More plants

Some of my plants died as i went for vacation for a week. Felt sad, but i didnt have that much choice anyway. 

I went to the market to buy lemongrass and found out that i can still plant some of them as the basal node, where the root and stalk emerges, are still intact. I decided to soak the root in water (just so that the disks are immersed in water). Within 3 days, the roots are well grown and i moved them into a soil medium om day 5. Hopefully it will grow.

And i also brought my avocado baby to the office. I used starbucks plastic glass as pot. It looks cute, i think...

Back to planting

Now that i have my own space to fill up, i started frugal gardening few weeks ago.

To date, i already have my ginger sprouts:

My mango as well, but i havent move it to a soiled pot:

And the mystery seed (i wont tell until it really grow)

And i just planted my longan yesterday:

Had my carrot sprouted stalks:

And some more frugal gardening that i havent took any pic yet.

I even bought this bottled coffee just because i think that the bottle will look nice.

Look forward for more posts! :)

Cherry, will you grow?

So, last friday my maid found a box of seeds in my fridge. I planted about 3-6 seeds of cherry last june and store them in the fridge to mimic the winter (i think they should grow after exposed to the cold winter). I totally forgot about the seeds and surprisingly, they were still alive and sprouted tiny baby leaves.

This morning, the baby leaves has grown again.

We'll see how it will grow. Hopefully i dont kill it.

recycling

im trying to grow something on a recycled container. anybody can guess what is the plant i am using?

Mini mango bonsai

So, I developed a simple hobby of trying to grow any seed. And when I say any seed, I really mean it. 

Few months ago when I was still in Taiwan, a friend of mine brought me a stolen mangoes. Yes, 4 stolen mangoes smuggled from Taizhong. The mangoes were stolen from neighbor's tree that... errr... let's just say, the tree had tempted my friend to steal them. Especially the mangoes looked so beautiful. I thought, "hey! we should make a mini fruit bonsai!"

So what we need would be:

- mango with seed

- soil

- pot

- small stones or pebbles

- water

- small shovel or spoon

- clean container

- fruit knife

- a good (gardening) scissors

After we ate them, I collected all the seeds. You know, the part that we usually bite and chew as our last resort in eating whole part of the mango. That part, is actually the casing of the mango seed. First, we wash the collected casings and clean the outer surface of the casing, peel the leftover mango fruit-flesh with the knife. Carefully find the the cleft on the side of the casing, and gently tug it open (or dig a hole) with the gardening scissors.

Then peek inside the casing, you will have the seeds. Pull out the seeds, and carefully not to cause any damage on the mango seed. Remove the brown skin from the seed and then soak the seed on clean water, in a clean container. Change the water everyday or earlier if the water had turned brown. I believe the brown color is a kind of sap (now, I forgot what's the scientific name, but it usually excreted by trees to avoid insects or when wounded). As for the casings, dry them under a direct sunlight. It usually dries out in 1-2 days.

After a 1-2 weeks, a bud (or more) will sprout. 

The color will then change from white to green. And if the plants were continued soaked, the bud will transform into a shoot and root. If you're lucky, the rootings will be long enough.

And after the rootings are established, it is safe for you to move the seed into a soiled pot. Make sure that the rootings are well sunked and covered with soil and pebbels. Spray with water (into the pot) immediately.

So, after I put the pebbles, I kept the mango bonsai on a well sun-lighted area in my room (direct sunlight is acceptable for the baby). And the plant grew quickly (thanks to the constant watering) everyday.

 

Now... who said that growing plant is a difficult way? It is easy and simple!

See you next time :D

Container gardening

 You know that I always fond on plants, right?

Well, other than trying to move those plants and grow them inside the house, I am also interested with recycled-container gardening. Well, I believe that I have a hoarder in me, a dark side that I am trying to suppress as much as possible. That side, has the tendency of reuse and recycle things, not wanting to throw out stuffs, no matter how bad the condition is. So... there I am.

So far, I'm still trying not to buy anything new for my garden, and if I buy, I try to limit the expenses and the frequency to once or twice a month. THAT is a big thing for a person with hoarding tendency like me. I'm learning to throw stuff too. It was difficult at first, but now... I believe I am getting better.

Anyways...

Previously, when I was still in Taiwan, owning a huge window and enough sun every morning, I used glass container (They were bottles for chicken essence and herbal medicine for women). Since I can't make any hole on the bottom, I used crystal gel to grow the plants, and I was satisfied with the result.

Now? I have expand my planting media to soil, which is more tricky. I like them though, since I can grow pretty much everything. The problem is, if I use soil on fully closed non-aerated glass container, it would cause problematic root growth. So... I am now using plastic container, which I can punch or burn holes by using simple tools.

Again, to prevent my hoarding personality resurface, I limit my project into 3-5 projects at once, depends on how big the project is. I am currently doing the mango and lemon semi-bonsai. Incoming, mung beans maybe? And still trying to make sure that my Longan grows nice. The soil is the biggest problem I am facing right now (other than the lack of sunlight).

Well... See you on the next posts when I update you on the results.

My potato grew...

 I can't believe that my potato grows!

About one and a half month ago, my sister gave me a potato that already sprouted some buds. I decided to grow the potato. But since I don't have any good (deep) planting pot, I used something from IKEA.

So... use a very simple soil mix, I added some fertilizer pellets in the almost top of the soil surface. I made a hole in the middle of the soil, plant the potato, and then close the hole with the soil mixture, add the fertilizer pellet and add more soil. Make sure that the potato is under the soil.

Water regularly and give sunshine as much as you can.

And... this is 1.5 months later.

In my case, the potato suddenly showed up after 2 weeks. I was a bit worried, but apparently it grew ok. So... no worries. If you want to plant the potato and make them produce more potatoes, then you need a deeper pot (maybe about 15 inches?, mine is only 4 inches). Plus... you need to put them on a very good-lighted place. Mine is so small and I just want them to produce leaves. I want the plant to be semi-indoor plant that I can put on my desk.

So, if you have a potato that already sprouted new buds... don't throw them away. Plant them in your yard, or in a container, and have fun! :D

[teaser] the beauty of growing

 I'm going to post some of my projects with plants. Relax, it's not about my experiments, although this is an experiment. :p

I'm playing with plants and use them for decoration. Let's just say, I found the beauty of watching my plants grow. I hope you will find that beauty too.

Wait until I have enough time to arrange my photos (and in the meantime, also waiting for my plants to grow).

tiny cactus can be pretty too

 Lately, I've been fond of a song called Ugly from 2NE1. One of the sentence was "Just like her I wanna be pretty."

So, under that theme, I learned from a cactus park in Hsinchu, Taiwan, that tiny cactus can look pretty too.

What you need is:
- a tall glass, or any size that can fit the cactus
- colorful stones, or you can change them with colorful sands
- chopstick, to put in the cactus
- spoon
- and a cute cactus in a small pot. The size of the pot that I am using is 2.5 cm (diameter).



First, put in the stones, any color you like, until it reached about 1 cm thick.



Put in the cactus, and carefully put it in the middle of the glass.



Start to add in more stones, using any color you like, and carefully not to drop the stones on top of the cactus, because it will be difficult to remove.



Redirect the cactus using chopstick when needed.



Stop adding stones until the pot, soil and bottom part of the cactus is fully drown in stones.

  And voila!

dried flower book mark

 One of the class that I take this semester is fragrance herbs cultivation and use. Few weeks ago, I had a chance of learning how to make dried flowers (and leaves, of course), and the teacher decided that we should make a hand made card or something. My senior decided that we should make book marks, and also birthday cards. I was in charge to make the book marks.

This card is made with:
- A4 paper (find a hard one, not just white paper. Cut half by dividing the length, and cut one of the halves into 4 smaller pieces)
- dried flowers
- ribbon/yarn
- paper glue (preferably glue stick)
- cutter, scissors
- laminating plastic for finishing, and the device
- optional: tweezers

And... without much planning, here's the bookmarks before I wrote stupid latin words on it, and before I put the plastic for lamination.

The species there are (The one that I know only):
- English Ivy
- variegated leaves English Ivy
- Flowers of Oxalis purpurea
- small african violet.

I'll update with the final result ^^.

stay tuned and keep crafting!