The Curious Gardener | Gardening discoveries in Singapore

Snake skins in the garden

Posted on September 27, 2011 by CuriousG

The entire skin shed by snake unknown - around 25cm long

Ewww, I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to talk about snakes so soon after seeing the Common Wolf Snake (Lycodon capucinus) about 2 weeks ago, but no such luck.

I was checking the long bean plants at the far trellis when I noticed what I thought was a strip of white ribbon draped over a flowering plant growing at the base of the trellis. How odd that it tapered at one end, I thought – and then I realized that it was a discarded snake skin!

On the one hand, I was very freaked out and looked around quickly to make sure there were no snakes in the immediate vicinity. On the other hand, I was fascinated by the patterns on the snake skin…

Pattern of the snake's scales on its top

Pattern of scales on the snake's belly

The skin had a papery quality to it and reminded me of rice paper. It felt like if I wet it, it would get sticky. Not that I held it any more than I had to!

The snake skin on the wall. I know that they seek rough surfaces that give enough friction for them to slink out of their old skin...

So, unless the snake skin shrank after being shed by the snake, this one should not have come from the snake that I saw – which is not a comforting thought, as that means there’s more than one snake in our garden.

To make things worse, the next day, I spotted another skin just a metre away, up on the wall. This one was smaller than the first. Again, I don’t know if the skins shrink and what effect water has on them, but this one was smaller than the first skin, and had been rained on.

I am not happy about this situation… Eww, eww, ewww!

Hand-pollinating the angled loofah flower

Posted on September 25, 2011 by CuriousG

Hand-pollinating the female angled loofah flower by gently rubbing on pollen from a male flower.

The angled loofah plant
blooms in the evening. Its pale yellow cucurbita flowers are easily spotted from a distance – male flowers generally in a bunch, female flowers alone.

I’ve noticed that the blooming flowers attract insects to the plants, particularly ants. These insects can be seen scuttling along stems and around the flower buds, and are the cause of pollination.

Normally, anyway.

They don’t always do their job, especially if the male flowers are a bit too far from the female flowers. At times like that, it’s good to step in and lend a hand.

Insects like ants and beetles are attracted to the flowers before and after they bloom.

Hand-pollinating flowers doesn’t have to be a complicated process. Some people recommend using a cotton bud to first swab the male flower to gather pollen, then to swab the female flower to transfer the pollen.

I, on the other hand, like to do things as easily as possible. So, since my plants have several bunches of male flowers, I simply pluck one male flower, strip away the petals, and introduce the male anther to the stigma of the female flower. In other words, gently rub the middle parts of the flowers together to transfer the pollen.

It takes less than a minute, and by the following day, you’ll see the fruit already starting to grow longer. The petals will drop within the next day, and the stigma will dry up at the tip of the fruit as it grows. Harvest within two weeks, before the fruits start getting fibrous. We’ve got several female flowers forming now that our two vines have matured sufficiently. That’s going to be a lotta luffa in a few weeks!

The burgundy okra

Posted on September 23, 2011 by CuriousG

Meet our first burgundy okras!

I was recently very pleased to connect with another gardener in Singapore who is as interested as I am in growing edible plants. While I’ve been growing local varieties of fruits and vegetables, Novice Gardener has been much more adventurous and has been growing different varieties of some of the same vegetables. After exchanging seeds with each other, we’ve expanded each others’ repertoire of plants, and now I have – of all things – burgundy okra plants growing in the garden!

I decided to experiment with a pair of plants, to start with. By all appearances, they looked like regular okra plants. The only exception was that the stems and main leaf veins were a nice, deep red colour.

They remind me of roselle plants, actually, with the red stems and lobed green leaves.

Burgundy okra flower buds (and a juvenile fruit) on the left, regular green okra buds on the right.

When burgundy-coloured flower buds started forming, I couldn’t wait to see how the flowers would differ from regular green okra plants. Yes, I know I could have looked that up online, but where’s the adventure in that?

Interestingly to me, the flowers didn’t differ that much at all, with the exception of the shade of colour of the base of the petals and stigma – the burgundy okra is more red while the regular okra is more purple.

Burgundy okra flower on the left, regular green okra flower on the right. Notice the differences in the colours?

The okra fruits start off green, but soon take on the rich burgundy shade as they mature. Compared to my local green okra fruits, these were narrower, with a flared base at the stem. I was so fascinated watching the first two fruits grow that I plucked them a little too late. My guide to harvesting okras is to test the tip of the fruit – once it starts feeling a little stiff, I know it’s almost too late to take them for eating. Unfortunately, these first two burgundy okras weren’t fit to eat (I tried), so I know I’ll have to harvest them sooner the next time.

The good news is, the second plant has yet to reach maturity, so between the pair of plants, we should continue to get a nice supply of red okras for a while more – and I have more seeds yet to sow… Thanks, Novice G, for the new, conversation-piece okra plants!

Oriental garden lizard in the rain

Posted on September 22, 2011 by CuriousG

What does the Oriental garden lizard do when it rains heavily?

The garden lizard clinging to the stem of a tree in the pouring rain.

It doesn’t look for the best shelter. At least this one didn’t. Clinging on to the bottom of a young tree, it remained at the mercy of the pouring rain (just look at the huge puddle around the tree). I couldn’t understand why it didn’t climb higher to seek shelter in the leaves and branches. Instead, it was pale and wet and stayed there longer than I was willing to stand and watch. Poor little fella…

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