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?