Updates from my Rooftop Container Garden, August 2016

I'm really sorry for not giving updates on my rooftop container garden for quite sometime. Honestly, this year I don't plant much. I've been busy these several months setting up an online bakery, which bake by order, beside my part time translating job.

Maybe I'll just take you to stroll around my garden. It'll be done in less than 5 minutes! :-)

Do you recognize the plant on the left? Well, yes it's a Mulberry. A church friend gave it to me last March when she moved to another island after getting married to one our our church fellow. So, she happened to hand me this Mulberry plant, some peppermint plants, a couple of red Amaryllis tubers, a small pot of lemongrass and also a small DIY pot(made of mineral bottle) of parsley. 

The second pictures is the result of my laziness. I took me forever before I repotted it. And since the weather was not very friendly in the first semester, the Mulberry plant was at the brink of death.. I guess it was a combination of constant drought and malnourished. 

The leaves finally turned yellow and burnt. 

And I felt very...very soorryyy.........! 

So one day I decided to act. I trimmed it first and I just repotted it to a 4-gallon container but only within days, I can see new shoots and fruit... yesss .... FRUIT!! Can you see it right in the middle of the leaves? Amazing isn't it??!

The characteristic of this plant is growing fast when it's still young but will soon slow down. Today, the plant is only this tall but I can find quite many fruit. I heard, it's very easy to encourage it to set fruit. Just trim it and it will react soon.

I harvested one today, and it tastes sweet! 

My other plants that sets fruit this year is my Kaffir Lime!!

I have harvested at least half a dozen of these, yet I haven't used it yet... I'm not really using this produce except to make Indonesian Salad with peanut sauce. But so far I haven't made any...

My Soursop tree has finally set male flowers after about a year or so... but I haven't managed to harvest the pollen for future hand pollination. I haven't been successful yet since I was too lazy to battle the heat of the scorching sun at noon or late morning.

This is the Nam Dok Mai or Lok Mai mango tree that I planted by seed. I don't remember how old it is, maybe around a year or maybe more..

My Arum Manis is also fruiting. Last year it bore fruit for 3 consecutive time but then it rest for almost 4-5 months before it gained new energy to starting bearing fruit again. 

My Nam Dok Mai is also setting flowers and fruit.

This one is my Hone Bell Fruit. It's not yet setting flowers.

Sadly for this yellow tomato must succumb to Fusarium wilt disease though it had set flowers!!

I missed harvesting tomatoes!! I will plant some soon!

 

A Match Made in Heaven Part 3

Fully grown, Kiwi is 7 week old, Bubu (the orange face) is 5 days younger.

I'd like to give an update on my hybrid lovebird, Kiwi and Bubu (read: Boo boo). As you can see from the picture above they looked fully-grown but they are actually under 2-month old. So they're still toddler, like babies who are learning how to crawl, and they will put anything they can reach into their mouth. And oh...boy, kids in this period can sometimes be a real handful!! 

Momma Olive was tending and feeding her babies.

Olive and Elmo have been a great Momma and Daddy!! He's a real example of a husband/father who brings home bacon!! Ha... Right after the first egg hatched, Elmo started to regurgitate and feed his wife. Since the newborn needs soft foods, Elmo feed the food he had chewed so it could sit for a while in Olive's tummy before she fed the crying baby. This goes on until all the babies grew up to about one month old. And as the babies' feathers grow and they started to stick their heads out of the nest's window, Elmo will directly feed them since the babies  no longer need soft foods, thus he can feed the seed he just chewed. And he still feeds them until today. Maybe he will continue to do so for a couple more weeks.
  
(Different poses of the babies while sleeping... )

 

Feathers growing, color setting...

As you can see here, they got both parents' genes. Though they get the color of the mother, but they also get some traits from their mother, which is the shape of their beak and ring on their eyes. They are also more colorful and interesting. While Kiwi's back and wings is dark green like his mother but he has a 3D coating of metallic purple on his back too,which can only be clearly seen if we put him under the light. Bubu's head and neck is dark orange with lime green on the chest and tummy. she also has some orange tone on her tail.

As far as I observe them, I haven't found any sign of weaknesses or character problem people addressed these hybrid lovebirds. Still, I feel sorry that some people consider breeding hybrid lovebird as an irresponsible act.I especially feel sorry for people like me who is accidentally ignorant of this. My defense is they are still a lovely and cute creature despite the fact that they are probably sterile and consider as mutant.

And I know people are probably not interested in having them but I'm happy enough to keep them as pet.

Playing in the hanging bed