We are Harvesting!

There is this sense of calmness when I dig and plant. It pleased me enormously to see the small strip of garden growing healthily. I even play the plants music when I read somewhere that plants grow better with music. I love the touch of soil on my hand and whenever I could, I would experiment interesting growing methods. Recently, we tried to cultivate  earthworms in the garden. I was told since young that where there is earthworms, the soil is good. We found out from friends that we could start by burying stuff like leftover fruits, vegetables scraps into the soil. Instead of using leftovers, which we were worried that it would take a long time to decompose, and invite tons of maggots, we decided to use the fruit waste from the juicer. These waste was a lot finer and drier; they were kind of powdery as well so it was the perfect candidate to be mixed into the soil. After three weeks, I found an earthworm! I was ecstatic! I snapped a shoot using my iPhone but the picture was not good enough. Duh.

The hubby harvested the kangkong from the garden a couple of nights ago and sent me the below photo. I love the kangkong mainly for its productivity, haha! After sowing the seeds, and making sure the seedlings sprout, there is nothing much to do except fertilising. According to the nursery, we just need to cut off the kangkong when it is tall enough to be harvested, and leave the plant alone to grow again for the next harvest :) This is what we lazy people love, haha!

Courtesy of hubby

Below are the green beans plants which were grown accidentally. There were about four, five green beans plants planted against the wall. From seedlings to fully grown and sprouting green bean pods, it took slightly more than two months. Except for some re location of the seedlings and fertilising, the plants grow relatively well. Our challenge had always been watering, and given the hubby's challenging hours, I frequently need to clear off dried plants whenever I am in KL. Hence, I was so thankful for the watering system; ever since installing the watering system, the plants' survival rate was almost 100%! 

Courtesy of hubby

A week or so more, I think the green beans should be ready to be snapped off. Now I am wondering whether these are the type of green beans which is usually being stir fry, or the harvested pods need to be beaned out? 

Courtesy of hubby

We are hoping to achieve about 60% to 70% self sufficiency hopefully by end of the year. This strip of garden did not come easy. When we first move in, the contractor overlaid the soil with a thick layer of sand. It looked nice and we thought we would leave it for the time being until the cats in the neighbourhood used it as a poo-ing ground. We grew grass next, and decided to get rid of it when the hubby's annoying backache from cutting the grass resulted in overgrown weeds. We tried numerous stuff before we came this far. Since we are lucky to have a comfortable size car porch, no kids running around to destroy my hard work (though there is a nasty cat around), end year bountiful harvest sounds really good, haha!