Turmeric Plants

This Month is an excited month !
My watermelon vine finnaly have wmelons,
I got Amaryllis seeds (11 varieties) from a 'friend' from 'Gardenweb Forum' ( 'll posting this soon),
Raining season was here... raining almost everyday !
After waiting from more than 2 months, finally my Turmeric rhizomes start sprouting !
And alot nice things happen in my garden this month........

About Turmeric, I planted the rhizomes in pot, about 5 cm deep and keep the soil moist but not over watering so they won't rot, keep them in the warm area. Both of them now have a long leaves and a bout a food tall, seem like I need to repot them soon.
Turmeric hate being drought, so keep the soil moist and well drained. During Autum and Winter, reduced watering and keep them indoor.

Their leaf good for cooking 'Indonesian Rendang', make it more flavour and tasty. The rhizomes are a very good for curry and give a yellow colour and good flavour for some Asian-India food. Also the Rhizome can use for traditional medicine, usually I make a herbal drink, mix them with palm sugar and some things else.
Turmeric is antioxidant, antibacterial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory and even antiviral that may be useful in combating a variety of diseases.

So... get some fresh Turmeric rhizomes soon and starting use them for your food and for your herbal drink mix .

What's going on This Month...

Wanted to share you pictures of what happen in my yard this month, hope you enjoy all ;

Roses have more blooming

Hibiscus start blooming

Beautiful Ixora and Caladium

Lily, Daylily and Crape Myrtle ( bright Pink, Purple and White) all blooming beautifully, but will be too much picture if I posting all of them in here..., so here's only Lilly this time....

Also my Eggplants, Banana Pepper, Bell Pepper and Chili have more fruits ripen...

And a good news... yahooooo.... raining season has coming... Huraaay......!!!!

Stevia, Sweet Leaf Plants Care

Since the first time I got this plants on last April, my Stevia plants so far growing just so so... I'm still learning how to care this plants. Maybe I was spoiled them too much... but right now they look more stable, the time to let them alone and just watering once a week or when needed, because over watering could make them rot.


Fact about Stevia plant (from my experience and some sources) :
~ Stevia doesn’t like being moved around much.
~ Pinch the tips monthly to encourage side branching.
~ Always pinch off flowers to produce the sweetest leaves.
~ Fresh seed more easy to germinate than older seed, so if you get fresh seed you might go ahead & start seedling rather than saving them.
~ For cutting and rooting stevia, take tip cuttings about 3-4 inches long strip, off the bottom leaves and stick in good potting soil, In shade and mist.
~ For highest glycoside /sugar content, harvest only in the morning and before or just as the flowers starts to bloom.

A leggy Stevia, after pinched

A week later, a new growing shoots

Hope this information will helpful, good luck for your sweet leaf plants....

My Frist Experience for Growing Watermelon

Has been view weeks I'm pretending too be busy with my vegetable garden but actually I just really enjoyed watching all my vegetable growing and fruiting, very excited until I'm forgot to posting them in this blog :0)

I'm learning alot from my first vegetable gardening experience this year.
Very interesting that finnaly my watermelon vine have a 3 baby watermelons, for beginning I though that the female flowers are a baby watermelon, but after googling for some information about watermelon, finnaly I knew that they only female flowers.









Also I found out that seedless watermelon (Tripoid) plant need cross pollination with seeded watermelon (Diploit), Because triploid melons do not contain developing seed, they require pollen to stimulate fruit growth.

I have my fresh watermelon seeds from seedless watermelon who I bough at grocery store last year, so this seeds are a cross polination from seedless X seeded watermelon.

I'm start seedling on beginning March, direct sowing in the ground, 2 seeds and only 1 seed germinated. And after knew that seedless watermelon need cross polination with seeded watermelon, I dont hv much expectation that this vine will have fruit growth, but glad I found 3 watermelons with softball size growing healty now !

Wish will be more fruits develop.... and I have a BIG curious, they will be a seedless or seeded or in the middle ? The times will answer those question later :0)