Gone Fishing

It always makes me happy to see seedlings and young shoots. Even on bad days. Or, perhaps especially on bad days since green kind of makes the day a little brighter. 

Sis got me a mother leaf with an exquisite terrarium accessory; an angler in a boat! I have been buying terrarium accessories online, and most of them aren't as detailed in their craft, but of course, since I don't really pay a lot for them, I can't expect a lot too. 

This little piece that Sis got for me is definitely of a higher quality, with a little boat made of a wood-like material (it feels just like wood, perhaps it is wood) and an uncle with a beefy chest! The piece is made in Germany by Preiser and hand-painted in Mauritius. 

Check out the "angler in a boat" on Amazon!

Since I intend to let the Mother Leaf sprout, Sis suggested a fishing-setup. This is very different from my usual soil-based terrarium, and it looks extremely zen on my work table! It's simple and elegant; an easy distraction from work. Till I get a tiny enough pole to put it into his hands, the angler really has to make do with just enjoying the water and breeze!

Sis bought two pieces of Mother Leaf. I left the other piece on the bookshelf where there's more light. More shoots are sprouting than the leaf on my table. We are guessing more will shoots will sprout since the lighting is stronger. 

Terrarium seems to be in trend again suddenly. And, I truly hope the trend continues and goes beyond what we have seen in the past. There has not been much advancement in terms of the accessories and set-up ideas. 

I also bought a few pots of succulents and HAPPY PLANTS! 

Happy plants are supposedly the little black seeds in dragon fruits. They would eventually grow to be full grown plants after a few years if given the right condition, according to the vendor. 

After three weeks, and not dying on me, I decided it was time to re-pot the happy plants. Sis commented it was cute, so it was "adopted" as soon as it was made!

Nothing very fanciful, but the bathtub container kind of liven up the look. Ladybird has never failed me so far. They are good in almost any situation that calls for a little touch-up, not too overwhelming but it brings a touch of colour. Red just so happens to match nicely with green, always. 

The bathtub is now happily sitting on Sis's work desk. I read reports that happy plants are able to absorb radiation emitted by the computer. Not sure how true this is, though. If it truly works, I guess they should be all over Japan?   

And, the kale seeds that I bought during the Gardeners' Day Out is finally sprouting! 

The seeds germinated 2 days after they were planted. I planted 5 seeds, and 4 germinated! That's a pretty good success rate!

Check out the kale seeds available on Amazon!

Kale seems to thrive better in slightly acidic soil, with pH not exceeding 6.8. Therefore, coffee grounds should be a good booster since its pH is around there. I am now using the coffee grounds that my family throws out after their morning coffee. Nothing like blue mountain, just the normal local coffee. 

I am quite excited to see how the kale would turn out. If my setup works, there would definitely be more veggie projects coming up!

Gardening @ Kemuning

I have always envision self sufficiency in vegetables supply if I ever have a garden. Well, I do have a small "strip" of garden, haha! To reach self sufficiency might be a tad challenging unless I start to make use of the land around the estate :)

Hubby likes gardening, but he needs that push and doing it alone certainly isn't his first choice. Come one sunny Sunday, we decided to get our hands dirty and try our chance at growing our vegetables from scratch with the seeds we bought. Oh ya, the gardening was also to "cat proof" it.

The cat or cats, we have no idea if it is a gang or does it work solo. We would smell urine, poo early in the morning when we open our front door. Seeing the freshly planted grass dig up repeatedly was enough to made me wanted to hose the cat(s) with water! We tried to line the soil with small white pebbles and it did not work. Hence hubby suggested getting huge, gigantic ones. And it worked! 

We planted kangkong, habanero chilli, broccoli, aloe vera and xiao bai cai. And of course flowers!

Hubby loves chilli, the hotter the better. We were at the nursery and by chance we saw habanero chilli and the nursery owner told us it was one of the hottest chilli around. Having a chilli plant is always one of the things that is on our check list, and if it is the hottest, we were definitely getting it!

Aloe vera is one of the first plant in our house. It is useful for skin allergies, or simply for aloe vera jelly, a thoroughly useful plant.

We are still waiting for the rest of the vegetables to get to their full size. It may sound kind of crazy but when I am in KL, I would play music for them for a couple of hours everyday. Simple, instrumental music and a bit of meddling, watering.

Hope we can harvest soon!