The Curious Gardener | Gardening discoveries in Singapore

Okra haul

Posted on May 16, 2013 by CuriousG

Today’s harvest, minus two more fruits that had been missed and were already past their prime.

How many okra plants do you need to grow to feed a family? Well, we currently have six producing plants, and they provide more than enough fruits for a meal every 2-3 days!

There’s a pair of burgundy okra plants, and four green okra plants – all of which are quite matured and have branched out. Since a few of the stems don’t look that healthy any more, I’ve pruned them off and have sown a new lot of seeds from one of the old fruits. I expect that these will germinate fast because they’re from fresh seeds.

So how many new plants do I plan on growing? At least four, with a new generation sown within a month or six weeks, I think. And I need to look into germinating other veggies, too, since the weather has become more conducive for them. Where are my seeds..?

The new angled loofah

Posted on May 11, 2013 by CuriousG

The angled loofah fruit is just over 6cm long now.

The angled loofah fruit is just over 8cm long now.

I have been waiting impatiently for the angled loofah plants to start bearing fruits. These plants were grown from seeds given by Grandpa Weed, and have taken quite a while to mature.

The seeds germinated in February and were planted out in the garden in March, when they were about 3 weeks old. Since then, the plants climbed their way up the trellis, draped over and started branching out.

As usual, the male flowers appeared first, eventually followed by female flowers. I knew that the first few would not set fruit, but it has been well over a month, and each of them aborted – and in the case of a couple, got broken, I assume, by a hungry bird. I don’t know which one to blame, though – maybe the green parakeets? I was beginning to think that the plants were homesick for the climate of Grandpa Weed’s garden.

Well, as usual, when the first fruit set, the event slipped my notice until I spotted the young fruit near the bottom of the trellis. It was already well underway, at about 8cm long. I hope this is the start of a nice, long fruiting season! As with our earlier experiences with growing the angled loofah, the plants will set fruit, then take a break before fruiting again. It’s just the way it happened. Let’s see if Grandpa Weed’s variety of the angled loofah is any different!

The sugarcane experiment

Posted on May 7, 2013 by CuriousG

This looks like a stick stuck in a pot, but it’s a cutting of sugarcane beginning to grow!

There are some plants on my “want” list, and sugarcane was one of them. Why? Two reasons, really – it’s an edible plant that can grow here, and it was mentioned as a good border plant to grow in a permaculture garden.

Permaculture is another item on my to-do list, but I haven’t quite embraced it completely – but that’s another story…

Anyway, when one of our neighbours did some clearing and left out a few stems of sugarcane for disposal, I helped myself to a half-metre piece of the top of the stem, to try growing it. One gardener’s waste is another gardener’s propagation joy…

I had read that to grow sugarcane, all you have to do is cut the cane into one-foot lengths, dig a shallow trough to lie the stem sideways in, and cover it.

(Subsequent research showed that you can pretty much use ANY length you want – segment by segment, or an entire length of cane!)

This is a day-old sugarcane shoot. They are fast-growing plants, I’ll tell ya! I have no idea why one of the roots is sticking up, to its right.

Well, I had only a half-metre (or 2 to 3 foot) length, and half of that was still sheathed in leaves. I stripped off all the old, dry leaves – the green ones were too tough to pull off – and noticed that there was a small nodule on every segment of the stem, alternating on either side, just above each joint. What if, I thought, each of these were potential buds?

A different angle of the long stem cutting after the shoots started growing (see them?). I stripped off more leaves because they had dried up and were easier to peel off.

So, I had the brilliant idea of cutting the bottom half of the stem in the middle of each segment, so that each piece had a bud on it. That gave me a double handful of planting material, which I buried shallowly in a flower pot.

As for the top of the stem, I was informed that the practice in the Philippines is to cut the bottom of the stem at an angle, and to also poke it into the ground at an angle. I cut it accordingly and pressed it at what was supposed to be a 45-degree angle into another flower pot, then watered both sets of plants and left them where they would get lots of sunlight.

Research after doing my planting informed me that the roots grow at each joint (the ring around the stem), so I assume that cutting the stem at an angle just helps in poking it into the ground, like a spear.

About two weeks later, the first shoot broke through the earth. It was from one of the small pieces. After that, more shoots appeared, giving us a total of ten, so far.

Then the longer stem decided to get in on the action. I noticed one of the leaves starting to split. It took two days for a new shoot to emerge and start growing, with a similar one appearing on the opposite side of the stem. Since the leaves were now old and dry, it was easier to strip a few more away to get a better view of the new shoots.

The happy sugarcane shoots. They look very grass-like at this stage!

So, it appears that propagating sugarcane is not difficult, and that we will have a few clumps of it growing here. Interestingly to me, I’ve learned that it’s classified as a grass. As long as it doesn’t become invasive, I’ll be happy to let it keep growing. All I have to do is pick a few spots to plant the babies, and sit back and let them grow – for about a year. If I were truly practicing permaculture principles, it would go to a Zone 3 or 4 with other plants that don’t need a lot of management. Now that’s lazy gardening!

Mulching: The easy way to weed?

Posted on May 3, 2013 by CuriousG

The lawn that died after being (inadvertently) covered by mulch for almost 2 weeks.

I discovered this by pure accident. When I wrote my article about recycling plant waste in the garden, my efforts at shredding the fallen tree leaves were interrupted by rainy weather. A spread as well as a pile of shredded leaves were left abandoned when the rain got heavy.

As it happened, after the rainy weather, I came down with the flu and couldn’t exert myself too much. So, the shredded leaves stayed where they were for about two weeks.

By the time I was well enough to work in the garden again, the leaves had started decomposing. So had the grass beneath the pile of shredded leaves. In fact, the grass had died off completely!

This got me thinking, because without our contract gardeners around, and as much as I enjoy burning calories pushing the manual lawn mower around, I’ve been starting to view grass with an evil eye.

Some of the mulch helping me to widen my planting bed.

I’ve also been intending to clear a patch of the garden of grass to use as a dedicated area to grow vegetables. So, those shredded leaves have been moved to the area that I want to clear of grass, and are hopefully stifling the grass and weeds to death as I type this.

I don’t have enough shredded leaves to cover the entire area completely, but I reckon in two to three weeks, I can shift the pile of leaves to the adjacent area, and start planting on the cleared land. Will it work? I hope so!

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