Healthy Gotu Kola (Finally)

I haven't had a lot of success growing Gotu Kola.  It's one of the first herbs I bought (in fact I bought it twice) and yet I haven't propagated it all over the garden.  For a while, the second batch that I bought started spreading.  So I was hopeful and figured that maybe the first pot I bought was just a lemon seedling (in a matter of speaking).  Check out the pictures from the older post and compare.  This is what is left of my batch 2 Gotu Kola.  

But here's some good news. I moved a lot of my pots to a sunnier location and it looks like they're thriving.  In the shady backyard, everything seemed to be dying.  I figured I'd try to move some Gotu Kola.  I cut up part of the plant (the runner) and planted it in potting soil and moved it to the sunnier location.  About two weeks later, here's what the plant looks like. Is it just me or are the stems actually fat?  OMG I think I've done it.   All that reading about Gotu Kola needing a swamp like environment is useless.  I tried flooding it and it died! It's like any other herb.  It needs healthy, well draining soil and lots of sun.  Well, check back in two weeks and let's see if this plant continues to thrive.

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Presenting: My Worms

My prior post on vermicomposting was somewhat incomplete.  Naturally I had to show you pictures of the worms.  Well they're not exactly playing on the surface so I raked some contents from the bottom to the top.  And this is what I got.  You may have to zoom the pictures a little to see my little pets.  If you look around the picture too, you'll see that there's a noticeable portion that looks like soil already.  At least I know my worms are feeding well.  More importantly, they're pooping well!  Nonetheless, I promise not to feed them for the next two weeks to see if my bin will look a lot more processed then.  Sigh...but it's so much fun feeding them!  I'm glad  though Jean is very supportive of my worm fascination.

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Vermicomposting: My New Fascination

It was bound to happen.  Any true blue gardener would attempt to compost at one time or another.  This is my story.

One quiet Sunday afternoon about two months ago, I took Jean on a drive to Concepcion, Marikina.  It was an hour-long drive to some faraway place.  Why?  Well about a week before, I stumbled upon an ad of a guy selling African Nightcrawlers.  Apparently, this type of worms is used for composting.  I was amazed. These worms eat organic garbage and their castings (poop) make for rich fertilizer called vermicompost.  I was hooked on the concept. After all, I am the same guy that saves rainwater to flush the toilet and uses old bottles as flower pots.  The recycling angle tickled me.

So I happily bought 250 grams worth of African Nightcrawlers for P250. Yes, they are expensive. For lack of a container to transport them in, we used the Starbucks grande cup that I just used.  Grande worms!

Over the past few months, I have been attempting to compost in a large pot, but it was just happening so slowly.  Nonetheless, that was my source of somewhat decayed organic material.  Where does that come in?

Well, to create a good environment for the worms, you need bedding made up of shredded wet newspaper and some semi-composted material.  So I put in the newspaper in the bin and added the contents from the pot I talked about.  Then I put in the worms.  

Two months and regular inputs later, here's how my bin looks like.  Still lots of green material, right?  Makes me scratch my head sometimes.  Then again I have been regularly putting in fresh stuff.  I guess for me to really observe the conversion of organic material to worm castings, I have to stop feeding the worms.  Sigh.  But it's so much fun.  Oh well.  I will try to leave this bin alone (no feeding) for about two weeks.  Let's see what it looks like then.

Next time, I'll talk about worm bin # 2.

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Three Basil Plants in a Row - Update

A couple of months ago, I posted about my three basil plants in a row (sweet basil, cinnamon basil and Thai basil).  Well, these plants have already matured and I've taken several cuttings from them.  One of my favorites is what I call the triple basil pot.  In this picture, I've combined the three cuttings in one pot.  And look how lush it has become after a few months.  So how do you tell which is which?  Start at the bottom of the picture.  The ones with the relatively crumpled leaves is Sweet Basil.  Don't ask me why but they tend to be more crumpled in appearance.  On the left side is the Thai basil; on the right is the Cinnamon Basil.   Here's the coolest thing though.  So it looks like they've outgrown the pot, right?  Indeed they have.  When I moved this pot a couple of days ago, I found that roots have already penetrated the bottom holes.  The plants have actually rooted to the ground!  Cool huh?  I guess that means the plants will survive even if I get sick for another week and fail to water them since they'll be getting moisture from the ground too.

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Japanese Mint Update

Check out this past post about my Japanese Mint.  That post basically showed how a mint can thoroughly outgrow its small pot.  Today, I'll show you a similar plant (Japanese Mint as well) recently exploded in a bigger pot too.  Check it out.  Remember, this came from one of those baby pots.   Can you see the size difference?  In fact the second picture's already a month old.  It looks a lot wilder now. 

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Cat's Whiskers Blooming

There a lot of new things in my garden.  Last week and a half, I've been out of commission because I got hit with the Dengue flu.  It was awful of course.  My temperature kept hovering in the 39 range and for most part I was just bed ridden.  I did lose a couple of pounds though, so it wasn't a complete loss.

Anyway, since I was in the hospital and everyone in the house was a little paranoid about mosquitoes in the yard, a lot of my plants died due to lack of water.  Among them, the hydrangea cutting I've been nurturing for months.  But this morning, there was also a happy surprise.  One of my cat's whiskers finally bloomed.  And it's as pretty as the pictures I've seen before.   Isn't that cool?  I suspect my other cat's whiskers are about to bloom too.   I haven't been pruning them and now they're big ass plants.  Now this is a nice herb to have isn't it?  Good for coughs too I hear.

Next time I'll talk about my worms!

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