The Curious Gardener | Gardening discoveries in Singapore

Bananas: Going well

Posted on March 7, 2015 by CuriousG

The first, topmost hand of bananas looks really impressive!

The new set of bananas are growing well. There are seven distinct sets of hands, with the first one looking extremely impressive with the most number of fruits.

Now that all the fruit-bearing bracts have emerged, we’re back to that old question of whether or not to remove the heart and male flowers. We did this the last time, so I didn’t get to measure the distance of the heart from the fruits to gauge when to harvest the fruits … and since these are green-skinned bananas, you can’t wait for the signal banana to tell you when they’re ready. As a matter of fact, the fruits began to ripen on the plant while we were still stupidly looking for the signal banana. Maybe we’ll leave the heart on this time…

Here it is – the full set of fruits for this season. Impressive, no? :)

I’ll just say that we’re pretty chuffed about the fruits. It’s been inspiring lots of “minion moments” – if you’ve seen the animated movie, Despicable Me, you’ll know what I mean.

Or watch the full “Banana” short clip on Youtube. I don’t own that copyright so won’t post it here. Enjoy.

Berry-eating birds: pink-necked green pigeons

Posted on March 4, 2015 by CuriousG

Palm trees can look very festive because of the multitude of colourful berries!

Palm trees tend to produce clusters of fruits which vary in size, depending on the type of palm tree. The plants in our garden have the smaller fruits, which attract a number of birds. I haven’t managed to photograph many of the birds yet, but did get some nice footage of a pair of pink-necked green pigeons having a snack recently.

Sorry for the slightly shaky video but I didn’t expect I’d film anything and didn’t have my tripod handy. Such is always the case – the opportunities come when you least expect them…

A look at nitrogen-fixing nodules

Posted on February 26, 2015 by CuriousG

We’ve all heard about how leguminous plants have nitrogen-fixing capabilities – they have symbiotic bacteria known as rhizobia in nodules in their root systems that produce nitrogen compounds that help the plant to grow and compete with other plants. When the plants die, the nitrogen is released and made available to other plants, thus helping to fertilise the soil.

My quick way of making a self-watering pot – it certainly kept the winged bean plants going!

I always thought that this happens only within the soil, and was surprised to see rows of ball-like nodules along the roots of my young winged bean plants that happened to be growing in water.

The background to this is that I was trying to keep my winged bean seedlings well watered by placing the pot above a cup filled with water. This is my quick method to make a self-watering pot, you see. Just water the plant well then fit the base of it into a water-filled container; the water will first seep into the potting mix above, and if the water level falls too low, the water will evaporate and still get to the roots above. If left alone long enough, the plant will send roots down into the reservoir below, which is what happened here.

A closer look at the nodules on the winged bean roots – does this not make you think of a curved spine and ribcage?? By the way, the water is discoloured because it first drained through the potting mix and into the reservoir below.

So, thanks to this, we have now seen the infamous leguminous nodules growing along the plant roots – which remind me of a creepy spinal cord, for some reason… The plants have since been planted in the garden, and don’t look as happy as they did when they had the direct access to water. It’s making me think a little more seriously about hydroponics and other ways to make water more available to the plants…

Ginger starts update

Posted on February 21, 2015 by CuriousG

Just a quick update on the culinary ginger that I started back in January…

The two plants on the extreme left have two sprouts each; it just doesn't show in the one in the foreground because the sprout is just forming.

The two plants on the extreme left have two sprouts each; it just doesn’t show in the one in the foreground because the sprout is just beginning to emerge.

As expected, all of them sprouted this week, with one or two new shoots from two of the plants.

I will probably grow two plants in a styrofoam box and plant out the rest in the garden.

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