter of perspective.

Overall I think it's for the better as the local council has been neglecting the field and long grass and 'lalang' has taken over.

Now the playground is put to better use. 

Ulam Raja Flower

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

I guess seeds will be coming next !

Tea Time

ah .. the mint pot is full

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

Balcony plants - ≈5 weeks aftermath

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

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...

RM 2 succulent

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

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 !

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..