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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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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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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The Joy of Gardening

I used to see gardening as a chore. I tried planting a couple of times before. Even bought plants from Tagaytay to take care of, but the few that survived had to be put under my Mom's care. She has a green thumb.

Started to plant again last month during the labor day weekend. It was just an experiment to see if anything I plant would grow. It did and I realized that I had to take taking care of my plants properly. I enjoy researching to learn more about taking care of my plants. I've been smothering them with attention everyday.

At my balcony "farm" before the sprouts started growing like crazy.

I re-potted some of my tomato plants last night. They're about a month old now and are growing really fast. Just before I went to bed I realized that we can all be self-sufficient if we wanted to. In the old days most houses had backyards where you could plant vegetables and take care of chickens. My Mom has a huge backyard and we had fruit trees, veggies and chickens. Now I wish I had that space and easy access to gardening supplies.

The tomato forest needed to be re-potted.

I've been thinking about where I want to be when I go home. We have a home in Manila which has two balconies and I've finally found a reason to interact more with my neighbors. The recently created our community gardening group and I'm so glad I joined. I've been learning a lot from my neighbors and they've been inspiring me to think about what to do with our balcony.

Now I understand why my Mom spends so many hours in her garden. Her plants have been giving her so much joy. I guess my previous attempts at gardening did not work out because I wasn't ready. It's only been a month since I started cultivating my balcony farm. Read more about my gardening adventures at "The Balcony Farmer". I have friends who told me they got inspired with my efforts and started gardening too!


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