Going back to my roots

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Leave a piece of ginger alone in the kitchen long enough and it will start to bud...

Leave a piece of ginger alone in the kitchen long enough and it will start to bud…

One of the main reasons I started trying to grow edible plants was to prove that we can indeed grow some of our own vegetables. This was because a friend in Australia had commented about the high price of ginger there, to which I suggested she try growing it. She didn’t think it possible, so of course I had to give it a go. This, after all, is why I am the Curious Gardener.

So while I was able to grow ginger some four or so years ago (read here for that account), we didn’t manage to grow the amount I’d envisioned. Rainy weather caused most of our plants to rot at the roots, and my other attempts died out and then I didn’t go back to planting more.

Well, I recently spied a piece of old ginger that had been left alone for too long in the kitchen, and decided to lay claim to it because the growing buds were too irresistible to pass up. To maximise the number of plants we can grow, I decided to cut the rhizome into smaller pieces – each with at least one good growing bud on it. This gave me five pieces, which I am leaving alone for now to allow the cut surfaces to cure a little before I plant them properly. After all, I don’t want the bits to rot instead of grow.

The ginger that I tried growing in a pot is still around, even though I thought I'd pulled out all the plants already.

The ginger that I tried growing in a pot is still around, even though I thought I’d pulled out all the plants already.

More serious ginger growers will say that you should have about three growing buds per ginger piece planted out, but it’s fairly obvious that I like to experiment and see what I can get away with. I have great faith in the tenacity of plants and nature – they will do their very best to grow despite the most challenging of conditions. Besides, that was what I did with my last bulk planting of ginger, which was around 20 plants from bits with a single growing bud each.

What will I do differently this time? Well, first you should watch these videos to see what has inspired me:

Jeff Heriot: Planting ginger with commercial grower tips

Jeff Heriot: Ginger harvest

Eco Oasis: Growing ginger for profit in a food forest

Okay, so I’m not likely to reach the levels of these guys, but what I’d like to try to emulate are fertilising the plants more regularly (I didn’t realise they needed to be fed that much) and to continue experimenting with locations for growing, because I haven’t found that sweet spot in our garden where they’ll thrive just yet. Should I try planting the ginger in a mound or trench? Or perhaps in a container? Maybe I’ll try all, to see what works best. What I do know is that I’m not going to do the annual harvest, because I’ve heard that the longer you leave the ginger plants alone, the better they will establish themselves (bigger rhizomes) – and if you need to use some ginger, you can just dig a bit and pull off what you need to use. I adore being able to go out to the garden and harvest what you need for your meal, so this suits me fine.

The next phase of our ginger journey is on!

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Pitta-patter of avian feet

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Meet the new Pitta in the garden!

Meet the new Pitta in the garden!

We were just commenting to each other that the Blue-winged Pitta hadn’t been seen for several days, and thought that this migrant had finally moved on to its next stop. Then today I heard some hopping in the underbrush, followed by a flash of blue. It was a Pitta! So I rushed for my camera and tried to take some photos.

As usual, the bird was wary of me and hopped behind plants to hide. While I was observing it, I realised that there was something different about this Pitta. The colouring was different from normal, and I thought it might be a different gender or maybe a juvenile bird as is the case with other birds. However, when I later looked to the Internet for some answers, I discovered that it was not a Blue-winged Pitta, but a Hooded Pitta. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new Pitta in our garden! It may not be for long, since this is apparently also a migrant like its Blue-winged cousin, but I’m glad to have seen and identified it.

More information on the Hooded Pitta: Hooded Pitta (Pitta Sordida)

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The new gardening year

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Veggie seeds make my heart go pitter-patter. Unfortunately, these are rather old ones, so after sorting them from the newer ones, I threw them out in the garden. If they grow, great; if they don't, they'll decompose and feed the garden - so that's still good.

Veggie seeds make my heart go pitter-patter. Unfortunately, these are rather old ones, so after sorting them from the newer ones, I threw them out in the garden. If they grow, great; if they don’t, they’ll decompose and feed the garden – so that’s still good.

I usually draw inspiration from other gardeners through their blogs, vlogs, websites and books. (You can see the Youtubers I like here and sites/blogs at the bottom of the menu on the right.) And while we don’t have defined seasons in this part of the world, there is a difference in the weather that usually screams “Christmas is coming” to me, and then, “ah, it’s the start of a new year”. It’s just something in the way the winds blow.

Well, gardeners in other parts of the world are either in the midst of winter up north, or summer, in the southern hemisphere. Either way, they are working on their gardens to prepare for the next growing season. It inspires me to see what they’re doing, whether sowing new seeds or clearing the ground, because as a gardener myself, it’s part of what we do (even when you procrastinate as I do).

The latter part of last year was a really busy period for me, leaving little time for our plants. However, we had a lovely long break for the festive period, and I’ve spent a bit of time getting back in touch with the garden. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – working in the garden really helps me to deal with the stresses of daily life, so I’m feeling more grounded now.

The most important thing to do was to clear the unwanted volunteer plants (also known as WEEDS) that had taken over the garden. I dutifully pulled out as many as possible by the roots because I don’t want them to grow back fast.

Yes, parts of the garden were severely overgrown.

Yes, parts of the garden were severely overgrown…

But this is the result of pulling out the weeds by the roots, which makes me feel like I've accomplished something good.

… but this is the result of simply pulling out the weeds by the roots, which makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something good.

My biggest headache, however, has been grass. You may not realise this, but there are many varieties of grass – and several of them reside, intermingled, in our garden. I may do a separate post on that later. However, let it suffice for me to grumble about the stubborn ones that consistently thwart the mower. They simply bend down and avoid the blades like they’re Keanu in the Matrix, then pop back up again when the mower goes past. I’m so mad at them that I bought a grass strimmer (a.k.a. a weed whacker – so much for reducing our footprint) to get at them, but I expect I’ll eventually end up on a campaign to remove them altogether. :(

It irks me that the bees and other insects actually like the flowers of what I consider a weed (considered such because it grew and spread without my permission).

It irks me that the bees and other insects actually like the flowers of what I consider a weed (considered such because it grew and spread without my permission).

On the bright side, all this weeding and chopping has provided lots of material for composting and mulching. The monsoons are changing and the dry period is starting, so I have earmarked the chopped grass and stems to use to mulch the plants. That is currently drying out on a cement surface so I can use it like hay – and also so that any grass or weed seeds may hopefully be killed out before I spread it around. It’s probably wishful thinking, but I’ve always been an optimist.

If you’re wondering why I decided to do this mulching, let me refer you to the little tale of the red spinach volunteer plant from a year ago.

At the same time, I’m considering what to plant next. Reading about and watching what other gardeners are up to now has encouraged me to start planning for the next round of planting. I am quite inspired by the idea of growing a food forest, or something along permaculture lines – especially something that reduces the need for a lawn and is self-sustaining… ;) However, I have to bear the dry weather in mind, and need to consider which plants will thrive in the coming months, and how to keep them properly watered.

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Queen of Composting

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Our home-made compost!

Our home-made compost!

Novice Gardener may have dubbed me the Queen of DIY, but I am going to claim a new title for myself – for composting. It made no sense to me to throw away our garden waste every other week or so and pay to buy compost when I could just make our own from the garden waste while reducing what we put out for garbage collection.

We generally have a good amount of garden waste – from lawn trimmings to fallen leaves to unwanted plants (weeds to me, but pretty to others) to bits pruned from various plants. If I were to throw these away, they would amount to two to six garbage bags per week. At one point, I wondered if I could find a way to send our garden waste to the folks at Greenback compost just so I’d feel that it wouldn’t be wasted in a landfill.

Compostable materials after pruning the Peacock trees - I cut the thicker stems into short lengths so they decompose faster (I hope!)

Compostable materials after pruning the Peacock trees – I cut the thicker stems into short lengths so they decompose faster (I hope!)

Then I realised that I could just use the waste myself and make our own compost, although it would take time. To speed it up a bit, I tried mowing fallen leaves into smaller pieces – because some leaves, especially from our jambu tree, take months to decompose. The effort of trying to size them down them with the manual mower was too much trouble, so I had to think again.

When adding ingredients to compost piles, I make an effort to layer green waste (grass clippings and fresh leaves) with dry and woody waste, because I want to use the “no-turn” composting method. Having the layers of twigs and dry materials is supposed to keep air inside the compost pile, which allows it to break down faster. When I don’t cut small branches and twigs into shorter lengths, the green stuff breaks down faster and falls through the twigs, so I just keep adding grass cuttings and leaves on top of the woody bits. I suppose it acts like a sort of filter.

One of my compost piles. I think I'll try some neater options in future. :-|

One of my compost piles. I think I’ll try some neater options in future. :-|

We also have a few clumps of palm plants, and their waste tends to be woody and fibrous. I found that quite surprising, but those nice green leaves are certainly not soft and herbaceous when they dry up – especially the stems. I’d equate them to wood because they’re that hard when dried up! I have one compost pile that’s made up mostly of palm tree leaves, and I don’t like it very much because it’s taking so long to break down – even though I’ve taken the trouble to cut the leaves into shorter lengths and have piled so much green waste on it. The thing I dislike most about the palm leaves is their tendency to collect water if placed in the wrong position. So of late, I’ve been putting those leaves out for garbage collection rather than try composting them. I’m also going to give that pile an injection of nitrogen by adding a lot of chicken poo to try to break it down faster.

This has to be one of the biggest earthworms I've found in our garden. It was residing in the compost.

This has to be one of the biggest earthworms I’ve found in our garden. It was residing in the compost.

If I had a choice, I’d love to get a wood chipping machine or a scaled down version of the shredding machine we saw at the Greenback composting facility. Something like that would size down the bits of the palm leaves tremendously, and I assume would allow them to either decompose faster, or allow them to be used as a mulch layer. Well, I can’t have everything. Decades ago when things were less regulated, we could burn our garden waste – which is also a great way to get rid of nuisance and diseased plants. It’s a shame we can’t do that any more. Composting is my solution to the waste.

Last year, Mother Weed suggested recycling one of the big bags that my Greenback compost had been delivered in for composting. It was a great idea, and I filled that 500kg bag over several weeks, then again when the level began to sink. Actually, I kept adding to it through the year until I started a couple of other piles elsewhere. Left alone, the contents broke down to about a quarter of the height of the bag. It hasn’t broken down completely – there is still a matted top layer and some bigger pieces of matter in there – but I was intrigued to see how the leaves and twigs below had all broken down into a soft, grainy mass. (watch the video below)

I admit that my methods have become a little sloppy. It started with wanting to use the compost piles to kill off unwanted plants via mulching; but then the piles grew in size and girth, and eventually became rather untidy looking. I expect we got raised eyebrows and wagging heads from the neighbours at the messiness.

However…

We now have home-made compost that enriches our garden, as well as much more life – not just in the soil, but above it as well. There are big, fat earthworms that are close to 20cm long and bugs that skitter away when they’re exposed to air. I wish there weren’t snails, but they do help in decomposing the leaves… Then there are birds, toads, lizards and skinks that feed on the worms and bugs in the compost piles. I know it sounds a little wild, but I’m just too thrilled to have created an ecosystem that has all these creatures in it. My main concern is to make sure that no part of the system breeds pests like mosquitoes. Apart from that, we’ve got compost, throw away less waste and are working with nature. I am content with that.

 

Hidden under the top layer of dried grass and leaves (I think), the compost is dark, soft and grainy. I feel such joy knowing it's from a combination of our free green waste and time!

Hidden under the top layer of dried grass and leaves (I think), the compost is dark, soft and grainy. I feel such joy knowing it’s from a combination of our free green waste and time!

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