Stupid is what stupid does

I grew this daikon using seeds from Ban Lee Huat (the adorable uncles who drink chinese tea all day). My first attempt using a container was successful though my mother grumbled that they wouldn't be very big. This is my second attempt, this time Mutter was more accommodating when I said that we need to cover those little white darlings with soil. 

Tempted by this little daikon peeping through the soil, I was too tempted and dug him out too soon only to realize he was still an itty bitty baby. SHIT! By the way, we also had him and his greeny head for breakfast today, and Bobo complained that the greens were too chewy. Oh please, Koreans preserve the greens as kimchi ok?!

#ihavebeenconned. A #Daikon that protrudes out from the earth doesn't mean that it is equally long underground...sigh. #scherbergarten #allotment #communitygarden

A photo posted by Gardening Duckie (@meinkleingarten) on Aug 30, 2016 at 7:06am PDT

[backdated] Community Garden event

A photo posted by Gardening Duckie (@meinkleingarten) on Feb 26, 2016 at 9:54pm PST

On the last Saturday of Feb, our community garden threw an event ostensibly to show case our gardening efforts (but actually to whore ourselves for funding). Was totally vindicated in my thinking when everyone avoided the garden tour (granted it was conducted during an extremely murderous noon) and focused on enjoying the buffet lunch and air con in the community hall.

In addition to the programme we had on offer, we also did a giveaway of extra plants we had (brilliant and green idea that Auntie S had), lucky draw on Uncle C's Desert Roses (which are sold very expensive in nurseries) and samples of dishes using our bountiful harvests.

A photo posted by Gardening Duckie (@meinkleingarten) on Feb 26, 2016 at 2:18am PST

Since I was asked to be one of the three lecturers, I decided to focus on the one plant I could always rely on for success. Basil.

A photo posted by Gardening Duckie (@meinkleingarten) on Dec 31, 2015 at 4:40am PST

I was really thrown for a loop when I realized that the audience was largely made up of senior citizens. Unlike our ABC who could rely on our outgoing chairman to translate for her, I felt too embarrassed by my years of education to not be bilingual, and used both English and Mandarin for my lecture in a deeply harassed manner. Unlike the other 2, I kept my slides really short and used samples to share the different varieties of basil. I was later very flattered by this elderly lady who asked for one of my samples as reference when she did her nursery shopping. Ooopz should have told I got my red basil, cinnamon basil and lemon basil at Jasons supermarket.

A photo posted by Gardening Duckie (@meinkleingarten) on Feb 26, 2016 at 6:58am PST

The event was pretty fun even though.

Jicama 沙葛 harvest

Ever since our move to our new location in the community garden, I planted these jicama seeds for nearly 8 months! 

 I kept hesitating to harvest them because I was worried that there would be nothing edible to collect therefore the long wait. By the way for jicama, only the root is edible, everything else is inedible, even the seeds and leaves. Which meant the plant was a pain to get rid of by the time it came to harvest. 

So I harvested one for myself, left one for my mother (she was very fortunate to find two buried in the same vein), and gave the rest to the old folks to the garden, who split each jicama into two because they were very big.

Next time i will grow #jicama for only 6 months instead of waiting nearly 8 months. Had some monster sized ones, my mom weighed one. Was 2 kg! #gardeningsingapore #allotment #gardening

A photo posted by Gardening Duckie (@meinkleingarten) on Nov 7, 2015 at 2:07am PST

Mutter weighed the bigger jicama she got and it was at least 2 kg, she said.

Well, the plant was useful on sunny days where it provided shade. But other than that, it might be too much effort to grow. Now that I had relative success, the old people wanted to attempt as well, taking the seed pods off me. Well, they are welcome to them as I won't be growing them for the next three months with the monsoon season coming.

How tall the plant was:

We often call Bang kuang (also known as 沙葛) as turnip. But after some failed attempts at Googling "turnip" (because the old folks at the #communitygarden wanted to know if its pretty purple flowers and recently emerging seed pods are edible), I found out that its English name is #Jicama. And it turned out that other than the edible tuber, everything else on the jicama plant is poisonous, esp the seeds which contain rotenone. I had to spend my evening cutting down the pods as they take away the plant resources, thus impacting the tuber size... 🐈 Anyway the super yummy tuber is great in stews, salads, braises and is most famous as the filling in #popiah.

A photo posted by Gardening Duckie (@meinkleingarten) on Jul 7, 2015 at 9:26am PDT

[Backdated Post] Birthday Present from English Bloke

Like I was saying on Instagram, English Bloke included this cute sign and solar lights in my birthday parcel this year. They are really pretty when the lights at the community garden go out at 10pm but the metallic parts have sadly turned rusty from being hit by the rain. Nonetheless they serve their purpose, and with the recent blow-out of the overhead lights, they + some stand-alone solar lights from Daiso offered a comforting glow when I had to water my plants with the aid of my phone's torch light. 

In fact it has now become my most recent obsession to get even more solar lights to make the garden all glowy and pretty at night :))) I am also replacing the National Day flags with ordinary flags to up my garden's aesthetic.

This cute sign + solar lights were part of the birthday parcel #Englishbloke got me this year. I strung the lights as soon as I opened the parcel. It was so massively sweet of him to get me this after I was grousing to him that I couldn't buy the lovely solar bird lights that #IKEA was selling last year. These lights were super comforting when the community garden lights stopped working later in the month. #birthdaypresent #friend #reddit #gardening #allotment #new #followme #communitygarden #singapore

A photo posted by Gardening Duckie (@meinkleingarten) on Sep 6, 2015 at 10:01pm PDT

My plot at the community garden

Three months in, this is my little garden. I am now experimenting with a PVC pipe to make a vertical planter of sorts. Because we all remain land greedy. Just ask the older folks, who have cannibalized some of the remaining plots. For this planting cycle, we are growing kangkong, spinach, a little 小白菜 , jicama (still growing from the previous cycle), eggplant, okra (suffering from some form of fungi), cucumber, bittergourds and longbeans. + some herbs.

#basil in the foreground of our little #plot at the #communitygarden. The plot is tinny tiny, isn't it? #gardeningsingapore

A photo posted by Gardening Duckie (@meinkleingarten) on Jul 29, 2015 at 1:45am PDT

Harvesting and Preserving Basil

Before I was allocated my little corner spot, I had two little rows where I grew two kinds of basil (and corn, to maximize the tiny land space). One was Thai Basil, which my mutter brought from her allotment at Bah Soon Pah, and the other was Sweet Basil, which I regrew from the harvest-ready version I got from Jasons supermarket @ Ion.

Since we were all forced to uproot our plants for the reallocation of plots, I had to either harvest my plants or kill them while transplanting them. I had to admit that I didn't really take very good care of my basil plants, therefore the ugly ass stems, them poor things.

So I harvested most of the leaves to dry and took stem cuttings for transplants instead.

I researched online on how to do the preservation. I chose 2 methods, the dry naturally method and the dry by microwave method.

Btw when you do either method, after washing the stems, you have to make sure that the leaves are laid out to dry properly. I am not sure why but the sweet basil always develop really hideous black markings if they are not dried well.

I cut the basil by stems for easy collection, chucking those that were damaged by insects (like I said, I didn't really take good care, and I was into "organic gardening", i.e. no pesticides). I washed them as carefully as I could before tying bunches up for natural drying. Natural drying in my case means hanging them up by bunches on the washing line *lol*.

As for the leaves that came off some of the stems/ the larger leaves, after laying them out on paper towels for drying, I switched on the convection function in my microwave oven to a temp of 100 deg C, and dried them until they looked like this:

Then I tossed them in my good old IKEA mixing bowl and crushed them into little flakes. Note here: later I read somewhere that it was better to not crush them because I'd lose the good oils in the leaves. Ah well.

Final state

Lady's fingers (okra)

Uncle C gave me two okra seedlings from the ones he raised using the Architect's seeds. We had all coveted seedlings from her okra plants, because they were the desirable "Japanese" variety and has a more pleasant, delicate bite than the tougher, equally mucilaginous local variety.

They have finally gone into fruiting (mine are actually slower than Uncle C's by a few weeks, and a lot shorter and stumpier, since I am not as generous with the chicken poop as the older folks are), and are producing at least 1 edible finger a day, much to my delight.

Bobo was commenting that by the end of this week, we will have enough for a meal (collected 4 fat fingers so far). So I have been generous with my fertilizer in the hopes of encouraging its fertility.

Also, I found out that the okra behaves like an perennial plant in the tropics where I am, and once it reaches 6 feet in height, I should cut it down to the lower leaves so that it will continue to regrow. Lovely news isn't that?

The Allotment @ CC garden (week 0)

Mutter and I have been allocated a piece of land at the CC garden (henceforth referred to as the "allotment"), just like the other pairs.

I have come up with numerous ideas for how we would split the allotment. For example, I first thought of splitting the land into 4 raised beds, 1 for corn, 1 for tomatoes, 1 for leafy greens, 1 for turnip.

The Architect persisted in growing her silk gourd on the racks so we couldn't till the entire piece of land until Feb. So on the two tiny pieces of land (Plot A and B) we tilled so far, I transplanted my tomatoes from home on the left. Mutter asked me where should the corn from our earlier growing go?

I said, beside (meaning on the other piece of land), but she ended up transplanting the corn plants next to the tomatoes on Plot A. Sacre Bleu! Lesson #1: Corn and tomatoes should not be grown together because of the tomato fruit worm/ corn ear worm (same stupid worm).

Also, I am pretty amazed at the corn plants' survival rate, so far the various batches have survived being transplanted 3-4 times in various phases of growing (though I have my doubts on the quality of fruit). We are regrowing corn again. 

I read up on companion growing, and read that basil (which I have grown pretty well during the previous growing season) is an excellent companion for tomatoes, so I have transplanted some babies onto plot A next to the tomatoes. Also, I have sown marigold seeds as well as transplanted some portulaca at the slope to attract bees and butterflies. Lesson #2: should have sown the marigold earlier, by the time, my tomatoes are harvested, my marigold will still be tiny babies. Guess they will have to catch my next set of tomato plants (probably cherry tomatoes this time).

For the corn, I am growing cucumbers (left over seed from years ago) to climb on the corn. I have been told that it is not a good idea as my corn will likely be harvested long before my cucumbers flower. Well, if that happens, then I will just have to leave the old corn stalks there/ replace them with bamboo poles. 

Fick me hard van achten - Ladybird style

This phrase was taught to me by a Dutch player on CoH (he thought I was a dude anyway) when he was describing how he taught his Filipino girlfriend how to speak Dutch during sex. Lol.

Anyway, stop ****ing ladybirds, and get to munching those horrible aphids on my corn. Thanks very much!

Of Mice and Men

I was alone at the community garden downstairs, trying to transplant more flowers to make a pretty border along the fence, when I discovered I wasn't alone. A giant ass rat (the size of a kitten) darted around the confines of the fenced garden, just as I was about to retrieve a spade for my purpose.

I wasn't quite sure who was more traumatized, me or the rat. Especially since he also ran across my plot of water convulvus. In my fevered excitement, I sent a message exclaiming the fact to Malay Uncle (MU), honcho of our little garden.

Last Saturday, I popped in the garden (after eating Haagan Daaz while watching a mortifying "Super Size versus Super Skinny") to find MU talking to the uncle living at my block. MU said "don't look down, there is a dead rat next to you."

Of course, I looked. You would, wouldn't you?

It was Mr Rat from some weeks ago. I didn't understand how he could suddenly die, since he could run faster than I could from our encounter some weeks ago.

The town council man showed up to collect the carcass while I continued to dig a trench for my intended herb garden. I was surprised again because usually our building cleaner would do any retrieval of our rubbish. He even took a photo of the carcass before getting down to the nasty business.

It was then I understood that the Town Council had poisoned the rat.

Didn't know what was more shocking.... the fact that I have been an accessory to his murder or he could have been pissing his poisoned rat wee wee all over the garden before he croaked. Suddenly I didn't feel like eating anything from the garden. I discreetly threw away the water convulvus I had harvested....

2 sky gardens at 1 multi storeyed car park

Out of consideration, I won't say where they are, because I am not sure if they are "legalized" community gardens. One is focused on flowers with some vegetables, and the other is almostly entirely made up of vegetable plots. The second one is obviously run by someone who is quite experienced, as the getup (while hideous - seriously yours truly is living in a glasshouse and shouldn't cast stones) is highly efficient, with two crops per lot.

 

Close up on the portulaca on the right. Please ignore the shadow cast by my FAT arm *lol*

NSFW. Porn! I found it amusing that there were two grasshoppers f**king on the netting above my head.

Anyone know what this is? Some say it is edible. I say it is not.

Efficient gardening. The cucumber plant provides some shade for the caixin from the harsh sun.

I think this is malabar spinach!

weird looking lady's finger

Zinnia

another zinnia

Balsam with red and white petals

Sunflower Power @ Community Garden

So much sunflower power at the other community garden. Despite my misgivings towards transplanting sunflower seedlings, the Taiwanese lady had been pretty lucky (ok, she lost a lot of seedlings along the way), but she managed to have at least 2 sunflower plants beaming away. The rest sort of drowned in the monsoon rains.

I haven't much lucky with sunflowers so I consoled myself with taking photos of her big flowers and admired my little roses. *grin*. Maybe I will try sunflowers next year when we reallocate the plots again.

The difference between the two gardens. The older established one has loads of trees, so I can burn a lot of energy cutting branches down and rearranging plants according to MU's direction. It's been pretty awesome, I spend like entire Saturday mornings and afternoons in the garden, only coming up to feed and water Bobo so he wouldn't rouse from his zombie state.

I was given a tiny garden plot, thanks to the irritating Mr L (long story). And since I have planted Kang Kong (to feed snails, it seems, I caught 10! in one afternoon climbing the banana tree), I don't have to maintain it much. But I have demonstrated experience with roses, so my unspoken role is to enhance the beauty of the garden and provide some muscle to the elderly uncles. I am planting some of my drought resistant, easy to maintain and cheap Blue Daze, and transplanting the numerous red and white balsam plants so they can mingle with the blue of the Blue Daze to create a prettier garden, which has what MU calls the "Kampung style". Unfortunately the kampung style is not appreciated by the uncle living on the 5th floor at my apartment block (who has written many unpleasant odes about it to the *ahem*, the Town Council and even the Police *wtf right?*).

As for the other garden, it doesn't have that many insects and irritating snails. Just a lot of colorful personalities. That's why I refused several times to join the committee. There is no need to, when there are more knowledgeable persons who refuse to join the committee (Uncle Flower + Auntie Red, the former expert in all things floral, the latter all things edible), and plenty of noobs who are surprisingly more vocal than me and eager to show their leadership skills. I was telling Mdm Bear about it, and she said that these people are missing the whole point of the community garden. The visible bounds tether the garden tightly to the community center and its politics, so much that the politics are spilling over into the garden. Just reading through the list of names quoted for the garden, I could barely stifle a snigger. Obvious much?

I am not going to translate the names. Sorry about that.

So anyway the chairman (see what I mean?) said that the current land allocation was unfair as some people has more land than others. To me, these persons are coincidentally housewives and retirees who can manage their time more flexibly, so I have come to accept that they take more land (acceptance also came with my father's scolding me for being a dumbass. "You're not a bloody farmer so why fight with the old people over the land?" were his words). But the chairman himself doesn't have any land except for two miserable lemon grass plants, because earlier in the year, he was busy with his kids' study and home life without a helper, to stake his claim. We didn't even see him for months, until the holidays when he suddenly called for the meeting.

Unfortunately this new plan to reallocate plots will shorten the lifespan of the already growing plants in the garden. Everyone has to unearth their plants in February so that compost can be dumped onto the soil and everyone will begin again with their teammate on their plots, which we will draw lots for. I disagree with the Chairman's idea that the plots should be rotated, especially since he wants us to grow flowers and some of the flowers we prefer are perennial. His new idea of rotating plots is coupled to his initial plan of certain plots being allocated to growing certain plants, e.g. flowers, herbs. 

Since then, I experimented with two of my herb plants and they were very upset with the upheaval, dropping leaves like mad. And that was after I left them in the garden in the pots to reduce the transplant shock, and I did the transplant during the less painful monsoon December season instead of the more aggressive and hottest February, driest time of the year.

IMHO, it would be better if he does it the British allotment style where everyone is allowed to grow whatever they want as long as they grow flowers and vegetables on their plot, instead of forcing people to grow specific plants just because they were suay enough to draw the plot they didn't want.

From what little I have observed, I am pretty sure I will clash with the chairman if I were on the committee (his eagerness to accept my rejection of the role over the others' protests was very telling *lol*), and other than the American and maybe the Filipinos, I am the youngest gardener in that community garden. Would burn too much energy (not the right kind) to work my "charm" on the 20 other members in the garden.

I have enough fun @ Arbeit, without having to manage other people's personalities even when I am doing my favorite gardening. I try to incorporate the lessons お母さん is painstakingly inculcating in my interaction with others, but sometimes the snark just manifests itself. I can't help my inner bitch. Better to keep her leashed and my head down to the ground. Keep calm and garden.

The Community Garden Downstairs

The community garden downstairs is pretty established. Several senior citizens have gardening at the plot long before I moved in, so there are many fruit trees there (e.g. sterile avocado tree, very fertile jambu trees). Right now the garden is manned by 1 Mr Malay uncle, 1 Mr Chinese uncle, and 1 Chinese Auntie, and now yours truly. Making an offering of Little Guy to the garden + sweeping up dead leaves in almost 3/4 of the garden for 3 hours were the key to my being offered a little plot too! Yes! No longer do I have to fight with those uncles and aunties at the other community garden for land, when I can have a garden here. Besides, this community garden has a much higher fence, so it is harder for bad people to liberate plants from it.

Or so I thought. Last Saturday, Mr Malay Uncle (let's call him MU for short) asked me if I had stopped by the garden two Sundays ago.

"No, I didn't. I hurt my back that day."

Upon further discussion, it transpired that some woman sneaked into the garden while CU was busy gardening, and cut up A LOT of pandan leaves without permission. But because CU didn't know she was inside, he locked up the garden when he left, effectively trapping the horrible woman inside.

Since she was trespassing, she couldn't call the police to release her, so she sat in the garden for almost an entire afternoon until CA came by to water the plants and saw her. Tsk tsk, talk about KARMA.

The very fertile jambu (water apple?) tree has been divesting fruit due to the monsoons recently.

Come on people, don't be cheap. If you must be cheap like me, be courteous about it.

MU's friend from National Parks Board gave him some sunflower seeds

So anyway I was given the tiny plot. MU suggested that I grow tomatoes, which is no problem for me, as I have had some success with them despite having to do pollination myself. But while the tomato seeds grow their true leaves in my little pots upstairs, I decided to grow some kangkong (water spinach) so as to not waste the land, which I tilled like mad for hours + dumped fertilizer + egg shells on, and to match the current monsoon season (as water spinach can tolerate excessive water very well).

3 days growth after sowing!

I moved some of the flowerpots so as to not hit them in my vigorous tilling, only to find some white stuff between the grooves. I thought that the white stuff was rice, but MU was right, they were ant eggs.

Less than two minutes (I timed them) after I lifted the pot, the ants came and carried all the eggs away to safety, one at a time. SUPER FAST. I admire and hate ants, for their efficiency. This same efficiency has allowed them to build nests in at least three of my more favored plants, the hibiscus cutting お母さん gave me, my big white rose and my black red rose (WTF), while I neglected my upstairs garden while busying myself with the community gardens.

お母さん says it is because I do not flood my plants with water, so the dry soil allowed the ants to make nests. Oh well... part of the problem that ants introduce is mealy bugs, which I enjoy squishing between my fat fingers.

This little guy

In terms of propagating by stem cuttings, so far I only had success with this rose. The other roses' stems I cut all died within days, whether I use honey/hormone/nothing/soak in water. I had grown one in the new community garden.

And now I am giving this one  to the other community garden near my place. On a plus side, if anything goes wrong with my rose, I can always get it back next time. Yeah!

Plant Exchange

So remember how I said last week I finally met the elderly gardeners of the community garden downstairs? I was telling them that I had an edible cactus upstairs aka the former Mr Bunny Ears, which had grown erratically ever since I moved him to a bigger pot outdoors.

I said I would break a ear off for them, and did that.  I was watering my plants when I saw the tell tale garden hose from upstairs so I rushed downstairs to pass it to them.

In return the uncle gave me this plant. Usually I don't like plants that do not have flowers or are not edible, but can't stare a gift horse in the mouth you know? So I brought the little guy home. I am guessing he is either a yucca or agave variety *shrug*?

Patience is rewarded

I moved to my new place three years ago. Bought it secondhand, it is in an old neighborhood with a community garden literally within spitting distance (right downstairs haha). I walked past the garden often after work, but never saw anyone inside.

Recently I was meeting Miss Bear downstairs before we made our way to the gelato shop only to realize that the garden had a pot of brilliant fuschia roses. I must confess that I was so tempted to snip off a little bit! But I was reminded of how angry I was when people stole my plants, I decided against it. 

Instead on the same day that I failed miserably in grabbing the Share-a-Plant at Bishan park, I asked Bobo to drive me to World Farm (which now has an android app, which is just a regurgitation of its website so I deleted it), and bought two pots of roses for the house (I have that three pots in office). 

Bobo dropped me downstairs because the pots were heavy and I had bought some vegetables at the packing cum hydroponic farm nearby. So imagine I was lugging all that stuff, and I discovered the gate was open!!!!

I saw an old man cropping some leaves and called out to him to see if I could come in (and ask for rose cuttings) to have a look in the garden. For some weird ass reason, he was extremely suspicious and ignored me! Then another old man appeared and asked me what I wanted, I asked again if I could come in. He gave me a cynical look too, but said ok. I said great, I will drop my stuff off and come over.

So I ran upstairs dumped my stuff and ran downstairs again. The uncle must have realized his behavior was confusing so explained his suspicion was due to (1) complaints from neighbors for mosquitoes *oh please people* (2) he thought I was here to stomp them or something (I forgot I was carrying my camera).  He asked me what I wanted again, I repeated that I wanted to visit the garden since it was always locked and also if I could have some cuttings please?

He said no problem on that, so he invited me to come in and explore, and he was so generous, he cut for me the rose cutting I wanted and unhesitatingly gave me cuttings from another two rose plants, 1 mini and 1 with vermillion rose petals. We then visited in the garden.

Rose cuttings from community garden