The (NSFW) Anatomically Correct Cactus: The Dick Pic

Our collective jaws touched the ground when we saw this weird ass cactus at Flower Dome (Gardens by the Bay)!!! We had to queue behind a tourist who.... snapped his hand hovering near the cactus as if simulating a HJ. When he turned his head and realized that we were right behind him, he laughed embarrassed as if we all shared a secret joke. Ewww.

Bobo said drily, "...as if we gave a shit that he is gay."

After capturing this naughty cactus with my phone.... I was infected with an equally naughty idea.

I whatsapped Miss Bear if she ever received a dick pic from anyone.

She replied, "of course not!"

Naturally it was an invitation for me to send this to her. LOL. So I did.

This week in Instagram 1: Long Beans

I realized I made a mistake while planting long beans when the plant started sprouting long windy vines.

"Oh crap," I told my mother. "I planted the wrong variety of long beans (that I bought the seeds from Ban Lee Huat and planted once before with 0 success)."

I told her that I wanted to yank out the plants but she said it would be a waste of life. So I thought about about it, and we did the cornrow (sp?) method using some canes I bought at World Farm. This time I also made sure to snip as many leaves as I could to ensure air circulation and prevent fungal diseases. I find that long bean plants are very susceptible to fungal diseases, aren't they?

So anyway after all that snipping, I still encountered fungal disease, due to my watering the plants only late at night when I come home and also, I have a bad habit of hosing plants like I am washing a car instead of pointing the hose to the ground and avoiding the foliage. Despite that, I finally managed to harvest some long beans, and I find the taste of the reddish brown long beans much more palatable than the green long beans. Anyway with all that snipping, I cannot help but feel that long beans are very high maintenance, as compared to eggplant.

I notice of course, the old lady, Auntie M, leaves her fungi-infected leaves alone and was still able to correct decent amount of beans. Then again, with the amount of fertilizer she dumped in (I did not fertilize my beans as much)...

2 red #longbeans dangling on the stems. #allotment #communitygarden #singavore #gardening #gardeningsingapore

A photo posted by Gardening Duckie (@meinkleingarten) on Aug 10, 2015 at 7:55am 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

Soaking the #waterconvovulus (kangkong) seeds in a recycled plastic cup for planting at the #allotment tomorrow! I'm afraid I am not a very patient person. 😉

A photo posted by Gardening Duckie (@meinkleingarten) on Jul 10, 2015 at 8:43am PDT

Ban Lee Huat Seed has moved!

Today I was in Chinatown area with Mr B to claim the freebies on my loyalty card when I remembered that Ban Lee Huat is nearby.

Ban Lee Huat is a seed wholesaler who sells loads of seeds at S$2 a small bag. (They do sell in bigger volumes of course, but Grumpy uncle always advises me to just buy a little bit and not let the seed spoil.) Very useful for community gardeners who are tired of buying those horribly stingy sachets of seeds from the supermarket.

However I was horribly disappointed to find a hollow shell where the seed cupboard used to be. Mr B was sure that I was mistaken and told me to walk on along the five foot way before he too realized that I was right. That they had closed down or retired (which is believable, because all the uncles inside the shop were pretty old).

"No no, they didn't close down," reassured the Auntie from the medical shop who was kind enough to come out of her shop to assuage our frazzled nerves. "They moved to Ang Mo Kio."

Really?  Running back to the empty shop front,  I looked up to see that a tiny brochure stuck near the ceiling of the shophouse. Thank you Kind Medical Shop Auntie!

But why the %*@- did the uncles move to freaking industrial park. Argh. Mr B said it was within walking distance from Yio chu kang. Walking distance my foot... well at least they didn't retire. All the uncles look like they were going to play chess and drink the chinese tea that they import from China whenever I visit them.

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?