EMPOWERING THE BALCONY

I have two balconies in my house, front balcony on the south side and east balcony.
You all know that I only have a small space remains for gardening.
So... after house reconstruction on 2012, I use all space optimally.
Of course my balconies.

This is my east balcony time by time

March 2013

May 2013

June 2013

August 2013

November 2013

 

Now, I make my east balcony more productive.
I put some veggies pots on this space.
This space is full of sun shine in the morning.
So my veggies will grow better here (I hope). 
I still put some ornamental plants here. 
More colorful...

Today....

This is my front (south) balcony.
At the first time, I made my balcony as a 'rose garden', but as a part shady area this space is not favorable for my roses.
Then I put four pots of little fruit trees here.
There are acid orange, acerola, sweet tamarind and dewandaru.
I think this place is better for my fruit trees than my roses.

December 2012

A row of roses

March 2013

Acid orange

July 2013

Acid orange

August 2013

Dewandaru

 
 November 2013

Sweet tamarind

December 2013

Acerola

So... I can enjoy the 'edible beauty'.
How about your balcony ?

TERRACE GARDEN UPDATE FEBRUARY 2014

This is the current condition of my terrace garden.
This month we have an extreme weather; dry, hot, windy, stormy, rain, and wet changes so fast.

Today

I also had volcanic ash falls after the volcano eruption.
It make my terrace garden looks so poor.
After the ash fell we had downpour a long the week.
And it refreshed my garden.

West rack

Bayam belang (Amaranthus tricolor) on the west rack: two weeks ago

Bayam belang on the west rack: Today

Okra seedling

Lettuce and green mustard on the west rack : two weeks ago

Now...

Red lettuce, bayam belang, garlic chives and green onion : Today

Middle row : green mustard, chilli pepper, and packcoy (two weeks ago)

Middle row : today...

East side

Zucchini, edamame, green mustard and lettuce on the north rack

Cauliflower row on the north rack

A little curd

Additional row on the west side of drying area

South rack : green mustards, spinach, kailan, broccoli, lettuces and garlic chives

WHITE DOVE ORCHID : FIRST!

Last Monday, February 24, my White Dove Orchids were blooming.
That was the first blossom in this year.

The extreme weather during the early of February stimulated the blossom.
In the nature, this orchid only blooms after we have extreme weather for several days. 

This orchid only blooms in a day.
White dove orchids in every  place on the same weather will bloom synchronously on the same day.
And we have a very nice fragrance on that day.

Last year, my white dove orchids were blooming four times.

From five clumps, only a clump that had lots of flowers.
The clump in front of my kitchen gave me a great appearance.
The other clumps only showed 2 - 3 flowers in a clump.

This is a good beginning.
I hope the clump will bloom more often and more flowers.

Starting the week with a new fragrance...

WEEEKLY HARVEST; FEBRUARY 4

After the ash fell, I'm not sure about my gardens yield.
But the yield is more than my expectation.
So many greens looked broken and rotten.
The windy and dry week, but some time we have downpours on the evening.
An extreme weather.

I can pick a basket of passion fruits from my front yard.
Also there are green globular eggplants, kembang telang, rambutan and belimbing wuluh (Averhoa bilimbi).
The belimbing wuluh tree is too high, about six meter.
The fruits attached on the high trunk, it's not easy to me to pick them. .

Belimbing wuluh/bilimbi

The rambutan tree still produce fruits.
The fruits aren't good enough.

Rambutan

From my back yard, I get long red chilli peppers, kara leaves, green mustard, pumpkins, long yard beans, sweet basil, green chives, cabe rawit (hot chilli), som jawa leaves and chayotes.

Long red chilli peppers

This is 'Kara wedhus' (Phaseolus lunatus).
I planted on a bed, side by side with the kara beds.

Kara wedhus

From my terrace garden, there are garlic chives, green lettuces, radish 'Cherry belle' and lettuces 'Red Rapid'.
And from my balcony, I get sweet basil and red lettuce.

Lettuces and Som Jawa

I make noodle salad from my lettuces, my daughter really love it.
I pick four time this week.

How about your harvest this week, readers?

PUMPKIN : FINALLY... HARVEST!

After so many problem on growing my pumpkin this season, finally I can pick the fruits.
I decided to harvest the fruits cause the leaves on the vine mostly yellowing and dry.
In my older post  about pumpkin I got some advices from the readers.
Thanks to you all.

I pick two fruits that remains on the vine.
They are still wrapped on plastic bags.

 

Then I opened the plastic bags, and.... look... I have two beautiful pumpkins.

Those are my 'Rocky' pumpkin.
I have never grew this variety before.
I have been googling, and I find some information about this variety.
The fruits can be harvested starting at 70 days after planting.

This variety can be produce 8-10 fruits on a vine. 
If my little fruits didn't fall on the past, I could be reach the 'standard'.

On the seeds packet I can see that the fruit size is about 9-11 cm on the high and 11-13 cm on diameter.
The weight is about 1 kilogram.

My first fruit above have 1.1 kg on weight and 14 cm on diameter.
And this one below, the weight is about 1.3 kg and 16 cm on diameter.

I think it's not too bad.
I'm lucky, I still have the fruits remain.
So... I can taste the fruits.

I got a lot of valuable lessons from this growing season.
Now, I'm preparing the new planting for the new variety.
I will  grow this 'Rocky' again.
I hope I can reach the 'standard'.

RADISH: FIRST HARVEST

After all of my confusion about growing radish, finally I tried to pull out some radishes from the pot.

This is  my 'cherry belle' radish.

I bought the seeds from online store.

Last week I made a post about my radish.
I got so many advices, I was so happy.  
So, now... my first harvest.
Although my radishes are not good enough, but no problem.

 

First experience...
There were a lot of lessons that I got from this cultivation.
Thanks to all of my friends for the advices and sharing the experiences.
I hope on the next planting I will get better result.
Thank you