Weekend gardener week06

1 and a half months into gardening... I think the lettuce are supposed to be harvestable in 2 months' time. However, I do not see a lot of progress in the garden at the back... the lettuce are still too small, and so are the broccoli. The squash, though, is coming along rather nicely. I am guessing the plot of land is not suitable for lettuce or broccoli... I will try root crops next time. Meanwhile I will see how this goes for the next couple of weeks.

But guess what... the lettuce I planted on the pot in front of the house is growing rather well! Must be the location and the soil type. Forgot to take a photo though... perhaps next week.

***

I thought winter is in the horizon, and it's a time for flora and fauna to hibernate. But guess what... our garden is still springing up surprises for us!

This bush is located in front of our house. It looks like grass actually, with the ends curling up and turning white and making it look like it got burnt. But I was amazed when a couple of days ago we found it in full bloom! And its flowers are strikingly beautiful!
It must be one of those sun-worshipping flowers because come nighttime, it closes up to call it a night.
Here are some more flowers that have started blooming around the house.


Amazing, isn't it?


Technorati tags: gardening

Celebrate Earth Hour today

Switch off your lights at 8:30 tonight! Visit Earth Hour to learn more.

Like Mommy, like son

Technorati tags: gaming

Weekend gardener week05

The weather can drastically change here in New Zealand. We are now having a rather cold, overcast sky with occasional showers but the forecast said the weather will turn for the better later in the afternoon. Yesterday morning was a bright, sunshiny day though. And it was at that time when I though of cutting the grass around the house. We don't exactly have a lawn back in the Philippines so the motorized lawnmower baffled me. How do you make it work? I had to catch our Groundskeeper at work to teach me how to operate the lawnmower. But still I was not able to make it run. :-(

Good thing our landlord had a manual lawnmower which he gladly brought over to lend us. At the same time, he taught me how to operate the motorized lawnmower too. Aren't we lucky tenants?

I prefer the manual type mower though. And we have a small lawn anyway (along with the patch at the back) so it's relatively easy. I can also use the exercise. Jo-Lo tried his hand with it too.

Back to the garden plot... as you can see below, there's lots of green now! Unfortunately, they're not the veggies I planted. It's the local greenery trying to take over. I have let them occupy much of the space, save for the strip where the broccoli and lettuce are growing.

At the foreground is the broccoli, at the background is the lettuce. Slowly but surely growing.
This is the other patch. I planted some lettuce and broccoli here too. There are also a good number of tomato seeds in this area, though I have not seen any trace of them yet.
The squash, on the other hand, is growing rather well!
The veggies in front of the house are actually growing better than expected. Must be the soil.
And here's the tomatoes in the sun room. Still growing profusely! I can't wait to see flowers!

Technorati tags: gardening

March 28 | Earth Hour | 8:30PM

Visit Earth Hour for more information on how you can participate!
Technorati tags: advocacy

Weekend gardener week04

Whoa... time certainly flies when you're having fun.

This is the fourth weekend of my humble garden. While the lettuce and broccoli have grown since, they are still a bit small to consider it to be a major development.
The squash, though, is growing rather well!
Incidentally, I also planted some of the seeds on two large containers located in front of the house. These are growing rather better than those at the back of the house!
And this the potato and garlic pot inside the sun room. Growing rather well!
I have actually planted some tomato seeds into a smaller pot and some lettuce into another; these now join the basil at the kitchen counter. I also planted new tomato seeds at the recently-excavated plot at the back. Hope these grow too inspite of the coming winter.

Technorati tags: gardening

Oh my Goddess!

When you commute to work, you need to creative to spend in spending your time in the bus because staring at the scenery passing by can become repetitive over time. I like reading, so borrowing books from the Library to while away the time is second nature. At first, I had this ambitious plan to learn something that will be helpful in my job. Like reading up and training myself on CSS and more recently, Ruby on Rails, for example. However, I found a huge drawback from this wonderful plan. Only minutes into a book and I already find the words swimming aimlessly away, and when I force myself to concentrate on my reading, I become dizzy and worse, I sometimes get a slight headache.

This is not the case with comic books. Time flies when I read comic books! And I have read quite a lot, especially that of the X-Men. But one time I was able to borrow Manga (Japanese graphic novel). Yes! There's manga in the library!

I have Oh my Goddess as anime back in the Philippines so I am familiar with the story, but reading it in the manga version made me realize once more how much I missed watching anime. I enjoyed a couple of hours reading this manga (which has been translated to English). It's basically about Keiichi, a teenage guy who usually gets bossed around by his dorm mates into doing tasks for him, such as answering the phone and taking messages while they are away. One day, he accidentally dials the Goddess Helpline, making the Goddess Belldandy appear before him to grant him one wish as instructed her by the system. Since he doesn't have a girlfriend (and he thought it was a prank), he wished that Belldandy will be with him forever.

His wish came true.

The story then revolves around their adventures together as Belldandy becomes popular at school, their schoolmates wondering what she sees in Keiichi, and Belldandy's sisters visiting them (and Keiichi's sister staying at their place too!) Pretty hilarious stuff.

But somehow, I enjoyed the anime version more.

Technorati tags: comic book

Weekend gardener week03

So far the seedlings are doing fine, although since this is already the third week I was thinking that they would have been a bit bigger!

This was how the plot looked like by the middle of the week. The weeds are all over the place! They grow at a much faster rate than the veggies, and are taking command of real estate!





Last Friday I started weeding out, which is a simple task really because they are still starting out and have not taken root yet so I would just pull them out and off they go, leaves, stems, roots, and all.

The left side looks clearer now than the right side. The left actually receives more sunlight hence the soil looks a bit dry.

It looks like there really isn't much growing there....





... but upon closer inspection the broccoli are noticeably starting to grow.











What is amazing here is a new growth that was not there before. Just as I noticed that the celery stalk I planted has decided on giving up on life (but I still hope it will try to bounce back), these huge leaves suddenly appeared from nowhere. Last Sunday they weren't there, then come Monday afternoon, there they were!









This was taken only few moments ago. As you can see, it has grown considerably. I believe these are the kalabasa (pumpkin) seeds that we extracted when we had some for dinner. I simply dug a small hole and planted the seeds in there. I was delighted to see these suddenly spring to life. And they look eager to grow too!









Technorati tags: gardening

The garden by the house

I am quite happy with our new home because there's a lot of space outside the house. There is a lawn in front, and one side has a small area where we can plant and this extends to the back of the house.

This is the side access. The previous owners must have planted these. They are currently in full bloom.
I don't know the names of these flowers but they all give color to the surroundings.





Technorati tags: gardening

Weekend gardener week02

Last weekend, I have dug up the adjacent lot to make way for the many lettuce seedlings that have started to sprout. I have transferred some of them - along with some broccoli - by mid-week, and moved the batch in the sun room awhile ago.
My son Jo-Lo helps in watering the plants.
The seedlings at the left are broccoli. I think most of the green things sprouting there are weeds, though, but I need to make them grow a bit bigger to be sure. Not sure if I planted some of the lettuce seeds there (there was a lot in the packet!). The broccoli seedlings though looked very distinct with dark green coloration and round leaves.

At the right is the lettuce. They made a nice little row!
Even the lettuce in the pot are growing rather nicely. They have formed another line here.
Inside the sun room, these seeds sprouted but I did not know what they are. However, they have started growing other distinct leaves which look like they're from the tomato seeds! Back in the Philippines, you can immediately tell that it is a tomato plant based on the leaves and the smell. This variety does not have a smell at all, and it started with these narrow, elongated leaves.

In the middle are some onions which I cannot bear to chop when I saw them growing already in our cupboard. I think they're quite happy to continue growing.

Technorati tags: Baguio