Just thought I'd make this post to thank my fourth grade Filipino teacher, Mrs. Orenza, for the beautiful gumamela cuttings she sent me yesterday. I appreciate it when my friends post beautiful flowers on their timeline. I commented on Mrs. O's post where she shared her beautiful white gumamela Flowers. I told her I didn't have any white ones yet. 

After awhile she messaged me and said she'll send me some cuttings. I was so shy to accept it at first, but I can never say no to plants. The cuttings were sent to me in less than an hour. I dipped the cuttings first in rooting hormone. 

After watering the plants in the garden, I worked on potting the cuttings. It took awhile before I finished since there were 5 cuttings. I wanted to make sure I mixed the soil correctly. I'm aiming to successfully encourage the cuttings to grow roots. Some of the cuttings had flowers. I'm not sure if I should remove them so the cutting can focus on growing roots. Hmm, I'll research more about it. 

Thank you again Mrs. O! I'm going to watch the cuttings like a hawk to ensure they all propagate properly!

#BeKind #StaySafe

We set up several pots in our backyard for composting. It surprisingly worked well. A few months later we were surprised to see something growing in it. As it grew, I realized it was a mango tree. Our neighbor has a mango tree and it's branches reached our backyard. Every so often, some fruits would drop to the ground. I guess one of it ended up inside the compost bin and nature found a way to grow. 

I eventually moved the seedling to a proper pot. I would water it and give it some fertilizer. Lo and behold it's now much taller than me! I've been overdue to move it and decided to do it today since I plan to let it continue its growth in the tiny square garden. I had a hard time pulling the pot out from the pocket garden plant box, so Miggy wrangled it off for me. Then Sweetie helped me get it out of the pot. The sun set before I finished re-potting it. Hopefully it will live even with some of the roots gone. 

Another "accidental" tree is the weeping fig. It grew on our balcony. A bird probably dropped the seed and nature (again) found its way and it grew. Sweetie pulled it out and I told him to bring it home. The roots were still intact, so I again placed it in a pot and left it a few feet away from where the mango tree was growing. It surprisingly flourished and it's about half the mango tree already. I decided to re-pot it today too. 

The mango and weeping fig tree is part of the arsenal of trees I plan to eventually move to our future home (no idea when that will happen). The third tree is my curry tree. I'm trying to save it now since I think I may have over watered it the past few weeks (whoops!). I hope I'll still be able to save it! Then I have a couple of papaya trees growing. I think some may have been rooting in the plant box (whoops!). I'll check them tomorrow.

I'll probably get flagged already from gardening a lot this week. I missed working on our garden since we've been busy, plus I had to avoid getting exposed to dirty air due to the construction beside us (it's been really horrid!). We made a lot of progress this week, but need to check what I can still save from my Mom's garden. 

Lots of adulting stuff to do, ugh. 

#BeKind #StaySafe

I've been having forearm pain the past two weeks. I'm not sure if hand quilting triggered it (probably). My neuro told me to see her if I have pain since she flagged my scoliosis. She's out so I haven't been able to see her. The ointment my spine doctor has helped and I've been doing some of the exercises my PT taught me before.

I read on a hospital's page that you can do some gardening as home treatment for forearm pain. After exercising yesterday I felt I could give it a try today. I had to transplant the avocado I propagated in water anyway. Two avocados and one money plant was my plan. 

I ended up transplanting two avocados, the Ikea money plant, and re-potted some succulents into a bigger pot. Plus I prepared 2 big pots for calamansi and four smaller ones for seeds that sprouted from my propagation tray (I'm not sure what they are, haha). I didn't feel any pain and it felt good. It was good exercise and the cats watched me the whole time.

Hope to see my neuro next week! 

#BeKind #StaySafe

I dedicated the day to small bits of housework. I watered the plants, played with the cats, did some cooking and chatted with a friend who likes cooking. It was pretty humid, so I retired back to my sewing table to write this post and watch some TV. I wanted to hang out outside more, but it was too humid, plus the air quality was bad (construction beside us did some welding). 

I'm journaling my daily activities to push myself to move around more. I checked the plants I re-potted and was happy to see the Heart of Jesus (caladium) improve a lot. Check out how much it has improved in 5 days. I transplanted it in a cactus mix soil and put it in an area with indirect sunlight. I think it grew a bit, noh?

I transferred the tiny leaves to a small pot

I'm also propagating some of my gumamela. The four pots I bought a year ago are still alive, but they've outgrown their pot. It will be hard to transplant them. I plan to trim them to make them healthier. I cut some stems and popped them in soil with perlite. I forgot to cover them to create humidity, so that's what I did today. Let's see if they grow some stems. What I hope to do in the future is graft the different colors to have a gumamela plant with different colors. (I've honestly never done any grafting. My Mom was good at it though). 

The bromeliad didn't look good, so I decided to remove the dead and yellowing leaves to give it a better chance to live.

The kittens were naughty today. It was drizzling just before I went out. It looks like they played in the rain. When they came to me they kept rubbing my leg and they were all wet! Haha. Naughty kittens! We're also trying to regulate their food because a lot of stray cats have been coming in since Grey disappeared. The strays probably caused the kittens to have cat flu! Sigh. 

I was going to do some ironing, but I've hit my limit. I know when not to push too hard. I don't want to get sick. I delegated the rest of the cooking duties to Miggy. All he needs to do anyway is let the marinade simmer and Sweetie will do the plating. I can iron tomorrow. Worse off, I'll squeeze myself in another pair of pants next week (haha). 

Happy weekend everyone!

#BeKind #StaySafe

I made the mistake of treating my bell pepper plants with garlic spray. I thought it had aphids just like my gumamela plants. I thought the white flies were aphids too, apparently not. Aside from white flies it also has fungus. Some leaves would just fall off. 

I was able to successfully grow bell peppers in Singapore. I never had pest issues there since we were on the 22nd floor. I've been trying to grow bell peppers here and it's been hard since there's so many pests. I watched a video on Epic Gardening and Kevin said you can try hydrogen peroxide to treat fungus. I've been spraying my plant for a few days now and it seems to be recovering. 

I noticed earlier that the white flies are still there, so I'll try baking soda with Castile soap tomorrow. I tried Neem oil already, but it burned the leaves. So, let's see if if it works or maybe I'll have to go back to square one. 

#BeKind #StaySafe

When I was growing up, we had a huge avocado tree in our backyard. It produced a lot of fruit and my Dad always made avocado with milk for me to eat. It was the only way I eat avocado, until I discovered avocado shake (haha) and well, guacamole. As a Filipino, I don't eat avocado as a salad. 

The avocado tree in my childhood home is long gone. I'm not sure if it fell during a typhoon or was taken down due to security issues. Since our avocado tree before was prolific I thought I could try growing another tree. We recently got some avocado from a neighbor. It was perfect, so I saved the seeds. 

I watched a couple of videos to learn how to germinate avocado seeds. I chose to put it in water. To make sure I added some honey to make sure it doesn't rot. Hopefully, the honey will help encourage the seed to grow roots. It will take a while to germinate, just like bell pepper and papaya seeds. 

Let's see where this goes. I have two other trees that are growing nicely, mango and weeping fig. Both grew unexpectedly. The mango grew inside the compost bin. The weeping fig grew randomly on our balcony. And oh, I have a curry tree too. I'm growing them in pots for now since I plan to plant them eventually in our future house. 

*Just a thought, maybe I should throw one of the seeds in the compost bin, hehe. 

#BeKind #StaySafe

I've been planting bell pepper seeds whenever I have store bought peppers. You have to be very patient with growing bell peppers. It takes about 3 weeks before the seeds sprout and then you need to move it around when the weather changes.

The seeds I planted last January have started to produce flowers. I didn't expect it since it's been growing super slowly. I think it hibernated when we had extremely hot weather. I watered it everyday and consistently gave it rice water weekly. It had a growth spurt when I moved it to a sunnier area. I think the rain also helped. 

I've been so afraid to re-pot it. I bit the bullet and re-potted it the other day. I placed it in a spot that gets about 6 hours of sun. It won't get any rain though, so I'll have to observe whether I should move it. I hope the flowers get pollinated so I can harvest some bell pepper soon! 

I also have to review what kind of fertilizer it needs. I was in Singapore when I successfully grew some bell pepper. The fruit though was deformed which meant it lacked something. I would very happy if my bell pepper plants finally produce something! 

#BeKind #StaySafe

My thighs are so sore after 3 hours of gardening. I sat on bangkito (the plastic kind) for a few hours to re-pot my cacti and succulents. We heard something crash outside my sewing room the other night. I told Sweetie it was likely the cacti. We paused the video we were watching and Sweetie investigated what happened.

We think Grogu was chasing after Anakin. The kitten probably went up the planter and hit the pots. It came tumbling down, hitting the pots below. It was a huge mess. I didn't expect it would happen since we just covered the sides of the plant stand last week to keep the cats away. 

Oh well, I've been meaning to re-pot the cacti and succulents since some have outgrown their pots. It took me awhile to finish re-potting since there were a lot of pups and some had to be separated. Since I re-potted some of them in bigger pots, I asked for help from Sweetie to add support. That way they won't topple down easily if ever a cat goes up again. 

Added bamboo to support the pots

It was a good workout and I enjoy working quietly while gardening. The cats kept me company. Anakin was quite naughty. He even tried biting the cacti. So kulet. I had to separate him and Grogu to avoid having another accident. 

#BeKind #StaySafe