Things Growing in Our Backyard

Updates on the Veggie Garden

The weather has been good to the vegetable plants in our little garden. The hot morning sun and heavy afternoon rains made the seedlings sprout faster, growing several inches over the span of a few days. The best thing is that I don't have to do any more watering since the rain is doing it for me. 

It has been almost two years since I bought my first set of seedlings. I remember purchasing one small pot of citrus mint, another pot of citrus basil, and a pot of lagundi seedlings. There was a feeling of excitement and fear when I brought the plants home. I wasn't sure if I was watering them correctly or if I was giving them too much or too little sunlight. Weeks passed and the plants survived. I decided to treat the whole garden project as an experiment, to see how long I can keep the seedlings alive and see how big I can make them grow.

From these three small pots, my plant collection grew to include two calamansi trees, four giant pots filled with ginger and tumeric shoots, several pots of basil herbs, three large cans of bell pepper plants, two peppermint pots, and one lonely cherry tomato plant. 

I did encounter some failures with growing potatoes, kamote, garlic, and onion plants. Apparently they don't do well with the soil or I have been watering them the wrong way. I am still hopeful and learning. Good thing we have Google and Youtube to help provide gardening tips and ideas.

Last August my mother-in-law gave us a set of vegetable seeds and we started planting them in small cups. A few weeks later, small seedlings started to sprout and we manage to transplant them into bigger pots. Now the seedlings have grown into young happy plants. These are the new additions to our growing urban garden:

 

Cucumber plant

 

 

 Guyabano seedlings

 

 Kalabasa (Squash)

 

 Radish

 

Harvesting Tumeric at the Backyard Garden

After eight months I finally got to pull out the Tumeric plant in our backyard garden. I was pleasantly surprised to find clumps of Tumeric inside the pot. This was one of the plants I managed to successfully grow and harvest.

DIY Mint Extract

Now that I have three large pots of Citrus mint and Peppermint plants growing at home, I started to do some research as to what I can do with them. I already brewed some mint tea for me and my parents a few months ago, I thought there must be other things I can do with the leaves.

So after some thought, I decided to find a way to make our own mint extract. Mint oil extract has medicinal properties and adds a cool minty flavor to drinks. I did some research and found several sites that talk about the DIY process of making peppermint extract.

The prairehomestead.com has an article that discusses the step-by-step process of making peppermint extract. I am looking forward to making my own batch of mint extracts to use on our tea and coffee drinks.

New Seedlings from the Hidden Glen

Some new plants growing in our backyard. I am thinking of developing my own gravity-feed system for watering the plants. 

Cherry tomato sprouts...

Sili labuyo...

Tumeric...

Self Watering Soda Bottle Garden

Now that I have a small garden, I am often faced with the problem of watering my plants whenever I need to leave the house for a long period of time. I had the experience of coming home and discovering that some of citrus basil, mint, and garlic plants have dried up because no one watered them. I did some research and found a way to create a self watering garden using recycled two-liter soda bottles. There are a lot of videos about this topic, but I think this is the best video out there:




Before I can proceed with this type of gardening, I need to collect as much two-liter soda bottles as I can. Unfortunately no one at home drinks soda anymore. I have to look elsewhere for used soda bottles.

A Trip to the Quezon City Circle Garden

I dropped by the QC Circle Garden to check out the plants they are selling. Most of the stalls are selling ornamental plants but a few offer edible and medicinal seedlings.

Honestly I prefer the old Manila seedling bank. It had a lot more stalls and more plant selections. I heard there is also a garden center in Cubao. I might visit that area soon.

Garden at Home

I started a garden six months back, with some basil and peppermint seedlings I bought from the Quezon City Seedling Bank Foundation. With some trial and error, I manage to let these plants grow and thrive in our backyard.

After a few more months, I tried growing some garlic, ginger and potatoes. Unfortunately the potatoes died off a few weeks after they sprouted. I had better luck with the ginger and the garlic plants though.

So why the sudden interest in gardening and growing herbs? I have been reading a lot about "eating local" and the "trying to grow your own food" movement. I think this is the perfect solution to fighting global warming - not only are your growing your own edible plants, you are also reducing the amount of carbon emissions use to transport food from far away places.

Another reason would be to prepare and train myself to become a skilled gardener. I am hoping to gain enough gardening skills to be able to grow my own food in the future. I think having a garden filled with edible food like potatoes, tomatoes, and other herbs can help reduce cost of food. It is also part of my retirement plan -- to be able to cut cost and live a healthier life.

Our calamansi plant starting to bear fruits.

Lagundi leaves for coughs.

 
Some ginger and citrus basil.


Garlic plants.


Oregano to keep away mosquitoes.


Citrus mint for tea.

Adopted Plants

A month after our company laid off another team of employees, I discovered a couple of plants that my former office-mates left in their cubicles.

Feeling bad for the plants, I decided to take care of them. It's not their fault that their owners abandoned them. I thought that these office plants were the low-maintenance kind of plants. So I decided to save them from the trash bin and take care of them.

I hope these plants would grow and thrive in my work area over time.

Small project on the side...

I want to check if I still have my green thumb. I got these office do-it-yourself plant ornaments from a not-so-likely-place-that-sells-everything.

The instructions are pretty simple: open the container, put water, wait for the seed to germinate, and put the sapling under the sun to grow.

Unfortunately it did not specify how much water to put, how long the seeds would germinate, or how often do you sunbathe the plant.

Good luck to me. I'm planning to grow these plants in my cubicle at work. From the size of the containers, these plants will grow into miniature bonsai-like shrubs that would add a bit of greenery to my drab office space.

I'll try to post updates on these plants when I have the chance.