Alocasia Update

Last March, I decided to re-pot a plant that grew out of a pot we got from Mom's garden. The leaves looked nice, so I didn't remove it. It grew and I eventually looked up what it was.

Alocasia.

Oh! I remember the plant became popular during the pandemic. I was happy for the free plant. 

It's been 5 months and I have two pots of alocasia now. Three weeks of rain has encouraged it to grow bigger! 

I have to check soon if it needs to be re-potted again :)

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Rain Drenched Garden

It's been raining for 12 straight days now. I've been missing my gardening time. I miss watering my plants one by one. And I miss trimming them when needed. Taking photos of random flowers that bloom. Harvesting bell peppers, tomatoes and papaya. 

It's always a wonder how plants survive non-stop rain, but easily get root rot when you over water them. Everything is so green in the garden now and I'm happy there's still some random flowers blooming despite the rain. 

I'm just afraid there will be a lot of pests again when the rain lets up. I'll just have to be vigilant and make sure they don't multiply like crazy! 

How's your garden doing?

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Rainy Gardening Days

It's been raining a lot in the past few days and it's been hard to figure out whether to add water to the plants or not. Our pocket garden looks like a jungle now because the plants had a growth spurt. 

Well, some plants continue to bloom even though it's raining. My new gumamela plants have been blooming every week. The new marigold plants were fine for a few weeks, but it hasn't adjusted well. I need to read up more about caring for marigold plants.

Surprisingly, the kalachuchi (desert rose) continues to bloom. I thought it would somehow hibernate since it prefers sunny days. I guess the chicken manure I added last summer is still providing it vitamins to make more flowers. The bonsai ones though are healthy but not flowering. 

I'm still amazed by the caladiums that just grew suddenly. We moved some empty pots from Mom's garden and apparently those pots had caladium bulbs in it. They just suddenly grew when it started raining. Not only that, they also grew much bigger than I expected! They are so lovely to look at and I always smile when I see them because it's also called "Heart of Jesus". 

The dark side of the rainy season are seasonal pests. We've been battling caterpillars that have been feasting on our calamansi plants. They had eaten about half of the leaves. The plants luckily bounced back, but the caterpillars keep coming back even though I've been spraying Neem oil mixture twice a week. What has helped is watering the soil with hydrogen peroxide which helps kill larvae. Oh well, we'll just need to be more vigilant.

When the weather clears, we'll also trim the plants. The grow spurt has been exponential with just a week of continuous rain. At least our rain drums are always full. It helps us keep the plants hydrated especially during water interruptions. 

How's your garden doing?

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July Plant Roundup

July was an interesting month for my garden. It's the rainy season, so everything's a little greener. I also had to adjust the placement of some plants because it gets very windy when there's a typhoon.

Some plants still continued to bloom even with the weird weather -

We harvested some bell peppers and cherry tomatoes -

And I still managed to grow some new plants from seed -

Curry

A variety of orange

I hope to harvest some mustasa to make our favorite dish soon!

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I Didn't Know Caladiums Can Grow So Big!

Last May, we transferred the last set of pots and plants from my Mom's garden. Some had soil in it but no plants. Those pots eventually got rained on and I was surprised to see Caladiums/Heart of Jesus growing. 

I didn't touch it and I watered it everyday. I eventually gave those pots some chicken manure and I was surprised to see them grow so big! Here's a few photos of how it developed:

I think I'll re-pot the other bicolor caladiums. They thrive in bigger pots.

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New Flowering Plants

When we went to Mahogany Market last week, I couldn't help but buy a couple of plants. I still have a gazillion from Mom's garden to re-pot, but I wanted to get a few plants to help ward off pests. I tried growing marigold plants from seed, but it didn't work out. A neighbor said she also tried to grow them from seed and it also didn't work out. So, I bought a couple from Mahogany Market.

I re-potted them the day after because the condition of the plastic pots were circumspect (it weirdly had rice on it?). I placed them in the shade for a few days and moved them under the sun over the weekend. The most prolific one is the yellow marigold plant because I put it beside the tomatoes which get a lot more sunlight. I'll move the others this weekend so they can produce more flowers. 

I also got additional gumamela (hibiscus) plants. I got several colors so I can have more flowers in my garden. I absolutely love gumamela, they bring back happy childhood memories. One of them gave a beautiful yellow bloom. They also absolutely love the sun and I have to find a sunny spot for them. The ones I got 3 years ago are still alive (save for one). I hope they'll give me some flowers soon. 

I need to add more flowers in our garden to encourage more pollinators to visit. There are two large bees so far helping pollinate our tomato and bell pepper plants. We hope to encourage more to come and visit. 

Happy gardening everyone!

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Something's Eating my Caladiums

My plants have gone through a lot the past two months. I've had to be vigilant in spraying Neem oil to keep pests away. Sweetie has been helpful with removing caterpillars eating the calamansi plant.

I was surprised yesterday when I saw bite marks on the caladiums. Rawrrrr! It's been untouched eversince I re-potted it from a small plant.

Sigh.

I hope it doesn't progress. I'll also put some coffee grinds in the area to ward off slugs and snails. They've been eating my small avocado tree too.

Aside from been oil what do you use to keep pests away?

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How Long it Took to Clear and Save Mom's Plants

Every plant on the frontage of my childhood home was planted by my Mom. It changes every few years. Everytime I visited she was doing some gardening. She was still gardening the day before she passed away. I knew it her plants are very important to her, so we've been doing the herculean task of saving what we could.

I tried to bargain with the contractor if we could leave the frontage plants alone. They explained that they had to construct a new front wall and it would affect the structure if they're not able to clear the area. I've been propagating some of the plants the past few months as back-up. Luckily, our gardener was finally available last week and helped set-up plants to propagate. 

It took three full days to clear the front lawn. My Mom packed in a lot of plants and some had poked the front wall already. We bought several large pots and soil and prioritized what plants to keep. The gardeners helped pot the plants and we hope they'll grow this rainy season. The back-up plants I propagated the past few months have rooted and are growing nicely. I just need to make sure they are watered regularly, so we can transplant them eventually. 

My current small garden is now full of Mom's plants. The gardeners said we look like we're selling plants (haha). I know it's just a small fraction of what Mom had in her garden. I'm just grateful we're able to save her hardwork. She loved her plants dearly and she'll be happy to know we have a starter set we can bring back when we move back home. 

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Saving Mom's Plants

We've been trying to save as much of my Mom's plants the past 3 years. It's now time to sunset her plants on the front of the house. I checked old photos and the front lawn has changed how it looks so many times. I remember we even had a prolific santol tree before. There used to be palm trees on it before and santan plants for a time. 

My Mom gave so much of her time tending her garden. There were times we felt it was more important to her than us. She wouldn't pick up the phone during her gardening time and would always worry whenever we'd have her travel. I knew it was impossible to do it by myself. 

We were finally able to get Manong Henry's team to help save the plants. We got lucky because he assigned his son and an expert gardener. I just told them I wanted to save Mom's bougainvillea, snake plants and other flowering plants. I also proposed to make some plants into bonsai.

I'm so glad Christian and George love being gardeners. They have been happily working on saving the plants and Christian loved the challenge to turn some of the plants into bonsai. It's going to be messy in the next few days, but I'm happy we'll be able to save some of Mom's plants. 

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Aglaonema, One to Bushy

My Mom gave me a pot with a couple of plants. It was a 3 in one. I honestly had no idea what they were and her only instruction was to water it everyday.

This was the pot -

More than half a year later it grew -

Eventually, repotted it -

And now it's crazy big 😅

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Rice Water and Orange Peels

I read that you can add orange peels to rice water. It will reduce the smell of the rice water as it ferments and it adds nutrients to the mixture.

I tried it two weeks ago and it worked wonders while I was away. It worked well on the caladiums, bougainvillea plants I was propagating, and the pothos went crazy. 

Next time I'll add some crushed eggshells so it can add calcium to the mixture.

The Thrill of Propagation

I enjoy plants more when I grow them from seed or from cuttings. I can just easily buy, but it's more challenging to sow seeds and watch a cutting thrive.

Growing cuttings is really challenging. My Mom told me it's easy. Just stick it in soil and it'll grow. My Mom had a very green thumb. I'm still a work in progress.

A few weeks ago, I embarked on my fourth or fifth cycle of propagating my Mom's bougainvillea collection. As far as I know, she never bought bougies. She exchanged cuttings with neighbors. 

After a few cycles, I think I'm finally getting better at it. Let the cutting drink water with liquid rooting hormone overnight. The next day rub the bottom with aloe vera and wrap it with her leaf, then stick in soil mixed with chicken manure and perlite. Let it slip water from the bottom and leave it in an area with indirect light. I covered it with a bottle with holes for a week and then removed the bottle cap. 

Water everyday and I found out by chance that watering with rice water and orange peels help give it a nutrition boost. Just make sure to dilute it. I only remove the bottles when the leaves are bigger already. 

And the reward comes when you continue to care for it. Prune every so often and feed it with complete fertilizer. It will produce flowers even when it's in a small pot. I haven't repotted any of the bougies I propagated. I'll wait until they outgrow the pot, besides I still have some of those Mom propagated. I'll re-pot those first.

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The Sili Seeds Grew Like Crazy

A few weeks ago I did an experiment and planted all the seeds from one free sili which I forgot about and dried up. I chucked it in a pot and it immediately started sprouting. 

I got busy caring for other plants, but I knew the Sili sprouts needed to be transplanted already. I found some time yesterday and divided the sprouts into 9 grow plastic pots. 

Ahh, let's see if it produces healthy sili! 

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Meredith

I spent the afternoon in between Pikachu and Meredith. My gardening table is flanked by two cat quarters, the bench and the cat cot area. 

I wasn't planning to do any gardening, but the cool weather once again lured me to do some re-potting, hehe. One thing led to another and I had already spent almost 3 hours outside, haha.

I seriously need to do some ironing tomorrow!!!

Happy Sunday everyone!

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A Very Productive Gardening Week

I did a boatload of gardening this week. The weather was great and the cool breeze encouraged me to check off my gardening tasks including the ones I've been procrastinating.

I re-potted the cucumbers, tomatoes, mustasa and a couple of my calamansi plants. I didn't stop there, I re-potted a few of my ornamental plants and trimmed Jack the Philodendron. I still have a lot to do.

Today my body forced me to rest. I conked out as soon as we got home, hehe. I got up from my nap and watered the plants. 

Happy gardening!

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Cat Therapy and Grounding

I have been enjoying the afternoon breeze everyday. I go out to water the plants and rest in the garden after. The cats, usually Grogu and Pikachu or Anakin, hang out with me while I rest. They also hang out when I do some re-potting of plants. The activity calms me a lot. 

What's wrong with the cat? LOL

I listened a bit to an interview with Dinah Salonga and she mentioned grounding. She said we spend so much time indoors, we miss out on spending time with mother nature. My Mom used to nag me growing up every afternoon. She'd be doing some gardening and she'd persuade me to hang out with her. The activity usually includes merienda, some fried banana and juice, and that's irresistible. 

I always complained before about watering my Mom's plants. It took 3 hours to water everything because her garden was huge and she had a gazillion plants. I spend at least 90 minutes everyday in the garden. It used to be just 30 to 45 minutes, but we moved Mom's plants so my chore time doubled, haha. 

The cats always keep me company. I've been rewarding them with some treats. Sometimes Meredith comes. She likes watching the plants. I guess she's looking for lizards. It makes me feel protected even though I know they just want treats or a huge bowl of water. They help calm and ground me. 

When was the last time you just spent time outside just feeling the breeze?

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How Many Plants Can One Sili Make?

More than a month ago, we got sili with our delivery. Sweetie used one and I set aside one where I keep free ketchup and hot sauce. Of course, I completely forgot about it and it was dry when I found it.

Two weeks ago I decided to open it and planted the seeds. I didn't expect much, but was surprised to see the seeds sprout in a few days. Oh wow! The sili was healthy to have produced so many seedlings!

So, that's how many plants one sili can make. Now I need a farm to house all of my veggies, haha.

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Don't Throw Eggshells

My boys support my gardening adventures and one of the things they do is set aside egg shells for me. We wash the shells and then boil it. Once it's dry I use a grinder to break it down further.

I think the egg shells I mixed in the soil for the bell pepper sprouts helped make it grow properly. I haven't encountered the previous issues I had when I tried growing bell peppers.

I also learned to save the water from boiling egg shells. I let it cool and then I use it to water plants. It's adds nutrients for the plants. I just make sure to add fertilizer once a week, so the plants don't burn from too much fertilizer.

I'll also try making the more potent fertilizer. It's the one with vinegar, but I need to research again how to make it. There's a lot of stuff in your kitchen you can use to enrich your plants, so save your eggshells :)

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Three Weeks Since the Seeds Sprouted

It's been a month since I planted some seeds on a seed tray. I got Ramgo seeds for better chances and I'm happy I did. I was surprised some started sprouting in two days, some took a few more days.

One thing that takes time is transferring the seedlings to a bigger pot. That's what I've been working on the past ten days and I'm not done yet. I planted too many mustasa seeds and if it all grows I guess I can offer them to neighbors, haha.

Here's how it's going -

Cucumber 

Mustasa

Cherry tomato

Carrots

I have to rest today and hope I could continue work in the next few days.

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Bought Plants at Ikea

At the end of the long trek across Ikea, you'll find their gardening stuff. I usually ignore the artificial plants and expensive pots. What I check out are the small live plants they sell. They have ornamental plants and succulents that range from PhP49 to 199. The prices are competitive with nursery plants, sometimes even cheaper. 

I picked up a couple of plants. What got me excited was the kokedama money tree. I've been planning to make one, but I just don't have the time. This will do for now and I hope I don't kill this plant! The last money tree I got from Ikea lasted a couple of months. I just overwatered it, haha.

I still have to research about the other plants to see how best to care for them. Wish me luck!

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