Updates From My Rooftop Container Garden, June 2015

I'm planning to be more focused on planting vegetables next seasons in the effort to harvest more for daily needs. I've been too focused on planting fruit trees like citrus, pineapple, soursop and grapes, and some ornamental plants, thus, have quite neglected vegetable plants. It's good to plant shrubs and ornamental plants in your garden as they give some aesthetic touch to it but you need to once in a while retreated back to your goals and do some evaluation. You need to trace how you have been doing and what needs to be done in order to achieve your goals. Like in my case, my main goal is to have a kitchen garden and a container orchard.

 So far, I have 2 varieties of mango trees, 1 longan, 3 lemons, 5 limes, 4 kumquats, 1 kaffir lime, 3 soursops, 2 papayas and about 18 new pineapple trees I planted from the crowns, ratoons and suckers of my 3 previous trees. As for herbs and medicinal plants, I have lemongrass, white and red ginger, galangal, sweet and red basil, oregano, parsley, pandan leaves, curry leaves trees, red and yellow betel, and I also plant onion and garlic seasonally. Except for that I have some roses, jasmine, false lavender, ice plant, cactus, moringa, and some other ornamental plants like aglaonema, coleous, mother in law tongue, aloe vera, palm trees and a few more. These ornamental plants have grown so much that I keep re-potting and all these have taken away my attention for a while. 

The bean plant I planted last season have gone through their prime.  From 4 plants, only 1 remained. It still bears fruit but very little since the weather has grown hotter in the summer and rainfall is low. I'll soon discard it and rotate it with another plant. 

Oregano

Kaempferia Galanga

For 2-3 planting seasons I haven't planted any tomato plants. This spring, I germinated Marizold and Tobolks tomatoes but they failed to grow, and a couple of new seedlings of Marizold Tomatoes that remained were eaten by either birds or insects. So, no tomatoes for this season. 

After harvesting some swiss chard leaves, the plant died. At the moment I have 6 Kale plants producing and 3 plants of swiss chard. I decided to try planting okras this season. 3 from 4 seedlings I re-potted have died, 1 that remains are blooming and fruiting. I have harvested a batch and it's now still growing new bulbs.

       

Watermelon is one of my favorite fruit. I eat a lot of them in Summer. Last year I planted sugar baby from the seeds I bought from America, but this season I planted yellow-flesh watermelon from the seeds I saved myself from the market-bought watermelon, and it grows well and bears fruits. Only, recently the leaves are heavily infested by aphids and many leaves dried up. I am a little worried since there are some watermelons growing and not fully ripe yet. Hope the new leaves will come out again to uphold these fruits.

What about you? What are you planting last and this season?

How To Plant Mango From Seed

Most people nowadays prefer grafted fruit trees as it saves them from a lot of troubles and heartache, and takes less time to start 

yielding fruit. That makes sense since some fruit seeds call for a special pre-planting process, such as stratification process on berries or grapes, and they can take as long as 3-15 years before it sets fruit.

However, if you are a-curious-type of person, you may want to experiment with planting fruit by seeds. You may also do it just for the sake of gaining knowledge or just for fun. 

So, go ahead and check out the steps below! This may be a good school experiment for children too.

Steps to plant mango from seed:

1. First of all choose a mature mango fruit of any kind. After you eat the flesh, Clean the seed from the flesh adhering to the seed, wash it with running water and dry it with a napkin. Let the seed sits near the windowsill or a warm area of the house to dry for around 
2 weeks.

2. After the seed is dry, crack open the seed carefully 

to make a big enough crevice or opening. 

3. Then, soak the seed along with the outer skin that 

you have cracked open or you may release the kernel 

from the outer skin and soak it overnight.

4. You may plant the seed that you've soaked overnight in a soil mix directly or you may release the kernel from the outer skin first before you plant the kernel.

5. And within a week or two, the seedling may come out.

6. After it has set several leaves or as high as 15-20 cm, you can transplant it to it's permanent home. 

Mango Pickles

Hey, I remember my promise to share my recipe of mango pickle. 

As I have shared in my previous post, I had more than 12 Nam Dok Mai mangoes, dropped due to over-stimulation from liquid fertilizer I applied after fruiting. The application of the liquid fertilizer stimulated new growth of branches and and flowers, and caused the pollinated fruits to compete for food and had to finally succumb. Only 4 remain in tact and still growing.

Most of the dropped mangoes is this size or around 8 cm long. In case you have immature fruit drop like these, don't toss them away to your compost pile, instead, recycle them into a delicious simple pickle!

All you have to do is :

1. Wash and peel the rinds.

2. Slice thinly like the picture below. 

3. After that, rub the mango slices with 1-2 Tbs salt. Refrigerate for 30 minutes until the fluid drains and the mango flesh shrink in size. Then, wash the salt away. 

 4. Now you are ready to season it with 2-3 Tbs vinegar/apple cider vinegar, 3-4 Tbs sugar, 3 red chili (sliced). Mix it well. Refrigerate it half to one day before serving. It's yummy and crunchy!