The Return of the Prodigal Son

From the Mother Weed: The Weed could not wait to return to his garden today, after his weekend away. Hardly had we dropped our bags before he disappeared into the garden, armed with kitchen scissors. And here is his loot:

For the record, the pumpkin weighed in at 690g on our fancy-schmancy electronic scales. Just like the kids, skinny.

And with the harvesting of the firstborn pumpkin, we are now anxiously scrutinizing the other vines for signs of female flowers/baby pumpkins…2 female flowers are on the useless Far East Flora generic pumpkin but we are not expecting anything from that plant.

 

My Friend G’s Garden Beans

Remember my friend who visited my school, who grew beans and pumpkins and lettuce and labelled them all with her sister V’s name and her name?

Her garden beans are looking good!!! See the flowers? And guess what, I am going to visit my friend in 2 weeks’ time! I hope I will be able to bring some vegetables for her (although she does not like vegetables).

Consultancy Services Update

Remember last weekend I went round to 2 gardens to provide consultancy services? Well, the garden owners are very happy with my work. The flower garden lady said everything was sprouting. The hanging garden owner said the long beans have popped up and 2 okras have too! I will ask them for some photos to post.

I am going away this weekend, but when I come back, I will go to these 2 gardens to make sure everything is doing well. Especially the vegetable garden, because my blog administrator and the owner are not experienced. For example they do not know about staking plants.

Bittergourd and Bittergourd-in-Waiting

Our laundry lady said to cover my bittergourds up so Mummy stapled some greaseproof paper over the 2 bittergourds. Here is the bigger bittergourd peeping shyly out from its tracing paper dress!

Mummy is feeling nervous about my plants (she is usually quite nervous about many things) so she decided that we should grow 3 new bittergourd plants. Three in case the lighting man yanks out two like the last time. Here they are, and don’t they look healthy?

Budding Okras

 

Three of our four okra plants are budding and fruiting. Unfortunately, as I said before, we can’t remember exactly what type of okra plants they are!  But here is a nice photo Mummy took:

Crispy Simba

Someone please help. Our Simbas have been dying off one by one. Their leaves get thinner, then curl, then become brown and crispy. We water them regularly. They are in the same area as our long beans and the garden beans. The long beans and garden beans are growing growing growing, but not the Simbas!!!

See? It’s crispy and crackly, just like Godma’s siew yoke!

The First Wintermelon (Graph 3) and the Second Wintermelon (Graph 1)

They are obviously siblings. Same growth pattern and same big head and skinny bottom. The girth measurements are taken at the fattest bit, of course!

Presenting The First Wintermelon:

And presenting, for the very first time, The Second Wintermelon!!!!!

Mr Radish Head

We had 2 remaining radishes in their mineral water bottle homes. We pulled one out. The first was only slightly bigger than a bean sprout – I think it was the one that lost its top but I can’t remember how? The second one was the size and shape of a potato! It will go into my soup tomorrow. Here it is!

Wintermelon 大 头 (Graph 2)

Remember my wintermelon post with the photo of the big head-skinny body wintermelon? It’s worse now.

Mummy says it is like the Chinese poem:

大  头    大  头   下   雨   不  愁                            Big Head Big Head,  Rain Falling, No Worries   人  家  有   伞  我  有   大  头                                People Have Umbrellas, I  have a Big Head

Anyway, Mummy took the photo tonight – it was raining and very dark because the lights at the ficus blew but we are all nervous about calling the lighting man because of the damage he caused last time. So here was her first attempt:

And below is the updated graph:

Consultancy Services

This weekend I was very busy. On Saturday I had to go and do a flower garden for Mummy’s friend. I taught her how to prepare her pots (nets at the bottom, layer of clay beads, Tref) and sow flower seeds (french marigold, wallflowers, cornflowers, sultan touch-me-nots and many sunflowers).

Today I had to do a vegetable garden for my blog administrator’s trainer. I think he is also her friend although he seems to make her carry dumbballs around. I brought some germinated seedlings: kaboucha pumpkin, wintermelon, angled luffa, corn. I sowed lettuce, kangkong, simba beans, long beans, okra, sugar snap peas, chilli. I hope he looks after them properly.

All the pots are hanging from a grid on the garden wall. Mummy forgot to take a photo of the new vegetable garden wall. When my blog administrator’s trainer sends her the photo, she will upload it here, ok?

Here they are!