Harvesting Turmeric and Ginger Part 1

Turmeric Rhizomes often used as traditional medicine/herbal drinks

Turmeric and ginger are two common spices in Indonesian cuisine & kitchen and are among the easy-to-plant spices.Just bury them in the ground and oo la la... it's ready to be harvested in several months!

And yes, with only several turmeric and ginger root cuttings with nodes on them, you can harvest a bunch of them! I only planted 2 pieces of turmeric rhizomes and harvested 1,25 kg and with 1-2 cuttings of ginger root I harvested about 350 grams(under 5 months).

Since I used only a little of turmeric in my cooking (mostly curry), my helper made Indonesian herbal drinks made from turmeric, ginger, some tamarind, palm sugar and water.

It's good for boosting health. The Javanese have been having this for centuries. It's among many other herbal drinks passed down for many, many generations.

In two weeks time we have made about 3 batches of these drinks. Each batch is about 3-4 glasses.

And I still have some more turmeric for another batch I guess.

So, happy weekend y'all!

The World Belongs to Those in Love

Mating season has come for the birds! 

And Goldie seems to finally reach maturity! 

she looks ready to lay her first eggs. 

They had been checking their nest quite often now. 

Compared to the first time I brought the nest to their new cage 

a couple months ago, it's so different now. They're no longer afraid to go inside.

Baby Blue has also been a gentleman. He preens and feeds his mate a lot. He dances and sings and plays with her. To my wonder Goldie was still not very interested to mate with him. 

As far as I notice, Baby Blue has not yet successful in convincing Goldie. 

Unfortunate Accident

Lately, it has been eventful for Elmo... 

Just days after he was infected with Snot, he got into an accident. 

As usual, I took him with me to the garden that afternoon. 

I was watering the plants when I decided to propagate my Wizard Jade Coleus plant. By that time Elmo was still standing on my shoulder but all of a sudden he flew to my hand while I was cutting the stems of the plant using my garden sears. 

I was not aware that his finger had been cut until I saw some drops of blood on the floor.

Imagine how panicked I was! I checked his finger and blood started to flow out and his claw were wet so I was not really sure how deep the wound was. 

The first thing I do was washing his claw with water, dried it and put some Betadine solution over the wound. 

But his finger was still bleeding. 

 So, I called an Avian Vet who's been advertising his service on the newspaper. He was such a kind man. I thought I could bring Elmo to his clinic but he said I needn't to. He calmed me and guided me via telephone on what I should do.

Basically, I must clean the wound with alcohol solution and apply antiseptic and some anti-fungal cream. 

I bandaged his finger but he hated it and no matter what I did to stop him from removing it, he did eventually.

So I let his wounded finger opened but keep applying the betadine solution several times a day.

For days days he stood one-legged. That's because his wound is very close to the base of his middle finger, it must been sore. And for the first couple of days, he was not very comfortable sleeping inside her blanket because he literally bending his body while sleeping so I guess it's painful for him to do so. I often found him back on his perch or swing not long after I put him to bed. But praise God, his wound is not serious and he recovered within a week.

Snot Coryza

If you're a bird lover and you have bird as pet, you know how dangerous Snot or Coryza disease is, especially on budgies/parakeets and lovebirds because snot is rampant in these two species. 

Remember Barney, the orange faced lovebird I found and died just several days after? I lost him because of

this disease! 

Snot or Coryza is a usually acute,highly infectious disease of fowl characterized by inflammation of the upper respiratory tract, especially nasal and sinus mucosae. It is caused by the bacterium Haemophilus paragallinarum. The route of infection is conjunctival or nasal with incubation period 1-3 days followed by rapid onset of disease over a 2-3 day period with the whole flock affected within 10 days. Transmission is usually by direct contact.

Symptoms that may occur : facial swelling,nasal discharge, swollen wattles, sneezing, dyspnoea,lose weight, in-appetite, drop in egg production of 10-40%.

From the information I got, untreated birds suffering from Snot Coryza will die within 2 weeks time.

Last month I noticed red flecks on Elmo's upper and lower right eye ring. At first, I thought his eye was injured when we were playing the other day. But the next day, the flecks become redder, as if he was having internal bleeding on his right eye. I had noticed that he liked to scratch his eye lately and then rubbed his eyes on his wooden perch. And he blinked his right eye quite often.

Suddenly, it dawned on me that he must be having snot!! Several weeks before, Baby Blue also suffered from this disease. I believe Baby Blue had infected Elmo since I let them play together every day and I didn't quarantined Baby Blue when he was on medication. Thank God he was finally healed by an eye-drop medicine called BioSnot.

BioSnot is a product of Indonesian Bird Farm, Ebod Jaya, who have diversified their products from birds to bird feed to various multivitamins and 

medicines for birds. 

BioSnot is a back-to-nature eyedrop made from flowers: Isotoma Longiflora (Star of Bethlehem)combined with Clitorian Ternatea (Blue Pea Vine or Butterfly Pea)which contains riglucoside, saponin, fenol, kaemferol, and delphinidhin which produce significant efect for eyes. In order to accelerate healing it is added with honey which is very effective to kill bacteria. It is only for external usage. So, I quickly gave him the eye drop for 3 times a day for about 5 days and ordered another snot medicine that I must feed him in order to clear the bacteria in his stomach. 

Well, thank God I have stock of BioSnot at home though it's a bit expired but still good to use. And luckily I discovered the symptoms at the early stage so he's healed in a matter of days. Less than a week! 

Planting Sugar Cane in Container

When I visited my friend's organic farm about a month ago, I was sent home with some Okra, passion fruit and two stalks of sugar canes(of different varieties). I purposely asked for it since I want to try to plant sugar cane in container. So he made sure that the stalks has suckers sprouted from its knuckles/joints.

There are some suggested ways of how to plant sugar cane: 

1)You can cut the stalks in between the joint/ knuckles and plant each knuckles horizontally. 2)You can also plant the stalk by sticking it right into the soil/ container (vertically) 3)and you may also soak the stalk in the water for a week or two to root first.

As for me, I like to make things simple. So I just stick them into a big container which I used to plant eggplants. And I follow the progress every week. Apparently, I see some signs of growth as the suckers grow taller and after a month or so I can see small roots poking out from the bottom of each sucker. Well, it seems that the time for re-potting will come soon... Happy Gardening Y'all !