Like a Phoenix from the Ashes

I stumbled across the Weed’s now-defunct blog a week or so ago and enjoyed many nostalgic moments. He started the blog when he was six seven; a more innocent, affectionate and slower time. He is now 16, 6 foot, and quite superior to lesser mortals such as the Mother Weed (that’s me).

The Big Sister is also grown up and soon to be married. One hopes she will produce children like weeds.

Grandpa Weed at age 88 is still busy in his garden in Australia.

I am wondering if I should give this blog a new lease of life. Perhaps not solely gardening?

Many Hands Make Heavy Work

 

Need I say more? We have distributed about half the hands and the rest will be distributed over the next few days. Some people tattooed their names on the bananas!

Reptile Residents

We have always been fond of the tree lizard that lived in our long beans and various other plants, and his more visionary friend that lived in our pumpkin plants.

I told you that our neighbour put up 6 lovely trellises for Mummy, right? When the trellis went up, a skinny lizard staked out his territory and sat balefully on a naked trellis. It must have been hot and uncomfortable but he sat it out.

Rather like the Pioneer Generation, don’t you think? He knew good times were coming.

True enough, the bittergourd plants grew lush and lusher, all around him.

Grandma is very unhappy about Mr Lizard being amongst the bittergourds. She thinks he will eat the bittergourds or the leaves or the vines. I told her lizards are insectivores but she claims he looks much much more padded out so he must be eating the plants. This reminds me of The Big Sister who says it is no point claiming that salad is diet food. Just look at pandas!

It’s not Good to Boast

So I will let the picture speak for itself. I’ve lost count of the number of banana harvests we’ve had!

Every Cloud has a Green Lining

For the last year and a half, our neighbours have been rebuilding their house. They razed their old house to the ground and built a mansion in its place! We have been suffering from noise, dust and traffic jams because of all the construction vehicles.

Our neighbours decided to build a lap pool along their wall that adjoins us. They asked Mummy very nicely if we would consider chopping down our lovely bamboos that grew along that side of our house. Bamboo leaves are fatal for swimming pool filters!

Mummy is a firm believer in being a good neighbour so she agreed with a heavy heart (she is very fond of bamboo, you see). Our neighbours tried to make it up to her by building 6 sets of 2.1m trellises along that wall and we have started our new climbing vegetable garden!

Here are the bittergourds. Daddy took the photo but strangely managed to avoid getting many of the bittergourds in the photo. If you look hard you can see 3. Actually we have about 8 and have harvested one already. Look at the number of flowers we have!

Here are the long beans. Remember our bananas had a signal banana? Well our long beans followed their example. Here is the signal bean which I yanked off before school this morning. I am holding it down by my shoes so you can’t see my face. Daddy says privacy is privacy. Hmmmm ignore my tummy!

And here is the trellis for the long beans. Don’t the plants look healthy?

Warty Caterpillars

Actually this is a bittergourd, but isn’t it ugly even for a bittergourd? The Big Sister will say it looks better than it tastes!

How does my Garden Grow?

With bittergourd, and hairy gourd, and chilli plants all in a row.

Hairy can be Beautiful Too

Here are our new hairy gourd seedlings, grown from our reliable Bangkok seeds, bought by reliable Aunty SS (she is a very important person, but I cannot say what she is, except that Mummy calls her Amb…er) and couriered by reliable Aunty SJ (she is not so very important but I like her anyway).

 

Now here is the close up. See? The seeds were pink. Grandpa says it is because the seed people put fungicide on it.

Bano!nas

Third bunch from the grandchild sucker.

 

One hand has been promised to Aunty Jin for her birthday. She wrote her name in black marker on the largest hand. (I don’t think she was being greedy, I think it was the top hand and the easiest to write on.)

 

 

 

How the Mighty (Frangipani) are Fallen

In my last post I told you how Fabulous our Frangipani looked.

Well, it unfortunately got a bad case of orange rust and when I came back from holidays with Mummy, she realized that orange dust was all over our driveway and the underside of the frangipani’s leaves were furry with orange rust!

Guess what she did (no prizes here)?

Bare bones. But guess what? New leaves grew back. Mummy says the wicked flourish like the rusted frangipani tree. Just for the record, this is the frangipani’s last chance to stay rust-free. It is going to be composted and replaced with 2 squat happiness trees that Mummy has been hankering after.