My Garden Journal

The last two months were the worst months of our gardening life, that's the reason why I haven't joined this monthly contest. First, because it is summer here in our country and it is very, very hot. Some of our plants withered because of the intense heat. Second, rodents are attacking our plants. It is really heart-breaking to see beds and beds of of freshly transplanted pechay be eaten by them.

I have researched why there are rodents in our garden. One of the possible reasons is that the clutter in the garden itself. It was mentioned that rodents build their homes in piles of woods. And we have those. We have piled the trunks of the fallen trees from the past typhoon alongside the fence, thinking that it is biodegrable anyway and will eventually decompose. But we were absolutely wrong! It is the main culprit! So now, we need to get rid of those, and hopefully, we'll get rid of the rodents as well.

"Life fails to be perfect, but never fails to be beautiful."

--Anonymous

That was the downside. But, as that saying has stated, though there are some negatives in life, it is still beautiful. We'll just have to look at the bright side and focus on them.

First that I would focus on is the remaining pechay that was unintentionally left in the pots, which served as our nursery. There were no space left in the beds, so we left them out. (Perhaps the rodents can't climb up the pots hence they were not able to devour it.) We're so, so thankful that we did, because they are still alive and healthy! And it somehow eases the pain of losing the other ones.

Few weeks from now, these pechays are ready to be munched! 😋

Second of the things I'd like to focus on is our cassava. It has been our "Monday addiction" to pull two cassava plants so as to harvest the root crops. We have been doing this religiously ever since the lockdown started a couple of months ago, and to date we still have up to three months of unharvested plants!

Everytime we uproot a cassava, we immediately plant a replacement. I don't know if it is noticeable in the above picture, but these cassava are planted one week apart, that's why one is bigger than the other. It takes 7-8 months to grow cassava, and the first one we planted was already over two months ago. Only 5 months more and we can already harvest the first one! And we shall be willing to repeat this cycle all over again! 😜

Next is the bitter gourd. This has been planted at the same time as the pechay, but apparently, because of its bitter taste, the rodents don't like it so it survived! Maybe we will just plant bitter gourd all over our garden. Hahaha! 😂

These are some of the okras that survived. I don't know how or why they did, but they somehow escaped of the rodent's noticed!

Some of which are already bearing flowers, so sooner or later these will bear fruits. Hopefully, we'll be blessed to have those this month.

We also have two papayas that are bearing fruits! They are not ripe yet, but it gives joy seeing how fast they grow. One is elongated, the other is round. Hmmm, how do they taste? We will learn in a few months.

This jackfruit is already taller than me. We are expecting that this will bear fruit next year.

The onions are very much alive and healthy. They have grown so big these past few months, to my heart's content! ❤

We also have welcomed the newest member of the family--GUAVA! It wasn't planted, thanks to Jehovah God and to the birds and to whatever natural way nature has, it grew in one of the pots so we transplanted it into its new "home."

So, now I realized that if we don't dwell on the negative, we will be able to pass every problem with flying colors! 💕