It seems pretty ironic that decades ago, my parents in Hong Kong moved away from agriculture as they couldn't make a living out of it. Today, many families in developing countries don't want their kids to follow their footsteps into farming, pushing them to offices and factory work instead. Yet at the same time, there seems to be a growing group of people who choose to grow/farm their own food.
Whatever the reasons for the rise in the latter group, ethical, self-sufficiency, sustainability, permaculture, saving money, self satisfaction, hobby.... I can't help but think this is surely a good sign, at least physically, psychologically, financially to say the least. For myself, my baby journey into gardening has been so rewarding, not to mention it gives me some routine and exercise everyday.
Here's my weed garden as my niece likes to call it. Her mum, my sister is my advisor and has given me some plants and tips to help me along. Let me show you what I got.
LETTUCE
These will always hold a special place in my heart because they are the first plant I grew from seeds. I planted the seeds on 11th April, today they are 49 days old. The joy of smelling the freshness of the leaves as I water them is something that I have never imagined before. And it's these little joys in life that makes lockdown so worthwhile.
I can't help myself from fiddling the leaves all the time. The excuse reason being I need to prop up the leaves so they grow straighter otherwise they will rot if left on the wet soil. Also, I love caressing them, giving them some much-needed TLC. The only problem is, as the leaves grow bigger and bushier, sometimes I tear them as they stick together. Oh well, I'll just have to nibble some fresh greens, sorry lettuce leaves 😅
WILD ROCKET
I planted these because hubby likes rocket. The first batch was planted on 11th April, same time as my lettuce. They grow very slow compared to the lettuce and are very leggy. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. This is one third of my first batch of seedlings. They were growing so slow that I ate the other two thirds as micro greens 😀
The second batch on the right was planted on 1st May and I replanted them a few days ago. They're also very leggy, I must have planted about 80% of the plant beneath the soil. At least I know the will grow, so I'll just wait patiently....
MANGETOUT PEAS
These I'm really excited about. The packet says they will germinate in between 7 to 14 days, and mine started in 5 days! I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing. I'm so surprised they grow so fast, these photos were taken on 3 consecutive mornings and they're 8 days old now. I planted 6 more seeds 2 days after this batch. Mangetout young leaves are great to stir fry so I'm planning to harvest some plants for their leaves and the others for the peas.
BELL PEPPERS
The other week I bought some bell peppers for dinner, I shared my recipe here. Being in an experimental mode, I saved the seeds and planted 10 of them. Lo and behold, they started to germinate within 5 days! Not all of them succeeded but at least I got 6 sprouts. Hopefully they will grow to fruition as I like bell peppers. By the way, do you see my other 6 mangetout peas on the sides?
GIFTED PLANTS
As in they were a gift from my sister, not the plants are gifted and especially clever, although I think they're all awesome!
My sister gave me these two tomato plants and they grow really quick! It's very rewarding especially since they're quite low maintenance, water and lots of sunshine. I carry them upstairs to my bedroom window every afternoon as it has much more sunshine there, and back downstairs to my weed garden at night time. It's heavy lifting stuff and plenty of exercises as I make three journeys up and three back down with the other plants every day.
These are Chinese vegetables, my sister said they're a mixture of Bok choi and Choi sum seeds but they look the same to me. Ill have to wait 'till they're a bit bigger to find out what they are. They're quite expensive from the supermarkets, growing your own makes financial sense. My sister planted the seeds for me and it took quite a while to germinate. Some of them kept on dying and I ended up with 5 plants only.
OTHERS
I forgot to take a photo of the basil when my sister gave it to me a few weeks ago. The poor thing looked so depressing and had about 5 leaves on it. Basil is one of the two things I grew in the past, and my old plant lasted a year. I'm confident this will flourish as it already has and will last longer than my lockdown. The other thing I've grown before is spring onions or scallions as some countries call it. These were grown from scraps and are easy peasy to grow 😃.
RECOMMENDATIONS
I'm growing my weed garden indoors as I don't have a balcony. My terrace has a lot of seagulls flying around, if I take my plants outside I'm sure it will end up as their dinner and not mine!!! Anyway, I have plenty of space to expand my garden and am looking to grow more stuff. What would you experts recommend a newbie to grow indoors, preferably that I can harvest in the next three months (fingers crossed) before the lockdown ends? My weed garden faces west if that helps.
Ps, if you're GYO, you can check out the Garden Journal Challenge hosted by
