Getting Exciting

My spaghetti squash plant is flowering and I am wondering if there will be any squash forming soon. The flowers are huge and I am also wondering how big the squash will grow. Mom is on standby to crochet a net for the melons should we get any. Fingers cross I can get some flowers pollinated!

Mushroom Farm

With the recent wet weather, there were quite a few patches of mushrooms sprouting around tree roots all around Singapore. I had joked with dad that we might end up at some mushrooms in our own garden patch and then it happened. I had found one the other time and pulled it out, but the spores are obviously in the soil and new ones keep popping up. Wonder if we can grow our own Enoki or Shitake one day.

Natural Blue Dye

Got a message from my aunt this morning that she found some Butterfly Pea flowers in her neighbourhood and asked if I wanted some. She also asked if I wanted the plant and I knew that my dad has been wanting to get a plant for himself. Since I had something to pass to her as well, mom and I went out meet her and she showed us the area she found all the flowers. 

Seems it might just be the right season as the patch of land had a lot of plants and they were all flowering. My aunt actually brought a spade to dig up a few plants, while mom and I went around picking a few flowers. I did not have any idea what I wanted to make with them yet, but I did think that I could at least extract the colour and use it later if I wanted to. 

Freebies of the day!

Apartment Gardening Woes

My grape plants are getting bigger and we needed to give them a little more space. They need their sun and the problem with the layout of this new house is that the morning sun only hits the utilities and the little window in mom's room. The issue now is that the plants are not tall enough to get the morning sun if we do not prop them up on something. Second best option is to place them in the living room, which gets a good amount of morning sun still, and all we have to do is move a bench away and lift up the curtains. 

I would say it is nicer to have the plants block out a bit of lights from passing vehicles below. 

My First Blueberry Haul

Brought two Sunshine Blue plants home from Australia and was hoping that I would be able to grow them in the Singapore weather. One seems to be shrivelling away and is not doing too well, while the other has berries that have started to ripen. Fingers crossed that the plants survive and grow big enough to give me another haul of berries. 

Om Nom Nom...

Something I Learnt A While Back

Wanted to have a hot pot today and I asked mom to get a few bunches of this pungent leafy vegetable called "Tang Orh". When I was younger, I only saw this vegetable on the menu during the Lunar New Year reunion dinners, or only get two leaves (it is that rare) in a bowl of liver soup from the Bak Kut Teh stall. It has a slight antiseptic pungency to it and I guess it probably helped with the bloody offal flavour of the liver. 

Recently, NTUC has been stocking quite a bit of it regularly on their shelves, but it is apparently a Japanese breed which is quite thin and looks a little more delicate than the ones I was used to. It tasted just as good though, and that was more important anyway. 

While in Australia, I found that they had the opposite, a giant compared to the Japanese ones. Seems like everything in Australia was bigger. It was also in Australia that I realised, while walking through Bunnings, that it was called Garland Chrysanthemum. 

Now I've got some seeds and I wonder how big mine will end up. 

Hopeful Experiments

Bought a few plants back from Australia in the hopes that they might grow in the Singapore heat. Although most are plants that are used to going through the four seasons, I am hoping that they will get used to this climate since they are rather young plants. My blueberry plants are already bearing some berries though, and I'm hoping that they will survive long enough for the berries to ripen. The grapes seems to have a few leaves shooting out, and I shall take that as a good sign. Stevia is a little young, and seems to be enjoying the morning sun so far. The only one is the spaghetti squash, that is currently out in the open and hopefully there is enough sun for it. 

Fingers crossed....

Must Be Something In The Water Here

The must be something about the water in Australia as everything seems to be extra large compared to the things you get in Singapore. We've got oranges that you had to stretch your fingers over to pick up, cauliflower bigger than dad's stomach, watermelons bigger than my thighs and lemons larger than a can of soda. Even green leafy vegetables are much larger than the ones we usually get back home. I'm not complaining though, they all still taste real good. 

Om Nom Nom...

Hanging Gardens At Westlake Mansions

I get a message this morning from my aunt asking if I'd like to head down to Sungei Tengah to get some vegetables and plants. My aunt has a strange affinity for flowers; she's like a bee, attracted to any bright colored flowers, even on the ugliest of plants. It might be because my grandmother used to have a wonderful amount of plants outside the house, most of which were orchids that bloomed with an assortment of colored flowers. And ever since I found a place which sold little orchids for cheap, right next to farm-fresh vegetables, Kok Fah Farms was a place she'd always asked if we were free to take her to. 

Since then, dad and I managed to find another place with really nice plants at low prices and since we were already in the area, we had to bring my aunt there for a look. Eco Garden sells a different range of orchids. Mom already fell in love with the ones we got for her for the birthday, and bought a few more herself when I brought her there with Angie. This time, my aunt got a look and was so happy to find the amount of flowers they had available. 

I on the other hand, was just looking at the edible stuff which I'll probably blog about once I've got it done to my satisfaction. For now, all I will show is mom's hanging garden, which was started with some donations from my aunt. I'm wondering how crazy this would get. 

Seasonal Experiments

Just last year, my mom reintroduced me to this super sour fruit. She didnt have much ideas as to what to do with them other than slicing them into her sambal belacan, and that was best eaten with fried fish. Furthermore, we usually got only a handful or two of these at a time when they are in season, which made it hard to experiment with. 

Lucky for us, her cousin has a huge tree that happens to be bearing a lot of fruit just as Uncle Raymond visited them for CNY. He brought about 10 handfuls of fat, juicy fruits back to our place, more than enough for Uncle Dennis and experiments. The suggestions then came in with stories about people using it as replacement for tamarind and made me wonder what else I could do with it. Mom also wondered how it would taste if it was pickled. 

Guess it's time for some experiments.

Late Blooms For Mom

Didn't really plan on getting anything for mom for her birthday as I really didn't know what to get her anymore. She gave up on cheesecake and has too much crochet and sewing items. Plus we were having our reunion dinner tonight and getting something to eat wasn't on the top of the list.

So as we were shopping for ingredients for our reunion dinner, dad and I decided to check out Eco Garden to see if there might be a nice belimbing plant I could get. After feeling like a shabby spot was trying to cheat us, we wondered if this location, which was well-organised, would have higher prices. The range and prices here shocked us both with it being really good and the plants looked really healthy. Oh, and can't forget that the staff there were really helpful! That was when dad and I thought that we shouldn't pass up on the orchids there and to get her a birthday present, one that she can also show off for Lunar New Year.

So after choosing the 3 orchids for her, which was a bit tough looking at the amount of really nice ones on sale, we went off with me forgetting that I wanted a chilli plant. Well, when I go back for my full garden supplies, that chilli plant will be on the list.

Happy Birthday Mudder!

Operation Ecosystem

I wanted to do something to ensure that our terrapin, Pestinator, had a rather clean environment to live in instead of mucky stagnant water. However,  instead of just clogging up a filter with poo n leftover vegetables, I thought that maybe some plants would be better off with the water.

Putting plants in the tank would mean the Pestinator would have a tank that was too small, and a bigger tank wouldn't fit on the shelf. So plan B was to get 2 tanks and use the tank with plants as a big filter, then filter the semi-cleaned water back to the Pestinator's tank.

So far, we've got the basics set up and running. Hopefully the idea works out well.