The Curious Gardener | Gardening discoveries in Singapore

‘Berry picking season

Posted on October 18, 2015 by CuriousG

The mulberry tree was even more laden with fruits last week. I was more interested in picking and eating the fruits then… ;-)

I love that feeling of picking fruits off plants and being able to eat them immediately, and lately we’ve been able to do just that with mulberries.

As is now my practice, I prune the plant hard once fruiting season is over – all branches growing from the main (and now quite thick) stems get chopped off. This makes the plant panic and once it has enough new growth, it starts fruiting profusely.

Thank you, Novice Gardener and Mother Weed, for reinforcing that. Without you, I don’t think I would have learnt what hard pruning meant, because I used to be too soft-hearted on my plants. Now, I am just heartless with the mulberry plants, because I can see how well they respond to the pruning.

This is about a fifth of what we’ve enjoyed this week. We had enough that I was even willing to share with the neighbours!

We’re really happy with this harvest because it’s the biggest one yet. I can’t wait until our other plants get big enough to multiply this amount substantially.

First taste of the peanut butter fruit

Posted on October 11, 2015 by CuriousG

Peanut butter fruit #3 – the largest one of the lot.

I had a silent battle with the birds to lay claim to the two remaining fruits on the peanut butter fruit plant – properly known as Bunchosia argentea. It looked like the plant was done flowering for the moment, so those two developing fruits were pretty precious to us, especially after losing the very first one to the birds.

How I kept the fruits safe from the birds - a simple but effective method.

How I kept the fruits safe from the birds – by wrapping some netting around the branch holding the fruit – a simple but effective method.

It was interesting to note that while the first fruit was pretty small, the subsequent ones were progressively bigger. I feel slightly better about that, for some reason.

Well, the fruits changed from green to yellowish, then darkened to orange. I thought that was when they were ripe, but apparently I was wrong. The fruit darkened even more to a reddish-orange, looking very much like a cherry tomato.

The fruit as it ripened…

When fully ripe, the fruit felt very delicate, like a tomato, and I was afraid that if I squeezed it too hard, it would squish like a tomato. The skin, however, is not smooth and waxy. It felt quite thin and a bit rough and tacky, almost like the juice from the fruit was seeping through the skin.

Cutting it open brought us back to the resemblance to a tomato. There are no cavities in this fruit, though – it’s solid flesh surrounding a couple of seeds. In terms of consistency, the flesh is like that of a date – soft and sticky. The skin also peeled away easily – like a tomato.

Cross-section of the ripe peanut butter fruits prior to the important taste test.

The taste..?

Nothing like any peanut butter I’ve ever tried! On the whole, we found it a bit bland, with no distinct flavour. I don’t know if it’s because we waited until the fruits were too ripe (really red), but I don’t think it lives up to its name. Perhaps the flavour will change as the plant matures. We’ll see. Our verdict for now? Disappointing.

Recycling PET bottles

Posted on October 4, 2015 by CuriousG

I mentioned recently that I was going to recycle some PET bottles to grow veggies in, and I finally got that done.

The clean bottle awaiting the paint.

First, wash and dry the PET bottles; then peel off the label. If you want to be a little fancy like I did this time, paint the bottles. Make sure the surface is clean of dust, then apply the paint. I used a matt black spray paint.

As always, apply a light coat first and let it dry – even though it may look uneven. Never spray on a thick coat at one go because it will take longer to dry. Just go with light coats until you get the look you want. I needed just two.

One painted bottle: done!

After the paint dries out, cut off the top. You could do this step before the painting, but I find it’s easier to see the edge of the bottle and get a more level cut. Trust me, I can’t stand slanting edges, and have in the past tried to level out the edge until the height was too low for my purposes! This method worked very well for me.

With this bottle, I wanted to have a bit of a water reservoir at the bottom. So, I filled up about 3-4cm with stones then added a layer of about 2cm of vermiculite that I packed down over the stones. This was to act as a buffer between the soil and stones so that the soil doesn’t slip between the stones and use up the area I want water to sit in. Before adding the soil, I used the tip of a blade to cut a couple of drainage slits around the level of the vermiculite. After that, it was just a matter of adding the soil and plants – in this case, a few stems of Chinese greens that were supposed to compost away but decided they wanted to grow instead. Naturally, I indulged them.

The end product – nifty looking recycled PET bottles having a second round at life as veggie pots!

So my little weekend project is done. Next time, I may consider adding a little conduit from above the surface to the stones so I can pour water directly into the reservoir and let it seep upwards.

Fighting the haze

Posted on October 3, 2015 by CuriousG

Our humble plant nursery area

The regional haze is still blanketing us, and while I can’t do anything about the choking nature of the air, I’ve been coping quite well with our new plants…

Meet the three new pumpkin plants

Angled luffa

Two of our four new watermelon plants

Newcomer Little Leaf cucumber

And yes, the coriander is still alive and growing!

As you can see, the plants don’t look exceptionally healthy, and will need lots of TLC while the haze continues to pollute the air. I’ve been experimenting with heavy mulching and have had interesting results.

Heavy mulch of belimbing tree leaves at our bittergourd trellis has helped the plants to not dry out quickly.

Our bittergourd vines used to dry out quickly before we started mulching the bed with leaves mostly from our belimbing tree. They require less watering now, but the fruits are smaller than usual and ripen when they’re still quite small.

Here I have a green brinjal plant sharing a large pot with an okra plant and a cosmos plant. They look pretty happy.

I had a brinjal plant growing in a large pot, and not too long ago, I tossed in some old okra seeds. One grew into a rather healthy looking plant. I’ve been mulching this with belimbing leaves, too, and when we remember to water the plants, I think it creates a good growing environment, because these plants look happy to me! Mulching really does help. More on that another time…

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