Me and My Plants

I have been on indefinite hiatus since October 2019. I’ve attempted to maintain a blog as a writing exercise. Maybe out of fear that I’ll forget how to do it if I stop for too long. But these last two years have gradually changed that perception. I’ve been writing monthly articles/reviews for Project Vanity, and I also write for a bi-annual wedding magazine. If it’s just about practice, then I’m all good.

The reality is that my priorities have started to shift as well. I wanted to focus on different career opportunities. I’ve also been dealing with some frustrations in my life, career path, and relationship. And in that internal chaos, I accidentally rediscovered my love for plants.

3rd attempt at Kale; birds kept pecking

Dragon Fruit Patrolling

Five days ago, I finally made the big move to dig a hole in the ground outside my house for the sole purpose of moving my dragon fruit stem to healthier soil. It looked like this:

Roots, baby!

On Sunday afternoon as I was doing my usual inspection of my garden, I noticed this:

Spot the difference

Okay, let me help you out by zooming in.

Baby Fruit!

There were two baby fruits already growing! The other one was much smaller, so I had a hard time getting a clear shot. Anyhoo, I’m so relieved to see this development, especially after being told that it would take at least eight months to see fruit. *Joy!*

Happy Monday, everyone. 🙂

Let Them Grow: A Plant Update

I can now heave a sigh of relief—for most of my plants, anyway. The strong winds and rain have already started, and my plants are holding up fairly well. Don’t want to speak too soon, though. I’m still learning my way around the garden in this weather.

Baby Chilies!

The highlight of my plant collection this month is the growth of a second batch of chilies. This means a lot to me as I was completely unsure whether the plant could produce a succeeding batch. It didn’t for a while because, as it turns out, I was using a pot that was way too small to let the roots branch out properly. Flowers kept blossoming, but would die without any peppers growing in their place. Since then, the pot situation has been corrected and I’m seeing utterly pleasing results, except for a run-in with aphids last week.

Mystery Plant

These tiny things hopefully grow up to produce pods and pods of okra. I got the seeds from a friend visiting from the provinces. From the type of plants I’ve got growing, I’m thinking of using what I have to create a pot of gumbo. Haha. I pray it happens in the next few months.

Chocolate Soldier

Echeveria

Is it normal for small, non-succulent plants to grow alongside my succulents? It makes me nervous. Perhaps I’ve been overwatering? Anyway, that’s the big update this week. 🙂

After The Rain

It is well and truly storm season once more in the Philippines, which means it’s a brand new learning curve for the novice plant-enthusiast. The watering and sunlight techniques that served me so well in the summer are practically useless now. Time to change tack.

After that nasty Typhoon Rammasun (Glenda, not the good witch, to the locals), this is the state my humble plant collection is in:

They seem to be doing okay

The chili plant, in particular, has plenty of white flowers

The blooms on my mini roses wilted though

I’ve had to move the more water-hungry plants outside because I went away on a weekend and it was a water-saving option to just let the rain take care of their sustenance. Much to my dismay, my gardenia buds just fell off. Again. Why?!

Bonus: Mushrooms have grown ! Not sure if that’s a bad thing…

This happened

I’m moving the mini roses back to the window box to shield it from the excessive rainfall. Same goes for my poor gardenias.

A Dragon of a Plant

I’ve had an insane weekend, and I think I’ve found my makeup shopping buddy! (Hi themigraineparty! 🙂 ) I’ll get into detail about that later, but today I’d like to share another photo from my garden collection.

Dragon Fruit!

This is the dragon fruit (some call it “pitaya”). Mine is of the Costa Rican red-fruited variety. Ebi and I were doing the usual plant shopping when we came across this li’l baby and its siblings. The conversation between us went something like this:

Me: Dragon fruit!!!
Ebi: Ohmygosh!
Me: Let’s buy this without over-thinking it.
Ebi: Okay!
Me: But where should I put—?
Ebi: You’re over-thinking it!!!

And so we just went for it, ball to the wall. Hopefully it’ll develop roots soon. I’ve watched plenty of YouTube videos, and it should take about 8 months to see results. That’s waaay better than what we were initially told by the vendor, which was to wait 10 years to see fruit. What patience that would require!