Whampoa View Community Garden

29/06/2012

Finally completed erecting the fence!

Planted Axonopus a.k.a. "Carpetgrass" around the path way.

Some of the garden balsams did not make it...

Whampoa View Community Garden

11/06/2012

Found these grasshoppers doing their thing on the Ba-Long-Long tree. 



























Replanted these garden balsams.

Whampoa View Community Garden

07/06/2012

Marked out the planting area with sand and planted some periwrinkle in the middle of the star.

The view from the 11th floor.

Whampoa View Community Garden

04/06/2012

 

Germinated Catharanthus roseus a.k.a. "Periwrinkle" seeds.

 

Took stem cuttings of Periwrinkle and Portulaca flowers too.

Whampoa View Community Garden

01/06/2012

Installed the front gate.

Whampoa View Community Garden

30/05/2012

 

Marked out the circle and dug the soil to loosen up the clay soil. Placed paving slabs for walking. 

Did my very first Air-Layering on the Spondias dulcis a.k.a "Bua-Long-Long" Tree. Wonder if it will grow roots...

Whampoa View Community Garden

22/05/2012

Out of wood to continue with the fence, so, it is back to digging and amending soil.

 

Whampoa View Community Garden

18/05/2012

Bought more wood to cover the front of garden and created an opening for the gate to the garden.

Here is a view from another angle.

Whampoa View Community Garden

16/05/2012

Completed one corner of the garden with the available materials on hand.

Whampoa View Community Garden

14/06/2012

 

The horizontal poles were joined and sawed to length.

Each vertical pieces were individually sawed, painted and screwed into position.

 

A level ruler was used to keep the pieces level.

 

Whampoa View Community Garden

13/05/2012

 

Erected the support poles today

Groves were cut to install the horizontal poles. 

 

Poles were buried and cemented.

Whampoa View Community Garden

12/05/2012

Started work on the fencing.

The position of the supporting poles for the fence were marked and the bricks were removed to prepare for erecting the poles.

Whampoa View Community Garden

30/04/2012

Inside the fencing, I also unearthed the lemon tree that was full of thorns. Got myself cut in many places, what a dangerous tree to plant if left to grow wild...


Removed almost all of the wild "oriental herbs' and the mango tree together with its roots at the far right of the garden.

Started to dig about 1 foot into the ground. In the trench, I added organic matter and mixed well with the clay soil and cover with more soil.

The soil is mainly clay and harden off after several years. It is a tough job digging, but with the help of a backhoe or common known as a "changkol".

Whampoa View Community Garden

22/04/2012


























Today, I completed dismantling the shelter behind the garden. 

After

Before

Before

The garden looks brighter now. Here are the before and after photos of the garden after removing the shelter.

Let's take a look at what is being fenced up now.

In the foreground are garden balsam (Impatiens balsamina) and a lime plant. There is another citrus plant in the center and pumpkin plants further back. Right to the back are pandan seedlings (Pandanus amaryllifolius).

 A closer look behind...

There is a kind of legume plant growing at the bottom corner. Here we can see the young tomato seedlings behind the citrus plant.

Whampoa View Community Garden

Whampoa View Community Garden

I finally got to join a local community garden. It is located just in front of 85 Whampoa Drive. This garden is maintain by 4 elderly resident of the same block, and belongs to Whampoa View Residences Committee.

This is how it looks like. There is a Spondias dulcis, ambarella (aka Ba-long-long or Amokana) tree, a Lemon tree, young tomato seedlings, pumpkin seedlings, and just behind the green screen netting are garden balsam flowers.

On the other side, we have many kinds of "medical herbs" growing like wild grasses.
There were planted by another elderly whom is now not taking care of the plants and left it to grow wild.

To the back of the garden is a shelter made from bamboo poles. Passion fruit is planted to climb up the poles to create the shelter. The structure is slanted backwards as it is heavy and covered with dead leaves and branches from surrounding trees. These in turn have attracted pest and fungus to grow there too. As seen here, under the shelter is also dark and gloomy, even the grasses are not growing underneath it.



In the picture on the right, I had removed a portion of the shelter at the back.

I have taken note that this garden enjoys between 5 to 6 hours of bright sun-light from between 9am to 3pm daily. After which, the block of apartments seen here will block the sun completely, and becomes a well shaded area.

The type of soil in the garden is basically
clay. The surrounding turf's soil has poor drainage and floods during heavy rain pour. It takes about 2 to 3 days for the water to sink downwards.

Therefore, my initial plan is to take down the shelter and make the place livelier. After that, I will dig and loosen up the soil, and add organic matter to break up the clay and improve the soil web structure. I have chosen to used coffee ground and tea ground from a coffee shop as a source for composting. Coffee and tea grounds are rich in nitrogen and compost faster due to their fine mass and large surface area for microbial activities. An uncle had also recommended using bean sprout seed shells for composting.

While the compost is composting, approximately 3 months for compost to be ready, I will take down the existing fence and put up a new one. My idea is to peg pipe poles into the ground surrounding the garden and run wire mesh around using those pipes as support.
Then, to come up with a garden layout plan and research on the types of plants that will grow well together and add colour to the garden. Probably will need help on this area as I am poor in design work.

That's all for the moment. Will update as and when....

Arrival of new seeds

Received our vegetable and flower seeds from Japan. 

Soil and Fertilizers

Over the years that I had been gardening, I used mainly chemical fertilizers for my plants. The plants started of well with new compost and soil. As I fertilized and planted new plants into the pots, the plants started to display malnutrition in their growth. Somehow, their leaves will turn yellow and their growth was not as healthy as plants before them. Therefore, I added other chemical fertilizers thinking that it will balance the nutrients to the plants. The plants did improve initially, but as time when by, they started to show symptoms of weak growth once again and, began to attract pest too.

After a while, I decided to change the soil each time I transplanted or propagated new plants. The plants were now happy to be in their new environment. They were healthier, produced lush growth and had little or no pest problems. However, changing and replacing the soil every time just did not seem right.

I noticed that farmers plant their crops in the same soil over and over again, producing good crops for our table. Further to this, in the natural forest, the cycle of life repeats itself without ever getting their soil changed, nor humans to cast chemical fertilizer. Thus, these prompted me to investigate and find out more about soil and fertilizers.

Investigation on the subject led me to natural organic farming techniques, composting and beneficial microorganisms. The previous two posts were about composting, and I will discuss more about my findings in my coming posts.

Bokashi Composting

Homemade Bokashi Wheat Bran

What is Bokashi Composting?

Bokashi is a convenient way to ferment food waste in your kitchen for composting.

Microorganisms anaerobically (without air) ferment the waste and breaks the organic matter down. This helps to compost the organic matter faster when buried in the ground. Typically, the whole process from food waste to compost takes about 1 to 2 months. The fermentation takes place in an enclosed system, so insects and smell does not post a worry.
The finished fermented organic matter will have a sweet, sour odor. Sometimes white mold may coat the surface. The fermentation process will produce a rich nutrient juice that must be extracted to prevent the organic matter becoming petrified. This juice can be diluted with water and watered directly to your plants.

Therefore, there are no waste in Bokashi composting.

 

Composting

I have been gardening with commercially purchased compost for almost 10 years. Though it is relatively easy to buy compost from nurseries here in Singapore, I have read about how we can make compost out of our kitchen scraps and decided to give it a try. As I am living in a high rise apartment, my only option was to use a bucket as a compost bin. My first concern was the foul smell it might produce and cause unhappy neighbours. According to references, if done correctly, it should not produce that fearful odour. Hence, I went on with the project.


I took a plastic bucket and punched a couple of holes around the sides so that the materials could breath. Place aluminum foil to block out light so the micro organisms could do their work.

Following that, I tore up newspaper and waste paper as a carbon source and place them at the bottom of the bucket. Next, I when around the kitchen to hunt for kitchen scraps. Found some old potatoes, carrots and cucumbers that were in the fridge, cut them up and dump them into the bucket. As the days when by, I kept adding waste paper, tissue, newspaper and kitchen scraps.

After a week, no foul smell, just a pungent smell that is quite pleasant actually.

Added more materials in there and almost another week when by.

I was not prepared for the surprise when it came the time to put the next batch of scraps in the bucket. When I opened the lid, the surprise hit my nose first and shot an instant signal to my brains! As a result of adding more greens than carbon, and not having holes at the bottom of the bucket, the materials at the bottom had putrefied. Liquids were coming out of the holes near the bottom of the bucket too, that could only mean juices had been stagnant at the bottom for too long. That was where it struck me, drastic measures of carbon was needed to soak up all those juices to balance the carbon and nitrogen ratio.

Bought 2 packs of wood shavings and poured tons of it in the bucket, at the same time, working it to the bottom to soak up the juice. I then added about another inch of shavings on top of the putrefied material and close the lid.

After a few days, juices were still coming out of the holes, but it did not smell as bad as before. I must be doing something right, therefore, more shavings were added and mixed well into the compost. I went on to spray in home cultured lactose bacillus bacteria to help breakdown the material faster.

I think the microbes were happy after the improvements to their home, as the heap started to heat up, and when I turned the compost to aerate it, fumes starts to fill the empty spaces as I dug. After another month or so, it looks and smells like compost.

Some photos of my plants. Past and Present

Balsam Flowers

French Marigolds

Portulaca Grandiflora 

More Portulaca Grandiflora

Lady Finger (aka Okura)

Home-made green house

Made this green house out of bamboo poles and wraps.
Helps to keep rain and pest out.
It can be very warm inside, like a sauna.

Nutrient reservoir

The reservoir contains a pump connected to a timer that pumps nutrient solution into the hydroponic system 

Closer look inside

Roots growing down towards the solution

Pumpkin and Tomato growing in the hydroponic system

Unfortunately, I was unable to continue the project as I had to relocate...

Canna

Gloxinia

Gloxinia flowers

More Gloxinia flowers

Petunia flowers

Germinating honeydew seeds

Seed germination

Purple and Pink Petunia.

Honeydew

Harvested the honeydew and ate it.

Gladiolus (aka sword lily)

These Gladiolus were planted using bulbs. The compost was too wet and they rotted...