CAT'S WHISKERS IN FULL BLOOM!

This is the view in my backyard these days.  All my Cat's Whiskers are in full bloom!  Look at all the beautiful white flowers.  If  I'm not mistaken, the picture shows about 4-5 potted Cat's Whiskers but it looks a lot more, right? That's because I've been pruning mercilessly in the past months.  As a result, they've all branched out and have bloomed profusely.  This has got to be one of the best herbs in terms of ease of care.    To propagate Cat's Whiskers, just root a stem cutting in water.  I admit, in my experience the rooting percentage is a bit low (around 40% or so).  However,  they grow very fast and it's very easy to get new stem cuttings.  If you make it root though, it's arguably the easiest herb to take care of.  Just make sure you give it lots of water and that's it.   If anyone wants Cat's Whiskers, I'm selling these too (I have too much of them). 

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Herb Cuttings Smell Bad

Have you ever tried rooting herbs in a glass of water? I've tried it with a good number of herbs: sweet basil, cinnamon basil, Thai basil, Swiss mint, chocolate mint, Japanese mint, lemon mint, tarragon, rosemary, stevia, lavender, cat's whiskers and some others.

In some cases, it would work. When it does work, I would usually see roots within a week. I don't usually remove a lot of the leaves (you'd usually read something like retain only the top four leaves) so the cuttings generally wilt for a few days without perking up.

If it's been a couple of days and the leaves look fresh, those cuttings will probably root.

In some cases, the leaves start to look wilted or just dry. Chances are, that will not root.

Vermicomposting and Herb Gardening in Manila: Updates

It's been a busy week in the garden but not everything has been positive.  The Lavender that I've been tending to for months has been looking really good.  The plant size to soil ratio has increased.  From what I read, that's a good thing.  Why?  Well Lavender likes it dry.  In fact, repotting the plant can be counter productive because the bigger pot will have more soil and therefore a higher tendency to be wet.  In fact, I think that's why my Lavender got sick in the first place.  I put it in a big pot.  Now, I really just water it when the leaves are drooping.  Same thing with my Rosemary.

Sorry, I don't have out-of-focus pictures today.  My camera phone's acting up.  I'll have it fixed in a week or two.  Can you believe it though?  It costs P500 to get my keypad fixed in Circle C.  And that was just two months ago I think. 

My Peppermints are all dying!  It's amazing in an awful kind of way because I have about three different locations and they're all suffering.  There's some sort of rust I can't figure out.  Plus, the dang caterpillars love mint leaves.  I also have spiders all over and they're webbing all over my herbs.

Even my Cinnamon Basil has been struggling as of late.  In fact, in the backyard, they're almost devoid of leaves.  Man, insects must really enjoy mints and basil.  In contrast, my Cat's Whiskers have been flourishing in the damp soil in the backyard.  I think caterpillars don't find the leaves tasty.

As for my 5-gallon indoor container vermicompost experiment, things look positive.  The content level has really gone down by about half.  And since I introduced some mushrooms from my other bin about a week ago, mushrooms have sprouted all over the bin.  Great, huh? They'll help my few worms there decompose the bin contents.  In fact, I'm now thinking they can have the job done in 3 months.

I also gathered some vermicompost from my Worm Bin 1 over the weekend.  I got one and a half venti-cups worth of vermicompost which I spread all over my garden (especially to the sick ones).  Hopefully, things will improve with my sick plants.  I also observed from Worm Bin 1 that the worms are now eating faster.  I think the worms have both matured and multiplied since a few months ago.  In fact, I can feed them about a half cup of leaves and banana peels every three or four days.  Yes, that's a major improvement.  In fact, I think I can gather vermicompost over the weekend again (yeah, it's just an excuse to play with my worms).

As for Worm Bin 2a, I've received an inquiry from Naga.  I just realized I don't know how to ship African Nightcrawlers from Manila to other locations in the Philippines.  I asked Air 21.  They're not into shipping live cargo.  I wonder if LBC will do it.  Hmmmm...In any case, I'm really excited that someone wants to buy it, not so much because I'll earn something, but because it gives me an excuse to create another new bin!  In fact, whenever I'm in Landmark, I get captivated by the different plastic containers and I wonder which one will be my next worm bin project.

Well this is a bit long already. Hopefully, my upcoming updates will come with out-of-focus pictures again.

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Herb Trading

Did you ever think there was a market for herb bartering?  Until a couple of weeks ago, I didn't know.  As I've often talked about, my Cinnamon Basil plants are thriving in my garden.  From one original pot, I now have about 40-50 (including the ones I've given away).  Is that amazing or what?  Not wanting too much of a good thing, I posted an offer to swap herbs in a local gardening mailing list.  For my cinnamon, I'd want Rosemary, Lavender, Dill, Sage, and some others.  Amazingly enough, I received two responses within the week.  The first one mailed me Rosemary seeds (and Sage I think...I'll look at her pack again).  She didn't even ask for anything in return. But since my Cinnamon Basil plants are flowering, I figure I'll give her a couple of seed pods (if I ever find out how to harvest the seeds). 

The other one traded Dill and some type of Oregano for six cinnamon basil plants.  In fact, I even threw in about a dozen rooted cuttings (not planted yet).  I was running out of pots anyway.   If you look at the Dill above, you'll see that it's really big already.  I haven't figured out how to use it, but my initial readings tell me it's good with butter.  The amazing thing about Dill that I've observed is that t really follows the sun.  Like, it will bend towards the sun within a day.

As for the Oregano, well it smells like my Cuban Oregano, but the leaves are a little different.  They're outlined in white.  The other one on the very left, I'm not even sure what that is.  Maybe it's an Oregano too.   I'll do my research in the coming weeks.

In the meanwhile, if anyone else wants to trade, buzz me.  I still have lots of Cinnamon Basil and Cat's Whiskers.

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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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Cat's Whiskers Care and Propagation

I have to admit.  I haven't been giving my Cat's Whisker plants any love.  What can I say?  It's not as fragrant as mint or basil.  It's not even a relatively well known herb.  In fact, before I got one, I didn't know it existed.  But guess what?  It's been thriving in my garden so it shot up several notches up in my favorites list.  It also has beautiful flowers.    My own Cat's Whiskers have not flowered yet, but the pictures give me something to look forward to.

I think I understand why my Cat's Whiskers are thriving when a lot of my other herbs have been unhealthy and dying lately.  Cat's Whiskers require heavy watering and needs the soil to be always moist (as against letting the soil dry out in between watering). That's exactly what the rainy season is providing: perpetual wetness.   For feeding purposes, it requires lots of compost / organic material in the soil and medium fertilization.  It needs full sun but will survive just fine in partial shade. 

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RIP: Petunia, Welcome Tarragon & Cat's Whiskers

Imagine that.  My once lush purple Petunia died. Unbelievable, right?  I don't know why.  Could it be the extreme heat of summer?  It's supposed to like lots of direct sunlight.  Is it because I tilled the soil?  I don't know!  But now it's gone.  I seem to be on a killing spree of flowering plants.  I killed my Aster after one week. I killed Jean's Gerbera after one week.  I killed my recently divided mums (it's a good thing I successfully propagated some cuttings). I just wish I knew why.

Oh well.