Adios, tomatoes

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Imagine seeing an entire plant with infested leaves like this. Wouldn't you get rid of it, too?

When you can’t beat ‘em, get rid of what’s attracting ‘em. That’s the conclusion I came to where my tomato plants were concerned. The whitefly infestation was too much for me, and rather than continue to give the pests a place to live, I decided to remove the attraction for them.

The “wild” vine went first. It’s true about maintaining a central, strong vine – in my compare and contrast method, I found that the vine growing along the single stake was more hardy that the one I allowed to branch repeatedly. I had pruned both plants radically to remove the infested leaves. When that was done, the branched vine was so, so bare and was probably so stressed that it didn’t have the strength to continue growing. The single vine did. It’s still attracting whiteflies, though, and I’m waiting for the current crop of tomatoes to ripen before removing the plant. :( It was nice to experience growing them, and I may try again sometime in the future, if I see fewer whiteflies around. So long, tomatoes…

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It’s planting season again

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Finally! Success in growing marigolds from seed - with Sunset Hibiscus also sharing the spotlight in the top right corner.

As 2010 drew to a close, I decided that I should start planting some of the various seeds I’d accumulated over the months. It was also a good time to start replenishing my annuals that had been dying out over the rainy season. And so I started a few lots of seeds, not based on any plan, but on what I had in hand…

So far, the marigolds are the furthest along, and I’m doing my best to keep them out of the way of the snails. Thank you, Chawan, for the fresh seeds you gave a few months back! These babies sprouted and were transferred to individual starting pots, and are ready for a slightly bigger home now. I hope to plant them out without incident in a month or so, and that they’ll flourish like my yellow cosmos are doing now.

Speaking of cosmos, I was so pleased with the yellow cosmos plants that I got seeds for red and orange cosmos, too. Those have sprouted and are growing nicely for now. I can’t wait to see them in bloom!

Here's a fun comparison - both Zinnia plants pictured germinated at the same time. The bigger one is about 15cm tall now. The tiny one was attacked by snails and had only the tiniest bits of seed leaf left atop the stem. It is now struggling to grow new leaves. What survival instinct!

The zinnias had a good start, too. I even managed to get one precious sprout from the seeds I’d saved from my doomed red zinnia. Unfortunately, our adventurous snails got to the seedlings one night, and now I have only one healthy plant left – colour unknown. There is another possible survivor that I’m going to call Nearly Headless Zinnia, because all but a tiny fringe of the seed leaves were eaten, and it hasn’t died yet. Will those tiny bits of leaf be enough for it to survive? Maybe. I see new leaves pushing their way out, but it will likely be a stunted plant. I’ll have to start more seeds if I want zinnias in the garden. :|

Someone gave me some Sunset Hibiscus seeds in an exchange, and two out of the three seeds I’d sown have germinated and grown into nice young plants. I have no idea what colour the flowers will be, but that’s just me keeping myself in suspense.

Seeing the gorgeous pictures on Sky’s site, I also had to try growing Rudbeckias. I have a few tiny sprouts growing now – not the same as Sky’s, though – and hope they’ll grow nice and big in time to come.

In the foreground, passionfruit plants; behind, one of the roselle seedlings.

I also got hold of some passionfruit seeds, and thought, why not? So some got planted, and a couple have sprouted, and now I’m wondering where in the garden to let them grow. If I want our garden to be permaculture-worthy, I ought to plant them next to a complementary plant that they can climb over (reference story here) …but do I want to “sacrifice” any of my plants?

And my oh so great plans for sunflowers… The seedlings I proudly displayed in an earlier post were wiped out over two evenings – not by snails, otherwise the snail bait I set out would have been effective – but by a pair of hairy caterpillars! Unacceptable. I’ve since started some dwarf sunflowers in pots, and am wondering how wise it would be to start the bigger plants while the weather is still so rainy – at least that’s what the Met Service predicts. The larger sunflowers need to be planted directly, and don’t like excessive water, so all this rain is not good news to me. I’ve already prepared a number of recycled PET bottle-protectors to ward off snails and caterpillars, but the question is when I can start the planting. Goodness knows, in a couple of months I’ll probably be complaining about the lack of rain…

My first dwarf sunflower sprout, looking nice and strong. I hope I didn't just jinx the plant by praising it! :|

And finally, I now have several roselle sprouts growing – an unplanned addition at this point, but certainly not unwelcome. Some will stay and others will go to new homes.

There will definitely be more plants to mention in coming weeks, but it will take time to build the garden up again – especially after the rainy weather has affected many plants, and because I persist in growing my plants from seeds and cuttings as much as possible. My philosophy is, if they sprout and grow here, it’s likely they’ll thrive here – and that’s alright, because I believe that all good things take time, and I’m willing to wait for the results…

© 2011 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.


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The Vulturine Guineafowl

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Vulturine Guineafowl probably wondering what this strange creature (me) was doing as I tried to get a good shot of it through the leaves of our mango tree. Isn't that an amazing looking bird?

There must be something about an overgrown sweet potato patch that attracts wild birds to our garden. First it was the Blue-Winged Pitta a couple of months ago, and now it’s a Vulturine Guineafowl.

Ha, yeah, I did a double-take when I heard the name, too, but honestly, when I first got a look at this odd bird sitting on our shed roof, I thought it could be some sort of vulture, myself.

This has to be the biggest wild bird I’ve ever seen in our garden. Think body the size of a duck, with a very thin, long neck attached to it, and a small head with large, red beady eyes… That’s what we saw, when I managed to get a clear photo of it. And yes, I always run for the camera when we see a new bird, because they’re so fast that you can’t see and notice everything in just a few seconds.

This is what we mostly saw of the bird - that head and neck craned as it peeped over the roof edge, or around the corner, to observe us. Tell me this doesn't make you think of a vulture!

The bird was spotted around lunchtime today on one end of the roof. When I went to look for it, it had moved to the other end that overlooks my overgrown sweet potato patch. From under the shed, I looked up at it, and from the roof, it peeped down, showing what a long neck it had. It was rather funny! The vulturine also didn’t seem to mind when the camera flash accidentally went off in my excitement – three times! After that, it became a challenge for me to get a good shot of this unusual bird, and to my surprise, the bird didn’t seem to mind me getting close with the camera – well, as close as one can get when the roof is over 2 metres high! It just perched on the edge of the roof, occasionally peeking down at me. Otherwise, all I could see were the tips of its feet and beak just over the roof edge.

What also amused me was that when I spoke softly to it, it responded a little with a soft chit-chit-chit kind of noise. Perhaps it was lost and confused. I felt quite sorry for it because the weather was absolutely miserable today. There were several heavy passing showers, and it was sitting out in it all the time. It didn’t seem to mind the rain, though. After all, there was a roof overhang just a metre or so away from it, and a mango tree that it could have hopped onto, literally.

Silhouetted against the gray skies, you can see what an unusual body the vulturine guineafowl has. Also notice the toes over the edge of the roof...

So once I got decent photos, I hopped online to try to find its identity. When the searching didn’t yield results fast enough for me, I tossed it to more knowledgeable friends and got suggestions of peacock, pheasant, cassowary and vulture until Mr Otterman himself put me out of my misery with the bird’s identity. It’s not native to Singapore, so he suggested it was either an escapee from the Bird Park, or an illegal pet. I tried my best to see if the bird had a tag on the leg but didn’t see one – so the probability is that it’s not from the Bird Park.

I had to go out in the late afternoon and when I returned, the bird had disappeared. In the meantime, Mr Otterman had informed our local nature groups, BESG and ACRES of the sighting. I didn’t think the bird would get such attention, but I’m flattered that it dropped by at our garden. Like I said, it must be the sweet potato patch that attracts these wild birds…

© 2011 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.


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Roselle rescue

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I haven’t complained enough about the weather here lately for those of you not in Singapore to know that it’s been raining a lot since Christmas. Well, it has, and we’ve been getting rain almost every day – a light, gentle and cool rain that has come almost every afternoon, without fail. So unless I visited the garden in the mornings, I didn’t have a chance to do so because I just don’t fancy walking in the rain any more.

Left: profile view - the roselle sprouts look like Medusa's head! Right: aerial view while still on Mama Plant - what a tight squeeze!

And, after reporting at Christmas how the roselle plant was geared for action, it has since produced several fruits along each of its three stems. No thanks to the rain, it was many days before I could check on the roselles. I had the pleasant surprise of seeing a whole bunch of little roselle sprouts peeking out of a pod when I finally got to visit the plant on one of the rare sunny days we’ve had in the last few weeks. Of course, like a proud parent, I took pictures, then removed the fruit from the plant to salvage the seedlings.

Update: The first two roselle plants from the first round of growing from seed in December are growing well!

Note that you can’t just pull the fruit off – the stem is very fibrous and stubborn, so you have use something sharp to remove it, or risk tearing the stem. I need to remember that myself… Heh.

The pod yielded over ten sprouts and several softened and probably-about-to-germinate seeds. The sprouts were put in individual pots while the seeds had to share homes, until they prove they’re going to grow.

All in all, that rescue mission was a success!

And now that the weather has dried a bit, I took the opportunity to harvest seeds from the other roselle fruits, and based on what I managed to get, I can tell you that each fruit will yield at least 20 seeds. That’s a fun fact, huh? :)

Finally, in an update on the first lot of seeds that I harvested and planted together with the first pod-sproutlet in December, only one other plant grew. Perhaps the layer of cocopeat was an overkill… That’s partly why I’m now a fan of surface sowing! So the current count is two young plants growing from that earlier round – with several more to come from this second round!

© 2011 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.


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