Some Garden Chores And News

Since the retreat was over back in April, I have been staying over at Big Bro and Second Bro's home ( also my childhood's home ) until today. There had been much to do and when things were finally done or more settled on Sunday, I decided to make a short trip to the nearby Malay Kampong again, to collect some ' pastries ' ( dried up manures ) for my plants.

Like always, it was a pleasure seeing the abandoned mining pool filled with pink lotuses among other water weeds upon reaching the Kampong. Though unfortunately, very few were in full bloom this time, while others had gone past their blooming time.

There, it did not take me very long before I had a paint bucket full of ' pastries ' collected. Normally, I would have two bucketfuls collected. But as my other bucket had earlier been used to keep soil that a neighbour had recently dumped when he had his garden renovated, I only had one to use for this purpose this time.

I had the bucketful of ' pastries ' transported to my small backyard garden in Ipoh on the same day because I did not want them to stay too long inside the plastic-made paint bucket. I had the bucket placed inside a wider plastic container which I had earlier filled with a little water to avoid ants and other crawling insects from crawling out from the bucket into my car.

On reaching my small backyard garden, I immediately had the bucket of ' pastries ' unloaded from my car. I had them all crumbled with my pair of glove-on hands and top-dressed onto my ground and pot planters.

After that I had everything ( the paint bucket and gloves ) cleaned and put back in place. Then, I had a brief look around and had some pictures taken so I could have them shared here.



It had only been a few days since I last went there .....



The little, lush ' jungle ' of mixed edibles on the back, ground level planter had noticeably grown lusher.

The Thai Basil ( Ocimum basilicum ) plants on the long, ground level planter had already started to flower. Someone had once shared on Facebook that it would be best to have them all pinched off. Else, they would age very fast. But I just could not bring my hands to do so.

A pretty visitor, not sure if a friend or a foe, was found resting in a carefree manner, on one of the Thai Basil leaves, as though the whole world belonged to it alone. It was not in the least bothered when I had my finger put on the very leaf it was resting on. What a calm creature it was! Probably it just knew I would not bring any harm to it no matter what.

The two Japanese Melon ( Cucumis melo ) plants that were barely a foot tall had miraculously flowered. I wondered if the flowers would ever turn into fruits. If they did, that would be something worth announcing to the world!

The many self-seeded Red Stem Malabar Ceylon Spinach ( Basella alba ) seedlings had suddenly grown a lot bigger and could be harvested anytime now.

So had the two White Bitter Gourd ( Momordica charantia ) seedlings! Hope they would continue to progress so until fruition.

The Radish ( Raphanus sativus ) seedlings had shown exceptional growth too. I was so very proud of them!

A little patch of weeds on the cracked concrete spot near the drain hole had suddenly become very noticeable. It did look like an amazing creation of nature to me!

Finally, before I had it called a day at my small backyard garden, I had all the dried leaves that were caught in between pots, swept to the open space of my backyard, after when I had them all scooped up and put into the compost bin.

Now, would you have already guessed what I had used to easily sweep them all, from those narrow spaces in between pots? 

Well, yes! I had used one of those stick bundles, which could be seen in the bottom right picture below ( the middle one in that picture to be exact ). I called them the coconut stick brooms. Remember the post which I had mentioned about our front neighbour's gardener having trimmed and discarded a lot of coconut fronds sometime back? Those broom sticks were made from those fronds!

ALL for NOW! Thank you for READING this! BYE!