Today I'm going to show you two things I've done lately, two different things to help my apartment flowers. Both are in testing phase as I've never done such thing, but I believe it's never too late and if it has results, then I can continue to apply them, to make my flowers happier.
Orchid Care
Some orchid owners say orchids are very sensitive flowers and that these exotic miracles are hard to care for. I've seen people saying they can't save any orchids as all the orchids they get, die.
My personal experience is very different from that described above. I only have one, the one on the left, got it in 2016 and it's still with me. It wasn't always easy as there were two years in which the buds dried and fell off before opening, but the flower is still healthy and very much alive.
The other orchid you see in the wooden crate is also orchid I've been told, but have never seen it flowering. I got it sometimes during last winter and was told it opens during autumn, so we shell see.
This is my orchid I got in 2016. At first glance it looks healthy and it is indeed healthy, but look at this.
The impurity you see on the leaf is called dust 😛 and no matter where you keep your flowers, there will always be dust on them.
The other one doesn't look any different.
This leaf was in this state, when I got the flower, so it hasn't happened under my care. I'm expecting to dry off one day (will not be very soon) so I can take it off.
The good news is, the flower looks healthy as a new leaf is growing.
Up until now, I used to clean the leaves with plain water and was ok as the orchids are healthy. However, a couple of weeks ago, a video came my way, about how to care for orchids, that showed me another way.
This video says there's a more efficient way to clean the leaves.
All you need is 70ml water, mixed with 30ml milk. Apparently, proteins prevent the attack of fungi. At this stage I'm trusting the video as have no proof to say otherwise.
So this is the water - milk mix ready to be used and next to the bowl there are two make-up removal pads that you will need.
Looks at the make-up pad after cleaning the first orchid. Shocking, isn't it? Imagine that poor leaf struggling breading while all the pores have been covered by dust.
This is the second one, looks even more terrible. So after seeing the pads, I decided to take another pad and clean them both once again.
Look at the leaf after. It looks amazing. It's shiny and healthy. I'm going to monitor the leaves and see how it goes. Then I suppose I'm going to repeat the cleaning after a few months.
Homemade Organic Fertilizer
The other thing I'd like to talk about today is the organic fertilizer I've made.
The whole thing started when I came home from the farmers market and saw how much green I have to throw away. When I'm at my dad's, this goes into the compost bin but here I don't have a compost bin, so everything goes into the garbage. It is a waste but there's no better option at the moment as we don't have an organic waste bin.
This got me thinking and I remembered I saw once a video, that showed how to make liquid fertilizer using organic greens. It looked like an easy process and totally doable as all you had to do is put the greens in a big container, leave it till it transforms into liquid, filter the liquid, add some water and was ready to use. The problem is I can't do that on my balcony as it would smell.
So I thought why mot use the raw green directly on the flowers. So I put the green in the blender, added water and pushed the button.
And I got this green liquid, which looks awful, but it's full of nutrients. The next step was to spread this liquid on the flowers I have in the stairway, the cover with soil. Mother nature is going to take care of the rest as this is going to be decomposed in time.
I was thinking if it doesn't hurt, it may as well can help and I know it will. This is what happens year by year with the leaves that fall during autumn, so why would not work at home? Especially when I did the first step, by grinding the leaves, to make the process easier.
It will need some time to decompose, but it's going to happen. I think I'm going to repeat the process after a month or two.
So this is it for today, see you at my next gardening adventure :)
