Plantita Saturdays: Kitchen Scraps Experiment Results

The past few months I've been trying to grow veggies from kitchen scraps. Some were successful, some did not work out. I've been experimenting so I could learn and hopefully have my own produce. I'll probably continue to experiment until I get things right. Here's a list of what I've tried to grow from kitchen scraps:

Tomatoes

I tried this experiment in Singapore. I cut up one tomato and planted it directly on soil (apparently you're supposed to just get the seeds hehe). I soon enough had a lot of seedlings. Several survived when I transplanted them and I was able to harvest some. They were tiny though and I now know what went wrong (it lacked calcium and phosphate). You can read up more about the experiment here.

Bell Peppers

Best to dry the seeds before you plant them. They are quite prolific, but it takes a bit of time for it to grow. I was able to harvest some, but they were not perfect. Also realized that I should have given it fertilizer so it would grow well. More about the experiment here.

Lemongrass/Tanglad

After cutting off the leaves, I propagated the bottom part of the lemongrass in water for a few days. Then I planted it in soil. It's one of the easier veggies to grow. I just chop off some every so often and it grows back immediately. 

Onions

Made several attempts to grow onions. I tried propagating the roots in water, then planted it. Tried directly growing on soil. I must have overwatered it because they died after a few weeks. Maybe I'll try planting from seed. 

Garlic

It's so easy to propagate roots in water. After planting them in soil they would grow stalks for a few weeks. I'm not sure what went wrong, but they all died too. Gaaaah. I'll probably try again when the weather is hotter. 

Ginger

Ahhh, one of the easier ones to propagate. Just make sure to propagate the roots when the ginger is still fresh. Plant in soil once the roots grow out. The ones I propagated and planted in early August. Should be ready for harvest by summer! More about ginger here.

Tumeric

Got a bunch of tumeric from a friend. Propagated them the same time I tried growing ginger. They have grown nicely and should be ready to harvest by June next year (yeah, longer than ginger!). More about tumeric here.

I've suspended planting anything for now since there's work being done at home. Sawdust hasn't been good for my plants. I think the weather hasn't been good also since my seedlings have been dying from the lack of sun (the angle has noticeably changed). I'll probably focus on maintenance for now and just start planting again early next year. 

#BeKind #StaySafe 

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? 

CB//186 #StuckAtHomeDay/216 #StayHome #BeKind

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? 

CB//179 #StuckAtHomeDay/209 #StayHome #BeKind 

Tomato Plants are Bearing More Fruits!

It took awhile before my tomatoes started to bear fruit. I had to learn how to pollinate them by hand since bees rarely visit my balcony. The mustasa plant decided to bolt already and there's a bee that has been visiting it daily.

I've been hovering over the tomato plants the past two weeks because the cucumber plant has been plagued by a pest. I've been actively pruning the tomato plants to remove affected leaves. I don't want to use insecticide so I've been using neem oil to ward off the pesky bugs.

Surprisingly the plants are bearing more fruits. I'm not sure if it's the bee, the frequent pruning, hand pollinating or the neem oil that encouraged the plant to bear more fruit. It's probably a combination of all the efforts. The fruits though are so small. I planted it from one huge tomato that I sliced into four so I'm not sure why it's not growing bigger. I'll need to research more about that issue.

What about you? How are your plants?


CB//152 #StuckAtHomeDay/182  #StayHome #BeKind 

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!


CB//106 #StuckAtHomeDay/136 #WFH77  #StayHome #BeKind