For a while...

Still lot going on in my yard... my satsuma and my other oranges almost ripen, many butterfly flying around my colourfull flowers ... very pretty!
But for some reason I can't update this site for a while...
Hope could update this site soon....

Tomato Plants on July...

I love GW forum, as a newbie for gardening, this forum was help me a lot to help me understand how to do this… and how to do that… and also made a few nice new friends, very interesting forum, interesting people.

Yesterday I’m in FL forum and read about tomato plants and vegetables in July and most of them though it's impossible growing tomato in July, too hot and humid, damage from spider mite, virus, fly, etc…,etc... hhmmm…. scary me !
But so far my tomato plants still healthy and happy, thanks to The God !
Keep going on guys....

Celebrity Tomato


My grape tomato in the pot


Ready for make 'sambal'


And my BellPepper start yellowing, when they will be ripen/red?


Sunflower Mammoth look like will blooming soon, it'll be very pretty !


Have a nice day !

My Black Berry Plant, 2 months later

Here's my thornless blackberry plant 3 months later after I planted it in the ground, it's start climbing the treilis, slow but sure :0)

May 2008

July 2008

Here's my N-Joy Roses, still busy !

Happy 4th July everyone.........

Gardenia Cutting

While I'm visiting my brother in law, their gardenia plants full of big awesome blossom, smelling so damn good..... really make me jeaulous ! I have gardenia plant also, I bough last March and so far she's doing good, right now have alot buds and will blomming soon, but they flowers smaller... and even I still love my gardenia, I want have their gardenia plant too...
She's beautiful plant, isn't she ? :0)

Sound greedy huh ? :0) But even I want that plant, for sure, they will not give it to me :-D.

So I asked for only 1 twig with 1 flower on it, about 10" and I keep it fresh until I'm home. After back home, almost midnight but I need to do it soon, yeah... I'm want try to rooting it !

I cut the twig by 3, removed the flower and leaves from the lower one, dipping on rooting hormone and insert the cutting in moist and well drain soil. Maintain high humidity by covering the pot with a bottomless softdrink jug or by placing the pot into a clear plastic bag .

1 of 4 stem has rooting at all nodes, strange huh?

After about 2 weeks later, it's start rooting.... Whooho...! Now I have 3 more Gardenia plants... all of them still so tiny, will take times until they flowering...

Soybean aka Edamame, Good or Bad ?

It's feel very good while I saw my vegetable plants very healthy, cooking with eggplant, tomato, chilli, lemon basil, sweet basil, rosemary and green onion, fresh from my garden !

Hot Chilli

Next year, be sure, I'll planting more vegetable, like zucchini and soybean, edamame (young soybeans) a yummy snack, have a good nutrients, contain all three of the macro-nutrients required for good nutrition: complete protein, carbohydrate and fat, as well as vitamins and minerals, including calcium, folic acid and iron..

I'm growing up drinking homemade soymilk and eating tempeh and tofu made by local almost daily and all my big family didn't have any side effect from soybean..

But recently I read an article online about soybean dark side, I don't know it's true or not, (hope not !) they said that soybean can damage your health, because soybean also contains ;

~ Goitrogens, substances that depress thyroid function.

~ Haemagglutinin, a clot-promoting substance that causes red blood cells to clump together.

~ Large quantities of natural toxins or "anti nutrients".

~ etc... etc... etc..........

More you read it, make you scare to eat soybean, even you love to eat it !

The good news is, it's okay eat soybean if not too much or for your daily food.

Since 2 years ago, I stop drinking soymilk from the store, just because I'm not sure where they soybean come from.. I'm switch to almond milk with non GMO almond on their ingredients label...
Sometimes I'm still make my home made soymilk with organic soybean, it is very easy to make and always taste better than store brought..
 

Well, keep eat tempeh, tofu and eat edamame..... and make sure your soybean non GMO!

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)

Magnolia Sweetbay

At out backyard we hv a Magnolia Sweet Bay tree, a nice mature tree but have alot sucker who grew up very fast! Here's the pic while we don't cut them just for a week...

Since April the flowers start blooming, they all look so beautiful and smelt so damn good :) mixed between lemon and jasmine, maybe. The blooming still countinue until now.

Last Sunday finnaly we decided do something to get off those sucker. We cut all them and used Landscape Fabrics on it and on top we put mulch. it look much better now, even not finish yet, we need more stone for border ! Landscape fabrics

For extra, here's a tiny dragonfly and butterfly from my front yard, enjoy......

Bumpy Gardener

Since last week, temperature in here was soooo HOT, 90 - 99 F.... felt like mid of summer. And I don't know what's happen, my allergic skin rush ( Urticaria or Nettle Rush or Hives) starting bothered me again, get bump, sometimes very bad almost all my body, itching badly :( sometime will gone less than an hour, sometimes view hours, aaaaarrrrrrrggg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, bumpy will not make me stop do what I wanna do, still busy with my garden and take care all my plants :-)

Last Saturday I bough 2 more flower plants from Ace HW, they're look very pretty, also my DH bough 2 banana pepper plants. Here's my new 'baby' pics

Bouganville

New Guinea Impatiens

After I bough this plants, I keep impatiens in front my sun room, a shady area, but last Monday, 2 days later, it look so horrible, dry out and almost die. After I gave it a lot water and move it in to my 'cool' living room, less than an hour it look back normal as before, fiuhhh... better I keep it as a indoor plant.

Also my Daylily still blooming everyday, and I found another daylily clump at my front yard, it look pity, today I moved it to flowerbed, make it easy for me to take care and watching them. I should buy more daylily, they all very beautiful ...

Stella D'Oro

Bitsy

Also here's my Celebrity Tomatos,

Please raining.... raining... we desperately need heavy rain !

Roses & Moss Roses; Spring Bloom

Miss All American Beauty Roses blooming very pretty this morning, also my Moss Roses, they have 4 different color, really breathtaking...

Thornless Blackberry

Yesterday, finnaly I got my thornless Blackberry plant, after waiting more than 2 monts. arrived with a very good condition, Doyle's packed it secure and nicely.
Came with a long thin pot, with a tiny plant... too small than I expected.
We will planting this plant at our side yard by tommorow, full sun area and have enough room for growing, get big and bigger...

As per their brosure, this plant totally thornless, yields up to 10 to 20 gallons of fruit per plant. Bears large sweet and juicy berries.

Soon... (wish less than 3 years from now), I'll need a lot good recipes for blackberry... fresh blackberry pie.... cobler...smoothy... ice cream... coulis... eemmm..... yum...yum........

Also about 1o days ago I'm seedling 2 pumpkin seeds , they germination very fast, 2 day ago I moved them to the ground, they look great and growing more...

A Month later...

Last beginning April, I took some pictures of my plants; chili, sweet bell pepper, sweet basil, shallot, red onion, water melon and cherry tomato, they all look so tiny... and a month later, they look much bigger and starting flowering and fruiting ( water melon not yet, ofcourse) !
Amazing how they grow very fast... this is my first experience planting all those plants and all seeds I'm collected from fresh vegetables and fruits who I bought from Grocery Store, some from last summer (2007). Be sure, this summer, I'll keep more seeds and more varieties for next year season.

Summer come too early ?

Has been 3 days temperature in here hotter than normal, today at 2pm reached 99'F !
Hey.... spring season has gone...?

This week also a busy week, we bough more plants from Lowe's; southern tomato, Areca Palm, Stella D'Oro & Bitsy Daylily, Petra Croton, Anita & Umbrella aka Arboricola Trinette (tropical indoor plant), also some roses : N-Joy , Don Juan and Miss All American Beauty.

They all look awesome! Still dont know yet where the best to place all of them, hope this week end they all already have the best spot in my yard and insde my house ^_^

The others news, my tomatos plants has have a few baby tomatos, all my vegetable plants grow up very fast this warm week!