Saturday, May 21, 2011

Container Gardening (五月)

Nothing much going on at our garden containers section at the backyard. Not having the time to clear up some of the containers to grow cool season vegetables at the moment and organising the container layout. This is a new vegetables that we introduced in our garden this year parsnip and beetroots. We had our first taste of stir-fry beetroot thinnings this week and we like it.
Beetroots, dragon carrots interplanting with leek seedlings. Two containers need to be clear up which content end season bush bean and some spring grown leeks.

We are waiting for one angled luffa fruit to dry to collect the seeds. Last week we were surprised with several new female flowers of angled luffa form in this cold weather. Not sure whether it will actually grow, observing at the moment. Okra burgundy seems to tolerate cooler condition more than clemson spineless variety. Can that be our last okra burgundy pod? Leaf amaranth (chinese spinach) growing under burgundy okra plant. Lenay has nipped the shoot several times to prevent it from bolting for Rayyan's meal. Self-seeded nasturtium growing together in the same container with jicama (sengkuang). I wonder if we can possibly get some tuber from this jicama plants.

At this corner, potato, golden calwonder capsicum and red chard plant. In the background, lemon grass plants with rainbow chard seedling which is hard to see from this photo.

Yellow and purple bell capsicum taking such a long time to mature, it has been more than 2 months. We are growing flower bulbs for the first time this year and happy to see that ranunculus has sprouted some leaves. I think I spied some new shoot of jonquail or daffodils on one of the pot the other day. I felt relief that I managed to plant them properly.

Have a nice weekend!

22 comments:

Charmcitybalconygarden said...

I am thoroughly impressed by the variety of vegetables you have growing. It gets me excited about the things I can grow next year!

Jody said...

How do you do so much! The diversity in your garden amazes me. Very nice stuff.

SMK Pengiran Omar II said...

i wish i hv the same passion, patience and interest. one day, i will =)

tina said...

Those are fabulous containers. Quite big too as I'm glad you showed the long shot. The veggies look like they are happy there and perhaps the raised container helps them to stay a bit warmer?

Mrs. M said...

Lovely garden! Indeed, a natural gardener don't need lots of space to grow a beautiful garden. I'm impressed! Bagusnya!

littlekarstar said...

I love seeing your garden, really what you produce is just amazing x

Hazel said...

Me too..saying the same thing as always...your garden is so lush and has so many different plants. i love to visit your blog.

Kat said...

Ew parsnips. :p Everything else looks lovely and delicious though!

Daphne Gould said...

I don't often grow in pots. It would probably help here to do that to make the soil warmer, but keeping things watered right in a pot really eludes me. So I only have pots for the mint. Though one is a huge pot by the front door with mint and some sage and some flowers.

cikmanggis said...

tiada tanah/tempat kosong kat keliling rumah Diana ni..semuanya ada tanaman.bagus betul .tiada pembaziran kawasan.Alangkah bagusnya jika Cm dapat tiru Diana tapi...tak mungkin:(.."petani" yg kurang berwibawa:)p

cathy@home said...

lovely collection of plants you have given me yet more food for thought for next autumn

Malay-Kadazan girl said...

CharmCityBalconyGarden~ Wow you already plan your garden for next year!

Jody~ To save time this year for the Asian greens and some vegetables usually I do direct-sowing. So save time for me not to have transplant them. More time to do other stuff in the garden.

Syam~ Hopefully someday sis.

Tina~ The advantage of polystyrene container is that in summer the soil is much cooler than the one on the veggis patch. In winter, it help to maintain some day warmth during the night. Insulation:).

Mrs. M~ My garden is in chaos. Nothing in order. I just plant randomly according to space availability.

Mrs. Bok~ I am starting to worry about next month harvest.

Hazel~ Each member of the family have their own vegetable preferance. I try my best to accomodate.

Kat~It is my first time growing parsnip. I still have some fresh seeds if you want to have a go;-).

Daphne~Ah yes the disadvantage of container is watering. But if the plant is already well establish it can thrive. In middle of summer in my absence of 3 days, the plants manage to survive although one of the days were 40+degree Celcius. My sweetcorn leaves growing on the patch were burn to crisp. Surprisingly all plants in the container survive.

Cikmanggis~Saya dah curi pakai tanah simpanan kat belakang rumah...hehehe...

Cathy@home~ Hope you have bountiful harvest in autumn.

cikmanggis said...

Malam malam datang ke rumah Diana ni..nak tanya..ada lagi ke masakan cencalok tadi hihi:)

Kelli said...

Its great to see so many types of plants can be grown successfully in containers.

Sue Garrett said...

I'll be interested to see how your container grown parsnips turn out - is the container deep?

Malay-Kadazan girl said...

Cikmanggis~ cuma 3 ekor je tinggal.

Kelli~It is all depending the size of the container and what vegetables are you planning to grow.

Sue~ At least 30cm deep, I hope it will be sufficient. But I don't think it will grow that big because we planted it end of summer. If we harvest it in spring before bolt. I heard it grows really slow. Is is true? I have some growing on the veggie patch but the soil is a bit hard, we will probably get funny roots.

Sue Garrett said...

Parsnips are very slow to mature. We sow seeds in March/April and harvest after the first frosts - no sooner than October/November. The frost changes some starch into sugars and sweetens the taste.

We often are sowing seed whilst we are harvesting the last seasons roots

Malay-Kadazan girl said...

Sue~I only seen our local parsnip in small sizes like carrots, not as big as yours. I think we only can grow them not that very long season starting end summer or early autumn. Because growing from spring will probably make the root woody over summer with heat stress and lack of water. I try to look out when parsnip is in season in our local market so I can take a guess how long usually it is grown here and start to harvest ours. Maybe I need to harvest them in September which is officially spring here before they bolt to seeds?

Sue Garrett said...

I'd definitely pick by early spring - if the roots don't taste as sweet try popping them in the fridge to chill then for a while.

Malay-Kadazan girl said...

Thanks for the tip Sue. My mother like it so much when she came here. So I grow it for her because my kids will be visiting their grandma around parsnip picking time.

Wendy said...

everything looks wonderful - those containers seem to do really well for you. I forgot to mention how gorgeous your harvest was in your pumpkin post!

Malay-Kadazan girl said...

Wendy~ We were lucky that those containers provide us veggies during summer when other corner of the gardenings were suffering with the heat. Thanks.