Determining the Sex of Papaya Tree

Two from 4 of my papaya seedlings I planted from seed have grown to about 2 meters high. They're about a year old or over. And for a couple of months, I have noticed that an elongated-shaped of blooms coming  out between the branches. Unfortunately, they usually fall before the blooms even have the chance to flourish. To my curiosity, I picked up one of it and decided to check it out. As I broke open the petals I discovered an ovary with a stigma. It's confirmed: they are both female!! My dream of harvesting papaya fruit is shattered...

For your information, papaya plants have three types of sex that you can identify from the flowers: female, male or hermaphrodite, which means the flowers contain 2 kinds of sex organs(an ovary and stamen/self-fertile). Other flowers than the hermaphrodite can't be pollinated without the presence of the opposite sex flowers, unless the wind or insects bring along the pollen from other places.

This gives me a headache since it takes about a year or so to be able to identify the plant's sex. I should plant a male tree if I want my tree to be pollinated or else I should bring pollen from other places and pollinate my tree. And that means I have to plant several trees. It's a dilemma for me since I am planting in containers and I have not much space on my rooftop. I don't want too many papaya plants growing in big pots in my rooftop since it will be a heavy burden to the rooftop. Still I have to find a solution to my problem!

Planting Bitter Gourd

My mother is a fan of bitter gourd. We will always have bitter gourd on the menu every week. It is mostly stir-fried with prawns and salted fermented soya. Some may not like the taste. If you don't know the trick of handling bitter gourd before cooking, it will render a very bitter taste and it would surely ruin your appetite.

So, that's how I started to collect the seed from a mature bitter gourd I bought from the wet market and started to germinate them. And voila! 8 of them made it! 

I re-potted them into 4-gallon containers. In a couple of weeks, they started to set flowers and then the fruit. I helped a little with hand pollination, but I think the nature mostly did the work. So far, I found around 5 bitter gourd growing. My mom suggested me to wrap them with plastic bags but I just let them that way. Can't wait to harvest them!

By the way, I have a simple how-to-reduce-its-bitterness trick before cooking. If you're stir-frying it, just sliced it thinly and sprinkle a lot of salt on it and mix well, then squeeze the sliced bitter gourd with your hand. Then, wash the salt out.  And drained the water by squeezing it again. Don't worry you won't turn them into a mush as it's quite firm. Then, boil a small pan of water and after it's seething, pour the sliced bitter gourd into the water and let it boil for a couple of minutes. Then drained the bitter gourd. Now you're ready to cook it! Trust me the bitterness has been reduced many fold!

New Addition to My Rooftop Container Garden 2015

Life has been hectic these couple of months. I am having several translation projects and ministries at church. My mind is crowded that it's hard for me to  just relax and let ideas to flow out, though I have some posts planned but not yet written down. Allow me to just briefly share some new addition to my rooftop container garden...

Chokanan Mango

Last month, I bought a small grafted Chokanan tree, a variety of Thai Mango(also found in Bangladesh, Pakistan & India). Earlier I have already had Nam Dok Mai(some call it 'Lok Mai') mango tree, that is fruiting now the third time this year. This new tree is only $1.20. I have re-potted it but still to a 4 gallon container and I planned to let it grow for a while, before re-potting it to its final container.

This is a green 'Honey' Bell fruit tree

At the same time I also bought this Honey Bell Fruit grafted tree. This one is less than US$ 1. This one is the green variety. It's a local cultivated variety.

Below are orange seedlings I planted by seed. These are of the Australian orange variety I bought from the supermarket. They need to be re-potted soon too, as orange trees usually have a ferocious appetite.

Remember the Nam Dok Mai seedling I planted from seed? Yes, this is how it looks now. And yes, I need to re-pot this one a.s.a.p too! And I also need to weed my plants, they have overgrown! Grrr...

My Elmo is A Hen!

Recently, I have been convinced that Elmo is a hen. I bought her when she was about 2 or 3 months old (as the shopkeeper claimed). He said that Elmo is a male lovebird, but I guessed he didn't really know it as determining the sex of a lovebird is not as easy as determining the sex of parakeets. Unless, we take a DNA test.

There are some tips given by experts like seeing the shape of the tip of their wings or by feeling the gap in their abdomen. But it's tricky and often inaccurate.
The one you can count on except for a DNA test is waiting until they are about a year old. That means until they have reached full maturity.

I bought Elmo around March this year. If she were 2-3 months old by that time, she would be a year old or over now. That means she's now a mature lovebird who is ready for mating. Yep, she is indeed. She has shown the sign of maturity for several months now. Some says that they are mature when they are around 6 months old and will lay their first egg when around 8-12 months old.

With Elmo(Bibi), I noticed that she likes to eat the cuttlefish bone that I put in the budgies' cage and sometimes she has a fight with them because of that (usually either Baby Blue or Goldie will peck her for eating their cuttlefish bone). She is also very fascinated with Goldie's nest. When I first introduced the nest to the budgies, they would struggle the hell out of them  every time I put them inside the nest. But, it's different with Elmo, she volunteered herself to take a peep inside the nest through the window hole, and many times she dared herself to ventured further into the nest and out.

She's also a keeper (I think it's her instinct as a hen), every time Goldie or Baby Blue fell down from their cage or the outer perch(sometimes they can't fly back to their cage because I have trimmed the tip of their flying feathers), Elmo would accompany them. She would often make noises so I knew that something had happened to them!

Then lately, she started to make a lot of clicking noise every time she's around me. She will repeatedly nod her head and make the sign of regurgitating(vomiting to feed her owner, which she considers as her mate) as an expression of love. She will also dance around, and every time I want to pat her she will bent her body, spread her wings and lift her tail! It's an invitation to a male lovebird to ascend her! And I am a male lovebird to her! LOL!

So far Elmo hasn't laid any eggs, because I didn't put a nest in her cage. People says placing a nest inside their cage can stimulate egg-laying even without the presence of a male lovebird. I also haven't wanted to give her a male lovebird as a mate since egg-laying will changed my-already-tamed lovebird into a complete stranger.

Don't Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch

I am so proud of Goldie, she finally laid her first eggs last October 10th! 

She had been busy preparing her nest a couple weeks earlier. She tidied her nest and threw bigger wood shavings out.

I could feel her bulging tummy, when I checked her.

Then one day, I knew she had laid her egg because she spent a lot of time inside her nest and... Baby Blue was inside too! 

I guess he was there to give support to laying Goldie, as Baby Blue is an amiable budgie. I love him so much.

 Then, two days after, she laid another egg, and so on ... in total she laid 4 eggs.

She started to sit on her eggs after she laid her first egg and only came out to dump and stretch her self out. She also drank a lot but ate a little since she spent only a little time outside her nest. Baby Blue had done his tasks as the male budgie very well, he always standby to feed and preen Goldie every time she popped her head out of the window hole. Often he accompanied her female inside the nest... don't know what he was exactly doing inside since I couldn't open the nest's door without disrupting them and their activities. I guess he did it as a form of protection.

Normally it takes 18-21 days for the first egg to hatch. But after about 1 month, I decided to removed the eggs out because none of the eggs hatched. I accidentally dropped one of the eggs and it's obvious to me that the egg was not fertilized. 
It took Goldie a couple days to finally realized it.
Though I was disappointed but I have guessed that, I think.

Oh well, I wish they would really mate and produce some squealers someday... <sighing>