Of snails and productive plants

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Oh what a busy month this has been! I’ve been out in the garden every weekend, making good use of the garden shredder. There were shrubs and a partially toppled Peacock tree to be pruned, besides the usual gardening activities. It feels just wonderful having only small heaps of mulch rather than the messy piles of branches of the past!

The mulch has been alternatively put into compost heaps and used as a layer on top of a small veg bed I’m developing. The thing about the latter, I’ve found, is that it attracts snails! This has led to nightly “patrols” to check on snail activity, which didn’t start out too bad – I simply tossed the snails I found there over to the compost heaps where I didn’t care what they ate. However, there was the evening of the day that I used a home-made organic fertiliser from my neighbour, and found the veg bed almost swarming with snails of all sizes. I kid not. I have pictures.

Just some of the snails that invaded the veg bed on that fateful night...

Just some of the snails that invaded the veg bed on that fateful night…

At that point, I was going to bring out the anti-snail pellets. However, I spotted a young toad lurking around the corner and decided that I didn’t want to harm it by accident. So, I left the smaller snails alone, but the big ones (that I couldn’t imagine the toad eating) went on a short, fast flight to the garden wall, if you know what I mean.

The young toad looking upset that I had thrown away so many snails that it could have feasted upon.

The young toad looking upset that I had thrown away so many snails that it could have feasted upon.

The veg bed has suffered a bit, no thanks to the snails. A couple of young bush bean plants were snacked on, but the okra and brinjal plants that were transplanted from medium sized pots were not as tender and delicious to the snails. I may have to make it a practice to do this from now on, and have already started growing new plants in pots. We are never too old to learn new things, are we?

Marrow #3 this season. It's already half a metre long!

Marrow #3 this season. It’s already half a metre long!

In other parts of the garden, the marrow plant has been rather productive. It has climbed all over the place but I’ve been a little tolerant of that because it has produced three fruits so far. The first one was acceptable, the second was closer to a monster marrow, and the third is still growing on the vine.

New mulberries growing.

New mulberries growing after the big pruning session.

I was also hoping to get more mulberries by letting the plant grow longer branches, but it practically stopped fruiting. So, I finally pruned it all the way back to the main trunk, and it started producing new fruits within a week!

The wrecked papaya tree after the snake gourd vines were removed from it, with the new trellis to its left. I need a bigger trellis!

The wrecked papaya tree after the snake gourd vines were removed from it, with the new trellis to its left. I need a bigger trellis!

The snake gourd vine is still meandering around. I thought it was alright it let it grow up the papaya tree until I saw some of the papaya branches breaking under the weight (which I thought would be fairly light, but was wrong) of the vines. So those vines got stripped off the tree and put onto a hastily rigged trellis. The papaya tree is recovering and the snake gourd fruits keep coming. It’s all good.

© 2016 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.


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Building garden communities

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There are all kinds of online groups that we can join to share ideas with other like-minded people, but it’s really rewarding to connect with people in the real world. My long-time buddies like Novice Gardener and the Weed family (their online names) started out as fellow seed swappers, but are now our friends. We also have new neighbours who share our interest in growing edible plants and who have plenty of good information and seeds and produce to swap. Since we consider ourselves still on the learning curve and both have different approaches to growing things, we have had several interesting conversations over the fence just sharing ideas and experiences.

Alexius Yeo's permaculture garden, or urban farm

Alexius Yeo’s permaculture garden, or urban farm.

Recently, I was lucky to make the acquaintance of a young man who calls himself an urban farmer. The double bonus for me was that his approach to gardening is permaculture, a concept I’ve been interested in for a while. Alexius Yeo has accumulated experience in growing edible plants and is very passionate about teaching others how they can do the same, too. It is both work and pleasure for him, with the building of community at the core of it all. Following the permaculture principle of giving away 33 percent of your produce, he successfully started a home-based community called Project 33 which extends beyond his immediate neighbourhood.

I visited his garden-converted-to-a-farm and was so inspired by it! It is not large but is beautifully laid out and densely planted with many functional plants – if they’re not edible, they’re there for another reason, like to fix nitrogen in the soil. Finally, I was seeing permaculture in action! There was also taste-testing and so much information imparted that I couldn’t remember everything! However, Alexius made the impact that it is good to have lots of people involved. On a side note, I think we were both impressed that we each owned a garden shredder, but like a true guy, his gardening tools were more fun – his shredder is industrial standard and he has a chainsaw! I am in tool envy… :-D

Part of permaculture is planting densely - in this case, sweet potato with leafy veggies along the borders.

Part of permaculture is planting densely – in this case, sweet potato with leafy veggies along the borders.

There are many real life garden community groups around – community gardens at housing estates and groups like Edible Garden City that bring together people who want to grow their own fruits, herbs and vegetables. In land-scarce Singapore, container gardening is a good solution, and lots of people are catching on to that (and it’s pretty efficient). Try to find a suitable group near to you or start your own. I can tell you that it is great fun sharing produce with neighbours, because in true kampong spirit, they tend to give things back, whether it’s something from their own gardens or a dish cooked with something you’ve given to them. Just remember not to get too involved in too many things because then you may not have enough time for your own plants. I am truly inspired by Alexius’ garden which is quite matured and independent – the beauty of permaculture, which I’ll discuss later. For now, though, my garden community remains select, online and within my neighbourhood. Where’s yours?

© 2016 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.


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The short snake gourd returns

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Short snake gourd - male flowers

Short snake gourd – male flowers

You know how I keep mentioning that our garden is in a rather natural (overgrown) state? Well, a lot of underbrush has grown, and amidst all those self-sowing plants sprang a vine that worked its way up other plants and onto the top of the chain link fence shared with our new neighbour. It proceeded to grow with glee, prompting our neighbours who are also interested in growing edible plants to enquire if it was a useful plant.

In my usual experience, volunteer plants that spread that quickly are not classified as nice ones; however, I dutifully examined the plant before offering to uproot it (since it had grown from the mini jungle on our side of the fence). One of the ways I check plants is to bruise the leaves to get the scent of the plant. If you’ve ever tried this, you’ll know that it’s a great way to identify a plant – not just with herbs but fruiting plants, too. In this case, the leaves gave up an unusual scent that I recognised. It was the short snake gourd that I had grown several years ago and forgot to save seeds from!

Note to self: SAVE SEEDS THIS TIME!

The vine-covered fence - part of it, anyway!

The vine-covered fence – part of it, anyway!

The plant must have started from a seed dispersed by a bird sitting on the literal fence. It’s the same way we started growing the small bittergourd – in that case, thanks to a bird sitting on a plant. Such volunteer plants are a pleasant and welcome surprise, and I’d like to thank the neighbour(s) who grew the plants! Obviously, birds ate the fruits in a neighbour’s garden and pooped seeds out over here.

It took a few weeks of flowering before the fruits finally began to appear. In that time, I began to carefully weed the area around the base of the vine just to see where it originated so we wouldn’t accidentally cut or uproot it. Interestingly, the plant began to wilt after I cleared the ground around it. This made me realise that while I thought the other plants growing around the vine were choking it, they were actually helping to shade the ground and keep it moist! In the hot weather we’re experiencing, this is a good thing. The vine recovered once I’d quickly mulched the ground around it with fallen leaves and the plants I had uprooted.

The short snake gourd

The short snake gourd

This short snake gourd vine tends to fruit quite prolifically. Like most plants, the fruits come in waves, so every few days, my neighbours and I go on snake gourd hunts together. It seems to be the most effective way to discover the fruits, because they hide extremely well, and it takes eyes on both sides of the fence to find them. Then we divvy up the spoils and share recipes, and in some cases, food. I’ve learned that this fruit veg is delicious in dhal curry! I don’t remember how long this plant lasts, but for the weeks or months that it’s producing fruits, we shall definitely appreciate them!

© 2016 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.


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The new garden shredder

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The garden shredder in action - feed in branches at the top and it spews bits of leaves and wood at the bottom!

The garden shredder in action – feed in branches at the top and it spews pieces of leaves and wood at the bottom!

I’m in love – with my new garden helper, the shredder. You’ve probably heard me complain bitterly in the past about how I want to compost our garden waste and how long it takes to break down if I don’t try to cut the leaves and branches as small as I can. It’s a painstaking process, especially with shrubs and their woody stems, and I’ve literally spent hours cutting and breaking the pieces down by hand and with handtools, with blisters to show for it.

Well, I tried enquiring locally about shredder/mulchers, and could only find commercial sources with accompanying commercial prices (four figures!) which ruled that option out unless I struck the lottery. So, when we decided to go to Australia recently, I made it a top priority to check out the machines available there, and you already know that I had lots of options to consider from Bunnings and Masters. With advice from people living there, I made my choice but was unable to bring it back immediately. It was the most painful period of time for me to wait for my new baby to arrive, but thanks to good family and friends, it finally got here.

What were the things I considered before choosing the machine?

Would it work here? Yes, the electrical voltage is the same. The plugs are different, though, so I had to get an adaptor for it.

Could it shred woody branches? What thickness? There were several options to consider, which I did with advice mainly from the guys.

Would I be able to move the machine around easily? This one was a little tricky because I was tempted by a more heavy duty machine that was closer to 20kg. The one I eventually chose is 12kg and I’m not in danger of throwing out my back when moving it around.

What if it gets spoiled? Even though it’s covered by a guarantee, it would be ridiculous to ship it back and forth, so I chose one that was recommended as a reliable brand by a good friend who knows what he’s talking about. It was less than $200 and I want it to last at least a year so I’ll feel that I’ve had my money’s worth. Longer would be lovely, of course.

Happy that my conditions were met, the purchase was made.

Ready for action - long extension cable to power the machine, shredder with handy black paddle to push through stubborn bits, and an empty basket to catch the shredded materials.

Ready for action – long extension cable to power the machine, shredder with handy black paddle to push through stubborn bits, and an empty basket to catch the shredded materials.

So now that I’ve had the chance to use it, I can say that I am thrilled with the shredder. It needed some assembly when unpacked, but that’s not rocket science to do. It also came with very good instructions on how to use and maintain it. In my excitement to start using it, I forgot the recommendation to use earplugs, and after the first round of 108DB, my ears were ringing! My fault. I did wear gloves and use sunglasses to protect my eyes, though.

The instructions also recommended what materials to feed in, which was a good thing, because I thought I could simply shred all kinds of branches as I pruned them. Now I know I need to let those with “juicy” or sap-filled stems dry out for a few days, otherwise the sap will gum up the blades. It worked great with woody branches, though. The capacity of this model is a width of 35mm, but that’s fine with me as I have other ideas for the thicker stems. It doesn’t do thin twigs well, nor the soft tips of stems, but I am SO HAPPY with the way it turns woody stems into woody confetti!

Shredded plant materials ranging from fine to small wood chips and a few thin twigs. I love it!

Shredded plant materials ranging from fine to small wood chips and a few thin twigs. I love it!

On the same note, since you can’t feed wet materials into the machine, you also have to wait for a nice sunny day to use it. It rained yesterday and I expected it to rain again today, but it didn’t! Since the plants had had the night to dry out, I deemed it alright to start shredding away. So the shredder had its maiden voyage and I’m looking forward to many more “journeys” with it.

This little machine is going to help me so much as I clear up the overgrown parts of the garden. Best of all – and I made sure to test this today – since it absolutely shreds branches to little bits, I can look forward to not getting pricked any more by thorny twigs when I handle the compost piles in progress or get said twigs stuck to the soles of my footwear if I step on them. It’s less irritating than stepping on chewing gum, but irritating nonetheless.

I’m very grateful to the folks who brought me shopping for the shredder and who helped bring it back (I was seriously looking at cheap flights to back for it!). Without your advice and help, I’d be one frustrated gardener! Thanks and hugs. :) I love my garden shredder!

Best! Investment! Ever!!

Shredded garden waste put to good use as mulch in the ginger bed.

Shredded garden waste put to good use as mulch in the ginger bed.

© 2016 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.


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