Thursday, January 15, 2015

Another year to get sweet potato to grow

Dear Family & Friends

I'm desperate in growing Sweet potato! It's a challenge for us because they need a very long, hot growing season. I did tried for the past two years. The first year was a struggle because I grew the potato slips too late. The second year, I managed, but the soil was not warm enough and the plant took a while to get going. Only few leaves for a delicious stir fry was harvested, plus a couple of cute sweet potato, before our cold weather set in.

Two expensive sweet potato I bought in hope that I can some in our garden.

This year, I'm determined to try again for the better. I'm starting early. Sweet potato is not common here. In fact, I can only get them from certain supermarket and quite expensive too! They're not organic so I'm not sure if they will easily grow slips for my planting use. As I have no choice, I can only try to find out! 

Sweet Potato sitting in the water inside a bottle cloche to grow some slips

I've decided to place the sweet potato inside my DIY cloche soda bottle with water. It's sitting by the sunshine for some needed warmth and I'll bring them indoor later to maintain the warmth, in hope that they will sprouts some slips for planting. I do try hard;P 

Hopefully the next time I write about my experiment with growing sweet potato would be the planting part of it.

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Propagations in winter

Dear Family & Friends

There's not much you can do in the garden during winter time. Probably it's gardener's rest time, but I just have to do some growing even the the middle of winter! Even when our temperature can come down to as much as minus 20.

Five Rosemary cuttings propagation in a soda bottle cloche:)

In December, I did a few cuttings from our Rosemary plant in the garden. I filled soda bottles with compost to put my cuttings in. My simple way of propagating this herb. I'm hoping to get more plants to use as garden hedging in Spring time. For the moment this bottle cloche sits by the kitchen window.

My first propagated scented geranium is doing well by the window sill.

Sometime ago, a lady in our village passed this plant stem with a few leaves. I did not know what plant that was, but the leaves are very aromatic. I was told to use them in my fruit compote making. Unfortunately, most of the fruits were eaten fresh by the two girls. So, I decided to place this plant stem in the water and determined to search it's identity on internet. It's scented geranium!! The stem took roots in the water, and I planted them in a yogurt pot afterwards. It's doing well by the kitchen window. I will plant them outside when weather warms up and would want to have more of this charming plant later on.


My DIY mini green house for seeds and seedlings.

We often have bright sunshine during winter. More soda bottle cloches were made, I filled them up with home made compost, and lined them by the window ledge to sunbathe. My intention is to warm up the soil and use them to sow some vegetable seeds. We have no greenhouse, so this is my DIY mini green house to get some head start for this year.

Gardening is fun:) Let's make garden.

Yours


Sunday, January 11, 2015

Drip Feeding System in our garden

Dear Family & Friends

Most people in our village maintains at least a couple of properties for gardening purpose to sustain their extended families with garden food. But for us, our garden which measures an average size of 750 square metre, is enough to grow food for a family of four, for the whole year...plus some to share.


our vegetable garden plot with drip feed irrigation all set up

Today I'm sharing with you about the idea of using a 'Drip Feed System' to water a garden.




At the height of summer, the heat can be so intense here that I can't be out in the garden for more than ten minutes before I start to feel faint. I can't imagine how the plants in the garden must be feeling. Without regular, consistent watering, plants would suffer dramatically. To prevent this, we set up a drip irrigation system, which can be partially disassembled over the Winter. You can't expect me to water the garden by hand.

plants are watered gently, slowly and direct to where you want it

In the past, we tried putting trench along side row of vegetables and flood it with water but it takes a lot of water and drench collapse after a while. So, it's not the best and efficient way there is, although most of the villagers here uses this gardening method.




Our drip feed system is very basic and simple. Water is fed into plastic pipe tubes, that lies on the ground, by gravitational force from above ground water tank which is filled with a free underground water source. The plastic pipe tubes are flexible and are sold very cheaply by the roll. Cheap and cheerful stuff but that's all that's available in this country for the moment.

So there you are...just a glimpse of our gardening chore and system tht we maintain here.

Yours