Weather Anomaly

I took these pictures from my rooftop garden a couple months ago to showcase the challenges we are facing more these days with the effect of global warming, ie extreme weather.

How to Crochet Prince or Princess Crown

These are the pictures of the crocheted-Prince-or-Princess-crown headband I made for a friend's baby daughter, who was celebrating her 1st birthday about a year ago, using this-very-easy-to-follow step-by-step tutorial:

My First Harvest of Eggplants

I am not good at keeping a garden tally. It might be because I'm still harvesting in smale scale or just too excited to go ahead and process it into meals. The fact is, I usually went up to my rooftop garden to harvest things I needed to cook at that moment. So, maybe that's the reason I didn't really remember to scale and keep the tally, except for taking some pictures of it. I might start doing it for the future, we'll see...

So, here's some eggplant which was processed into this yummy dish. Basically it's a mixed veggies dish (eggplant + baby corn), cooked in spicy fermented soya sauce.

Hello

Happy Sunday to all of you! Hope y'all are doing well. 

Today, the weather is great. A great compensation to a-couple-of-gloomy-rainy days. The Sun is shining brightly, as bright as my heart and soul! :-) I just gathered with some friends after church today and found out that they are having the same passion with me in sustainable gardening and living! And we have made plans to get together again soon! We might visit the Green School, a non-profit organization committed to share the awareness for organic and sustainable gardening in my city, to get more insights and knowledge. And we might swap seeds also because they are cultivating many plants, including those on the verge of extinction. And talked about the possibility of attending an international sustainable farming/gardening event next March! 

Another thing that brings smile to my lips is what I stumbled upon in my garden just now, a ladybug couple, matting on my eggplant plant. It's a rare scenery. I was just being at the right place and on the right timing! And I hope I wasn't distracting them or being impolite. Oh,...have mercy! :-)

Here's my second harvest of eggplants yesterday. 

And blooms that are fruiting soon...

Crown Galls on Rose Plants

Do you know that cancer can also attack plants? Yes, seriously! When I bought this rose plant from a nursery, again I didn't really pay attention to the lump at the tree base. I wouldn't have thought that it was actually a kind of cancer that had attacked the plant! I bet you wouldn't have guessed that too when you gazed it for the first time, am I right?

Well, if it hadn't been for the gardening program I watched on TV, I wouldn't have known this. And I would still think that it's just part of the dirt.

So, what is it actually and what causes it? This is one of the diseases commonly found in rose plants. It's called Crown Galls. According to the experts, it is caused by excessive fertilizing. Many Rose Farmers over-fertilize their rose plants to boost the growth, so that they can harvest faster. This is not uncommon case in rose nurseries. From my research recently I found that this disease is caused by a soil-inhabiting bacterium called agrobacterium tumefaciens that infects many ornamental plants in the home garden.

The symptons are galls, or swelling at the base of the stem. The galls are light green and nearly white when young, and will darken and become woody as they age. It is said that the galls will disrupt the flow of water and nutrients from the roots up to the stem and thus, weakening and stunting the growth of the top of the plant.

For prevention and treatment, we have to be careful when buying rose plants, make sure to choose a crown-gall-free rose plants because once it's infected than there's no remedy. Also be careful not to cause any injury to the roots or crown during planting or cultivating because bateria can infect through the fresh wound. Discard the soil from an infected plant and disinfect the pruning tools and pots.

Happy gardening!