Early-year stock take

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The first sweet pea pod won't reach its full potential as the plant is already withering in the heat.

Well, it looks like my experience growing sweet peas will end prematurely. While the first bean is forming at the peak of the plant, the base of the plant is withering away. I guess it really is too hot for them to grow here.

It also doesn’t help that we’re transitioning from the NE monsoon to the dry inter-monsoon period, so not only are the winds not carrying much moisture, they’re also stripping it away. I’ve been watering the plants between once to thrice a day, depending on the plants’ needs. It’s quite a hassle, and it’s discouraging me from starting new, delicate plants. So, the remainder of the sweet pea seeds will go into cold storage for now.

Our kiwano plant also bit the dust last month. The weather was alternately too rainy or too hot from December through January, and that could have stressed the plant too much. Alternately, it may not have liked the growing conditions where it was located. I shall have to try my luck again and put the plant in a different spot to see if it makes a difference.

Latest crop of thin long beans. They grow fast, produce fast, but also die off fast...

In the meantime, some of our regular performers are stepping up to the stage. Okra and long beans are starting to form, and the 3 purple brinjal plants produced so many fruits that there were days when we were just sick of eating them!

The winged bean plant has gone quiet again, making me wonder if it is near the end of its life span. Actually, there are just two vines left. The others were either victims of our over-enthusiastic, sight-challenged gardeners, or died natural deaths.

A number of plants are being attacked by sap-sucking insects, especially the papaya trees, and brinjal and roselle plants. Mealybugs and whiteflies are definitely not on our list of favorite garden visitors! I suppose the weather is dry and they need to eat and breed – but why can’t they do that in someone else’s garden? :(

The first green okra of the year growing not 10cm from the ground!

I don’t think I’ll be planting too many things now that the weather has become more hot and dry, because it’s already quite a hassle to make sure the current plants are hydrated as necessary. Veggies that have already proven their worth will be nurtured, though. Long beans, okra and brinjal plants have our thumbs-up, and will probably be grown here constantly.

Recent plant babies include the angled loofah, winged bean and green snake gourd vines – well, one of each, for now. My seeds may be losing their viability, or perhaps they are just waiting for the right conditions to grow. Who knows, maybe we will get some surprise sprouts sometime in the future, because I planted several seeds of each of the above-mentioned, and only got one of each. The angled loofah was the biggest surprise, because it germinated about 2 months after I had sowed it! So, perhaps the others will start growing at a later date. That would be nice.

For now, I’ll just refresh my memory about the possible upcoming weather and see what I should do next. That’s the beauty of gardening – things are constantly changing and growing. Happy gardening!

© 2012 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.


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Growing the sweet pea plant from seed

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Sweet pea seeds germinating after being soaked in an enclosed bottle for about 3 days.

As mentioned about 2 months ago, I started growing a few sweet pea plants, not knowing how they would fare in our hotter, more humid climate. I know they’re supposed to like a cooler environment to grow in. However, since they sprouted and grew quite well in their little pots prior to transplanting, I decided to go all out and try to make the most of the cooler year-end weather here.

Just to jazz things up for myself, I tried a different method for germinating the second lot of seeds. I tossed a handful into a small bottle, added a bit of water – about a fifth of the height of the seeds – and capped the bottle tightly. The bottle was rocked gently a few times a day to try to keep as much of the seed surfaces damp – it was also my excuse to peek at them to see if they were germinating yet – and kept on a relatively dark shelf when not in my hand.

A tiny forest of sweet pea sprouts emerges...

By the third day, the seeds had noticeably swelled, and the outer skins began to split open as they germinated, like a proper science project. I waited for most of them to grow out their roots before transplanting them to a Tref-filled pot for the next stage of their growth. Once they had grown their first set of true leaves, they were transferred to their spanking-new trellis complete with a growing bed.

Yes, I have been busy with these projects lately…

The first lot of germinated plants were already growing at the trellis, and I was anticipating seeing all the plants growing and covering the entire A-frame trellis with lush, dense growth.

After an initial good start, the sweet pea plants began to die out one by one...

Imagination and reality, however, didn’t coincide. The weather patterns changed after the new year, and the dry monsoon period kicked in. One by one, the little sweet pea plants began to wither away despite constant watering, and we went from 14 plants to 6. They didn’t grow all that rapidly, even with watering and fertilizing, and I began to resign myself to seeing all the plants die off. I even put in a young angled loofah plant at the other end of the trellis because I expected the sweet pea plants to fail.

Fast forward to this week and what do you know? The first flower bloomed! It was a pretty pale pink bonnet-like flower shyly facing downwards. The following day, it bloomed fully with the outer petals curled backwards to reveal deep pink petals inside! I had heard that the flowers were pretty, and was definitely not disappointed.

The first flower as I saw it on the first day

The fully opened sweet pea flower on the following day. Also notice the forming bud just above it!

To make things even better, I noticed another flower bud on the neighbouring plant, as well as a second bud above the first flower! Well, I don’t know if we’ll get any harvestable peas, but those flowers sure are pretty! Stay tuned for more updates…

© 2012 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.


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Cycles of planting

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The cosmos plants forming a cheerful border around our Bird's Nest fern.

You really have to get used to working in cycles when you grow plants. Whether vegetables or annuals, you have to remember to start planting early or face the loss of those plants for a period of time.

In the last half year, I’ve lost my marigolds and zinnia plants to the more aggressive yellow cosmos plants. All of them are self-seeding plants, but the cosmos has come out as the most dominant. It grew into a nice tight cluster around our formerly ailing Bird’s Nest fern and surprised me when they grew to more than 1.5 metres high! I admit, they’re pretty, but new plants are popping up everywhere now. I guess I should have done more deadheading, but then again, it’s quite easy to transplant the young plants to new locations.

Despite the loss of the marigolds, they seem to have achieved what I wanted – to cut down on nematode problems – but if the old issues resurface, any planting will be too little too late unless I start sowing seeds again. I hesitate to do so though, because the marigolds were also mealybug attractors.

I do, however, miss the pretty white zinnia flowers. In a cluster, they were very sweet. I hope I still have some viable seeds to start a new lot!

My sunflower ambitions for last year also eventually petered out. We had a promising start to the year, but then after the wonderful peak with the Early Russian sunflower, things – as well as the viability of my sunflower seeds – seemed to die off. Ah well, things grow in cycles, and it’s always fun to get new seeds and watch them germinate and grow…

© 2012 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.

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The winter melon tale continues

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The Little Monster that has caused a lot of people to pause and ask, what's that?

If you’ve been waiting for an update on our winter melon fruit, here it is. No, the fruit did not grow as big as its momma – as I understand from Novice Gardener, that was about 2 feet long. Our winter melon is tending towards a more “watermelony” shape. It’s 16cm long and very stout, about 13cm wide (approximate measurements because it’s difficult getting exact numbers from a rounded object). I don’t know if we affected the shape when we put it in the hammock to hold it up horizontally, because it’s supposed to be long and look more like a cucumber, right?

This hefty fruit is also single-handedly causing its trellis to die a slow death. Admittedly, I didn’t plan properly for it. I had NO idea the fruit would be so heavy, and unfortunately chose the wrong materials for the trellis. Although they were metal sticks, they were not strong enough, and the trellis first began to lean sideways, and when I added supports, the poles then began to bend under the weight of the fruit! I was simultaneously impressed by the fruit and appalled at the trellis.

Anyway, the fruit doesn’t seem to be growing any bigger, and the vine looks exhausted from maintaining the fruit, despite lots of fertilizers and careful watering on hot days. So, it’s time to harvest the Little Monster. The outer skin is hard and still has some of the hairy bristles. If not for the tired appearance of the vine, I would have left the fruit there to develop more. At this point, though, there’s no guarantee that the vine will want to keep growing because it really, really looks tired! However, in the hopes that it decides to go through this arduous experience again, I’ve prepared a stronger A-frame trellis over the existing one, and will transfer the vine to it once it recovers (I hope) after the harvest.

At the least, I guess I can consider a success with the winter melon – we’ve gone from seed to plant to fruit, and harvest!

© 2012 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.


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