The Curious Gardener | Gardening discoveries in Singapore

The spiky ladybug larvae

Posted on November 2, 2014 by CuriousG

I recently noticed some holes in the leaves of our purple brinjal plant. Something had obviously been nibbling on them, and I immediately suspected caterpillars. However, the usual caterpillar droppings were missing, and I found the holes in the leaves somewhat intriguing.

What artistic creature caused these holes in the eggplant leaves?

They were actually quite artistic – patterns of little holes scattered around the leaves – most unlike the normal caterpillar behaviour of eat-everything-until-nothing-is-left. So I went on a visual hunt and found this:

At first glance, I thought this was a hairy caterpillar.

My next thought was that it was some variety of hairy caterpillar, but then I thought it looked too round and fat to be one.

The side profile of the insect made me wonder if it was a beetle larva…

After a few more photos that I scrutinised carefully, I thought the body shape was rather beetle-like. In fact, the head reminded me of ladybug larvae…

So, I got in touch with Sean Yap from National Parks Board’s National Biodiversity Centre who conducted the local ladybug survey a year or so back, and asked him for help. He confirmed that is is indeed a ladybug larva – either Epilachna sp. or Henosepilachna sp., which are the only plant-eating ladybugs.

This was highly interesting to me. I had started out thinking that ladybugs ate only aphids and other garden pests, but over time, found that the yellow ones feed on powdery mildew (which is why I don’t mind it too much when this happens to our plants as I’ll get to see these insects), and now I know the ones with the spiky larvae eat leaves.

I wasn’t successful in following the life cycle of these larvae (there were at least two), so I don’t know what the adults look like. However, I did manage to catch some footage of one of the larvae creating part of its masterpiece. Enjoy!

The new bittergourds

Posted on October 30, 2014 by CuriousG

This was the first big bittergourd grown here. It’s probably not as big as it could be because it had to struggle through the bad hazy weather that we had last month. However, it’s still the biggest so far.

After several years of growing edibles, we finally have regular bittergourds here in our garden. Our friend from Thailand started off the plants in July, and they’ve finally reached maturity.

Of course, once that happens, you have to keep an eagle eye on the plants, because the fruits have the tendency to hide as they grow, and in some cases (from our experience with the smaller variety), until they’re overripe.

These plants already have us on our toes…

The fruits may hide high, at the very top of the trellis…

…or they may hide low, at ground level.

Some of the fruits are decent ones that don’t hide and are at chest to eye level.

In terms of flavour, they’re not extremely bitter – but it seems that this is a common issue these days. I don’t mind it that much, but just hope that the fruits haven’t lost nutrition too. Bittergourds (or bitter melons, as some people call them) are said to be rich in phytonutrients, vitamins B and C, folates, flavonoids and minerals like zinc, iron, potassium and magnesium. The fruit is also supposed to help fight diabetes and is good for digestion. That’s a pretty impressive record – and a good reason to keep growing them.

The banana suckers

Posted on October 26, 2014 by CuriousG

The first sucker on the left, which has started growing much faster now that the main plant is out of commission, and a newer sucker that I noticed just yesterday to its right.

One of our banana plants uprooted itself last week, prompting me to harvest the fruits from it earlier than I intended to. At that time, I noticed that it had already put out a new sucker, which I’m going to transplant elsewhere soon.

Well, “soon” hasn’t come yet, but I noticed today that there was already a second sucker that was starting to grow, too. New growth fascinates me, so of course I had to visit it with my camera.

Guess what?

There’s a third sucker starting to grow from the rootball of the previous plant (yes, it’s still lying there), and another possible sucker that looks like a brown, matted ball lying on the ground. I’m not sure if it’s new or old, but I’ll naturally put it where it will have a chance to grow, if it can.

A closer look at the second sucker, and if you look above it, where the base of the previous, uprooted, plant is, you’ll see yet another sucker starting to form there, too! Lying on the ground at the tip of the horizontal leaf is the other, possible, sucker.

If all of them grow, I’ll be able to start experimenting with banana circles, that I’ve heard are part of permaculture practice sooner than I expected.

Banana split

Posted on October 19, 2014 by CuriousG

Bananas splitting open on the plant. What?!!!

No, I’m not talking about the dessert with ice cream, etc. Bananas splitting open is what happened with the bananas on the plant that we got from the Weed family – and I mean while the fruits were still on the plant!

The Leaning Plant of Bananas…When bananas are too heavy, they’re just too heavy…

We’d been waiting for the signal banana to show up before harvesting the fruits, and in the meantime, the weight of the fruits had been pulling the whole plant downwards. I propped it up, but it kept leaning more and more, and even the crown of the plant began to re-align itself until it looked like some weird hunchbacked banana plant. Things began to get worse when the weight of the fruits put so much strain on the plant that the main stem began to split.

Then, a few days ago, I noticed that one of the fruits had split open, thus inviting insects to the plant. I cut it off, but then another one split, and then another. Finally, today, I decided to harvest the whole bunch because we’ve been losing more fruits to the Split.

The other banana plant leaning against the wall. Man, it’s tiring holding up a bunch of bananas…

Since we’d harvested these bananas, I checked on our other plant, and found it leaning against the wall behind it, with the fruits between the stem and the wall (banana version of being caught between a rock and a hard place – haha!). I propped it up with a pole and went in search of some strong string or rope to hold it up – and in that space of a minute or two, the whole plant fell over and uprooted itself. That left me with the option of continuing my efforts to get it into an upright position or harvest the fruits. I harvested the fruits.

Our beautiful banana harvest - big bunch on the top left from the Weed family and the more modest bunch from our older plant.

Our beautiful banana harvest – big bunch on the top left from the Weed family’s plant and the more modest bunch from our older plant.

So as you can see, we’ve got the two bunches of bananas, of very different quality. Our other tree was growing in a place where I believe it was getting strangled by the roots of surrounding trees, and the plant and fruits were both struggling as a result. I will be moving the new sucker elsewhere in the hopes it will be healthier than its predecessor. In the meantime, we’ll be waiting for these bananas to ripen before we can enjoy them. You can bet that we’ll be thinking of and thanking the Weeds and our other friend when we eat the fruits from the plants they gave us!

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