All My Plants Died, Time for Season 2 of Planting!

I started planting during the circuit breaker (lockdown) last year. I enjoyed experimenting and learning my way through it. There were wins and losses. Did well with mustard greens (mustasa), tomatoes, dill (Sweetie) and spring onions. Growing bell peppers and cucumbers was tough. It didn't work out. 

Unfortunately when I started getting sick late in October, the pests beat me to my plants. By January they were all dead. It's okay, I learned a lot from our first season of planting. One important lesson I learned is that you need to treat the soil first before using it. My mustasa and tomatoes grew very well because I got the soil from a reputable company. The soil I used for the bell peppers and cucumbers was a cheaper variety. That was the time I started having pests. 

To prepare for the new season I researched on how to treat the soil. I need to make sure the larvae are dead before I plant anything. The progress has been very slow though. I have been having a lot of bad days. Sweetie has been helping. We hope we could start planting again soon.

How about you? How's your garden?

More about our gardening exploits on http://thebalconyfarmer.blogspot.com/.

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Second Tomato Harvest and Other Garden Updates

Thank God for bees! They have been visiting our balcony garden more often now. Sometimes they get too excited and even follow us inside! We have been able to usher them back outside. The bees have been taking care of pollinating the tomato flowers. The last time I hand pollinated them was late in August. 

The tomatoes aren't growing to full size, probably because the pots are too small. I'm not sure if that's the case or it lacks nutrients/water. They turn red while they're still small. We don't mind since they are sweet like cherry tomatoes. 

We harvested 13 ripe tomatoes yesterday and we're happy we have something to add to our salad -- fresh, organic, homegrown tomatoes! Yaaaas! 

It's a lot of hard work taking care of our tiny garden. We've had to battle leaf miners. They've already killed off my cucumber and have eaten half of my bell peppers (huhu). I use neem oil every few weeks to ward off the evil insects. My neighbor also suggested I try using Thieves household cleaner mixed with water to spray the leaves to get to the larvae of the leafminers. That has so far worked. I also read spraying the soil with baking powder mixed with water discourages insects from attacking a plant. It's so far worked and the tomatoes have been producing more fruit. 

My first mustasa plant is doing well. It started bolting a few weeks back. It's flowers attracted more bees to come visit our balcony and I think that's a good thing. The pods are starting to turn brown so that means I'm going to have free seeds soon! I have 2 more mustasa plants that are giving us fresh leaves for cooking. 

The bell peppers are struggling. No thanks to those evil insects! Boo! But it looks like some may survive. I'm still hoping I'd be successful in at least 2 plants. If not I'll probably start a new batch. 

What about you? How's your garden going? 

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Plantdemic Update: There are Good Days and Bad Days

I haven't been able to tend to my garden for a few weeks now because I got sick at the end of August and it took awhile for me to recover. The doctor said not to do anything strenuous. Gardening to me is equivalent to a workout. So the last few weeks I've just been watching my plants through the glass door. I ended up getting a cute, new indoor plant because I missed my plants.

The good news is the tomato plants have been producing more fruits. The first few fruits were quite tiny so I added a bit of compost for it to get more nutrients. Our cleaner told us she picked one to taste the tomato. She said it was so sweet and would go well with a salad. We beamed with pride haha. I'm so lucky because Sweetie gets up early everyday just to water the plants. I take care of planting, adding nutrients, re-potting and making sure pests stay away from the plants.

The bad news is pesky insects invaded the cucumber plant. I think its leaf miners. I had 2 plants and I already pulled out one since it didn't look I could save it anymore. There's one more that's still fighting. I realized though that it would probably be better for me to just start from scratch because it hasn't produced anything in the last six months. The pests also jumped onto the tomato plants and I've had to actively prune it. The bell peppers were affected too and some have died.

Bad insects :'(

A few weeks ago there was a really bad infestation. One of my neighbors suggested to spray them with a mix of Thieves Household Cleaner with a few drops of Citrus Fresh in water. I did just that and sprayed the soil with baking powder mix. I think it helped and it also encouraged the tomato plants to bear more fruit. Unfortunately some of the tomato fruits shriveled up possibly because of the insects. The newer fruits though are looking good and growing big. 

I was supposed to re-pot last week, but I slipped in the bathroom. So I had to recover from that. Today I finally got to tend to my balcony garden. Pruned the tomato plants and re-potted some bell pepper plants. I discovered that one of the bell pepper plants is starting to bear fruit! I'm so glad my plants have stood the test of time and patiently waited for me to recover. Maybe Sweetie talked to them for me hehe.

How's your garden? 

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Unwanted Bee Visitors!

When I sat down to start work this morning I was so surprised when a bee started buzzing around me. I was so scared to shoo it away because I've been stung by bees before. I think the bee was attracted by my manager's voice (LOL!) because it would come near me whenever he talked! I was probably visibility stressed coz my manager told me not to move and just ignore it. It only went away when we finished the call.

Bees from that time I visited Guimaras.

I'm happy when I see bees visiting my tiny garden. There's one that's been actively checking out the mustasa plant and I think it's been helping pollinate the tomatoes too. I'm just really wary when they come near me because I was stung by a bee, twice, when I was young. I was playing tennis (against a wall) and I guess there was a bee that was flying around that got annoyed by the ball. I still remember how painful it was.

I got so busy I only saw the bee again after conducting an interview. It was hanging out on the dining room light. Funny thing is I had another call with my manager and the bee started coming near me again! Hahaha. Sweetie came to the rescue and caught the bee with a bag and he let it out in the balcony. That was when he discovered 5 more bees buzzing around the living room. We were wondering how it got in.

Sweetie eventually saw that the balcony door on the opposite end was open. It was probably left open by our cleaner (she has a penchant for forgetting to lock doors/windows -- she left our bedroom window open around the time I had severe asthma!). Anyway, we have to make sure that everything's closed after she does cleaning for us.

So that's how we got unwanted bee visitors inside the house today. They're always welcome to hang out in my tiny garden. I hope we got all of them, but I think there's one more hiding around the curtain.


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What We Did with the First Tomato Harvest

Finally the first tomato fruit was ripe for picking! It was only one tomato though so we wanted to use it for something special.

We found ready to eat hollandaise sauce the other day and thought we'd make eggs benedict with it. Eggs ben is one of my favorite breakfast dishes. I watched Gordon Ramsay's video last night to learn how to make poached eggs. Three out of the four turned out well. I fried the honey baked ham and toasted the bread a bit in its fat.

Sweetie did the plating --

I ate the tomato together with a spoonful of eggs ben. It was too small though, but the thought of eating organic, homegrown tomato gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling hehe. I hope the other tomato fruits would grow bigger!



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Balcony Farm to Table: Dad's Beef Mustasa Recipe [Mustasa Taco]

My beautiful mustasa was ripe for the picking. I finally harvested it the other day and we had it for dinner.

I made Dad's beef mustasa dish. We did not really have a name for it and just called it mustasa. I hope I did justice to his recipe because he didn't measure anything when he taught me how to cook this dish. My Dad has magic hands when he cooks. He never measures anything! He just throws stuff int he pot and everything tastes good.

My Dad's beef mustasa dish is like eating a fresh taco. I skipped the liver spread in the video because I couldn't find any here in Singapore, but do try cooking it with liver spread. We finished the 4 huge mustasa leaves I harvested and it looks like it's going to give us more to harvest soon!

My beautiful mustasa :)

Here are the ingredients:

1/2 kg ground beef
2 cloves garlic (or more)
1 red onion, chopped
1/2 tsp peppercorn
2 beef cubes
1/2 cup vinegar
1/2 to 1 Tbsp sugar (to taste)
1 can Reno liver spread (optional)

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Harvested Mustasa and Ate It!

I've been delaying harvesting from my mustasa plant. I just couldn't because it's so pretty!

My friends though were warning me that it might flower soon if I don't cut As far as I remember when the mustasa plant starts to flower the leaves become bitter and then it eventually dies. I couldn't harvest it yet because I couldn't find any liver spread. Finally got some from Redmart so I had no excuse anymore not to harvest.

I thawed the beef just after lunch to make sure I do not have another excuse not to harvest the mustasa. I took several leaves just before I started cooking dinner. It was so fresh and probably the best mustasa I ever had! I used my Dad's beef mustasa recipe. It doesn't really have a name, we just normally call it "mustasa" (dish). I'll share the recipe soon. Sweetie loved it!

I was worried though that the plant would be affected after I harvested some leaves. I checked it tonight and it looks like it's ready to give me new leaves again in a few days hehe. I super love the feeling that I ate something I planted! I hope my tomato plants will be ready with its fruits soon!

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Plant Tuesdays: Look Ma, My Tomato Plant Finally Bore Fruit!

I've been waiting for my tomato plants to bear fruit for a few weeks now. I was getting frustrated because the plants started flowering when it started raining in Singapore. At that time a few bees started to visit the balcony, but the crazy rains chased them all away. The flowers eventually just wilted.

I did some research and found that if you don't have bees visiting your plants you need to hand pollinate them. I tried first using small cotton buds, but it didn't work. It took a few weeks before I was able to obtain a small paintbrush. I immediately tried using it last week and got a huge surprise today.

The first fruit!

I went to the balcony to prune the cucumber plants. I decided to check on the tomato plants first and do some hand pollination using the paintbrush. I was so surprised to see a tiny fruit on one of the tomato plants. It was one of the first flowers I hand pollinated last week. I was so giddy I patiently worked on the other flowers. I hope they would bear fruit too!

Gardening has been a way for me to cope during this pandemic. I read several articles saying that gardening helps with ones mental wellbeing. Back in May I was having a hard time coping and was so stressed. I started gardening when we moved to our new place. It started as an experiment because I wanted to know whether store bought tomatoes would sprout when planted. I was ecstatic when they sprouted.

My tomato plant row. Hope some of my friends can adopt some of the plants :)

I have about 15 tomato plants I'm taking care of now. They all came from just one tomato I sliced one boring afternoon. That time I only had one pot and all the sprouts eventually shared the tight space. It took time for me to get additional materials and I'm thankful the tomato plants stood by me. They reached this point also because of Sweetie's support -- he made sure they were watered early in the morning. Thank you Sweetie!

And don't you just love this meme? (Not sure where this originated... let me know in the comments!).

I write more about my gardening journey on my other blog - The Balcony Farmer!


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