One Small Gardening Step at a Time

Over a week ago, i went on to shop for some seeds that i'll grow at home. A packet each of radish, onion, eggplant, lettuce, ornamental pepper and sweet pepper. I also bought kangkong and tomato seeds which are not shown below.

As I learned, so many seeds, too little space! Before I bought the seeds I fist have to consider their size when they are fully grown. Although I love corn, I can't have that on the small space I have. Another thing I learned, is that there are some vegetables you love that just has to be left  purchased from the market :)

Last Saturday, I already sown the lettuce, ornamental pepper, sweet pepper and eggplant. Just a quick update: my lettuce seed have already sprouted just 2 days after being sown! Well, that was fast... I have to keep reading about the seeds I have planted so I won't be surprised again. I'll post picture of the sprouts tomorrow. I never imagine I would plant lettuce, i would just have been satisfied buying it from the supermarket. It's a nice feeling!

I must admit that the multicolored peppers on the packet was the one that made me but the ornamental pepper, but I read it also has a nice taste. Our family love pickled peppers, I think multicolored pickled pepper would be exciting to see!

We love eggplant at home, we enjoy it boiled, fried, broiled or with other vegetables. It would be good to have this plat at home too.

Aaahhh... I hope everything would turn out to be ok! I welcome every advice from everyone, thank you very much :)

Mom's Weekend Harvest

Here's a few of my Mom's harvest during the weekend. Her garden inspired me a lot to have my own too, this is a way of saying "thanks Mom!".  She delights on the comments about her garden and she says she appreciates everybody who dropped a comment. Just a few tidbits, my Mom used to be a finance manager of a company and now she's retired and enjoying the simple pleasures of vegetable gardening.

Just one of the ripe papaya fruits from one of the prolific trees. This one is quite small, just weighing below a kilo. The bigger ones are off to the market, some weighing to almost 2 kilos.

This is one of the okra plants from her garden. She gives me some okras every other 2 days, which I enjoy boiling over a little water and dipping into fish sauce and calamansi (also from her garden!). You know what, i just relaized that we are getting self sufficient (sort of :)) in terms of our vegetable consumptions. Harvests from her garden are are get to be eaten together as in the okra and calamansi for dipping.

A few okra, love love love!

Mid May Blooms

O-oh... the summer season here is almost over. Afternoon rain showers are becoming more and more frequent. I just want to share some pictures of the flowers in my uncle's garden that has withstand the extreme heat and late afternoon showers. My uncle grows these plants in front of the house, in what little space he has for a garden. And that inspire me even more to push through with the container vegetable garden i'm planning. Flowers, vegetables, fruit-bearing trees which my other family members are cultivating, doesn't fail to bring joy to everyone who sees them. 

I love the combination of green and red in this plant, reminds me of the colors of christmas! The tiny flowerets almost cover the whole plant with thin stems and no leaves.

One of the flowers of the yellow bell plant crawling on the wrought iron fence, lovely! 

Ooh and some pink flowerets too!

I don't know about you but yellow flowers always reminds me of the month of May. I got a lucky shot of a busy bee taking a sip of nectar of this attention grabbing flower.

I love the color red! Especially on flowers... like this one which i even bend (carefully!) to take picture of.

This plant always has flowers. Yes all year round, it blooms with tiny white flowers. So pretty!

05/22/2012 Update:

I love this twin bougainvillea blooms. My uncle has several varieties but this white one is my favorite.

Native euphorbia plant. I remember there used to be a craze over these plants several years ago, almost all gardens have different varieties. You can't even plant this outside your fence for fear of being stolen.

Hopefully these flowers brightened up your day. How about ,you what's your favorite flower?

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My Mom's Fruit-bearing Plants

While planning for my container garden project, let me share to you my mom's fruit bearing plants. We have acquired a small property that we have not fully developed yet. So, my mom decided that she would plant some fruit bearing plants there and she did quite well.

This is the calamansi or calamandarin in English. She bought this as a grafted plant that is why thought only small, it's already bearing fruits. There are about 15 of this around the property, and she could harvest about 10 fruits each. The calamansi  is a sour fruit much like lime or lemon. We use this for cooking, as a sour element for sauces and as a refreshing juice drink. It can be substituted for lemon when making iced tea and like other citrus fruits, is high in vitamin C. This fruit also has several medicinal uses. I rub the juice of the crushed calamansi to my daughters insect bites to relieve the itching and reduce the irritation. This can also be taken orally often in juice form as cough medicine, acne medicine even as a relief to constipation. I wonder if my mom consider all of these benefits before planting this fruit, because for a small fruit, it's quite a lot!

For me just the smell and the joy of seeing a small plant with so much fruit already gives me quite a joy!

Look at all those fruits! This is a papaya plant. We are used to seeing yellow or ripe papaya which is sweet and has soft flesh. These are not yet ripe but so nice to see. Ripe papaya can be eaten as is or mixed with other fruits on a salad. The green papaya can be used as chutney which is delicious to be paired with other dishes. We love making chutney at home because this can last for a long time in the fridge.

I just love taking pictures of these! I'm used to just seeing these on fruit stands and seeing it still in the tree is so lovely. 

I hope that soon I can take some pictures of ripe papayas. 

Just days before harvesting... I bet these papayas would be as sweet as the summer sun!


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Mission: Grow My First Ever Vegetable Container Garden

I love vegetables, i really do!

The thing is, that I live in a place with very limited space for growing plants. I have experienced growing vegetables when i was in grade school and has always longed for one of my own. I remember planting tomatoes, cucumber, and lettuce. Oh the joy of showing off to my mom the fruits of toiling the soil! So, i decided now that I have a daughter to share that joy and pass on the love of vegetables and gardening to her.

I started reading about container gardening and this would be perfect for the living space I have. It turns out that you can grow your own veggies in small containers be it pots, recycled pet bottles and even old basins. I figure that this will allow me to have a portable garden that can give me fresh vegetables all year round. There are many advantages to container gardening. One is that you can control the soil and drainage. It will be much easier to have nice soil when potting it in containers than when you are tilling the ground. This will also makes it harder for pest to infest your plants.  Also, you can put your container gardens where they'll have good amount of sunlight and even move them around to follow the sun.

Of course, before I start a container garden, I understand that there's a lot more to it than just buying seeds, sticking them to a pot, leave them and after a month expect a good and bountiful harvest. Vegetable container gardening does not take a lot of time but it does requires you to pay a certain amount of attention on a daily basis. 

Now, I'm ready to commit! Stay tuned as I share my experience as i grow my first ever vegetable garden. I am excited and would love to hear your suggestion, comments, advice or words of encouragement for someone so new to this.