Seri Iskandar Home Garden, changes in less than two years.

Trees grow at such slow pace that the changes will be almost unnoticeable. Vegetables which mostly are annuals, grow fast but die young. Perennials and trees will stay long, giving shape and overall look to the garden.  I have been developing Seri Iskandar Home Garden for almost two years now.  Its quite surprising to see the rapid changes taking place by comparing the pictures.

.............................2014.............................

December 2014

.............................2015.............................

February 2015

.............................2016.............................

September 2016

September 2016

If I am not careful,  it will soon turn into little jungle.

bangchik and kakdah

seri iskandar home garden

Gardening tools, second life

Old car boot tray, black in colour had seen its best years where it should be, in our old car.  It makes saturday marketing quite presentable. It will contain fish, chicken, meat and vegetables.  We also have quite a collection of old paint and putty containers. They are now into second phase of their useful life in gardening.

Old car boot tray

another container with second meaningful life

bangchik and kakdah

Putrajaya Backyard Garden

Backyard Gardening in Putrajaya - an approach.

It was Tuesday morning, and the sun was bright. I always find morning photos as fresh, sweet and soothing, with long shadow as the sun peeps through the roof  and the trees.  Even plants and grass will look greener. I suppose plants, vegetables, leaves and flowers just woke up from a long sleep. They look fresh as any babies early in the morning. The time was 8.15 am.

VIEW FROM THE RIGHT CORNER
OF OUR HOUSE

Early morning, a view from right corner of the house.

The structural skeleton of our backyard garden is formed by a row of 5 one-year-old Leucaena leucocephla (petai belalang) and a cluster of three banana plants. These two species of plant or tree will stand higher than the rest, providing shade and shelter to smaller vegetables and plants spread out in clusters around the garden.  A bit to the left, which is not visible in this photograph are two papaya plants which are heavy with fruits.

VIEW FROM THE END OF THE GARDEN 

TOWARDS THE HOUSE

Another view towards the house

Its a view from the cloth lines at the far back of our garden. Right in the centre is our sorghum circle, Its like 3 sisters cluster,  because the three batches are grown at an interval of one month. The approach will allow continuous supply of sorghum grains. 

bangchik and kakdah
Garden: presint 8 Putrajaya

Garden Freshness

Garden will freshen tired minds and limbs, but where exactly is the source of the magical "freshening effect". Flowers being colourful and beautiful would definitely be the major source. But lets look at the fresh and shiny young leaves and absorb the freshness.... 

bakawali 

orchid

ficus

_________________bangchik and kakdah_________________

seri kembangan

Coming down

Temporary stay in a fully furnished apartment offered quite an experience. I felt like an old pigeon learning to fly. After 5 months, we had enough, and landed on a double storey house. Two long lorries carried the whole treasure all the way from Pasir Gudang Johor. We put manageable targets - kitchen, lounge and bedroom must be made ready first, and the rest of boxes can wait. Potted plants were placed at quite a tight 6'x15' space at the front and another 6' x 8' space where Kakdah would hang clothes to dry. Kakdah joked about dripping water should be enough for plants.

FORMER HOME, staying temporarily for 5 months

NEW HOME: tall plants had to be pruned down
to ease getting up the lorry

New Home: a little dragonfly

New Home: Orkid Pasir

New Home: potted kucai

New Home: bakawali, new bud

So gardening in a tight space requires some adjustment. 

Lets see what happens over a month or so...

bangchik and kakdah

Gardening, a hobby

At least gardening will make us walk, bend, and move. These are basic movements that everyone has to get used to, to get muscle, blood and heart to their optimum. Some are lucky where they have to move around and climb up stairs while working. Some just sit on the chair throughout with slight movements of fingers at the keyboard.

Gardening allows limbs to function as it was designed, to bring both of us around the garden, doing things what a hobby gardener would normally do.

mixed vegetable bed - everything inside including weeds!!
(flowers, peanuts, spinach, red okra,)

passionfruit  ready to open

passionfruit flower ready to open

another passionfruit flower, half way through

a passionfruit flower full bloom

sweet potato

our pineapples

bangchik and kakdah

my little vegetable garden

What's in store for the new garden.

Coming to a new place, one will have to assess what's in store for gardening adventure. Over here space is definitely big for gardening. Vegetable garden will remain small for sustainability. For the two of us, we dont really require big harvest. It should be enough for home use and ocasional giveaways to neighbours. So it looks like 6 rows of vegetable is enough. We are planning for 3 different spots for climbers, with steel trellis.... permanent feature for the garden.

 Potted Plants

Potted plants are recuperating well after such long journey,

and in a way fills up the emptiness

of not having a vegetable garden.



Kakdah likes this evergreen plant....



Fern, easy to look after







 







An ordinary orchid



New seedlings



Ulam Raja, Kangkung and Ladys' Fingers come out nicely and now at second pair of leaves. We will let them grow bigger and stronger in pots before putting them in vegetable bed. Lettuce, chili, clitoria ternatea, cabbage are joining the queue...

20 ulam raja seedlings.



Kangkung and lady's finger seedlings

Getting Vegetable Garden ready

Additional soil brought in for vegetable bed

Monsoon and Flood

Soil is very clayey,
with a tendency to hold and retain water.
Water will take sometime to move to the drain, hence a little flood.

Flood, just temporary before surface water gets into drain



Water drained away within a few hours



So water is going to be a problem. We are planning to raise the vegetable bed a little higher to avoid being completely submerged during rainy season. Two lorryloads of soil should be adequate. Sand which will come soon, will be added to improve drainage and texture of garden soil. I only have weekends to handle all these.... That will take a month or two.....

bangchik and kakdah.

New Place, New Garden.

The longest journey in decades, starting off around 10am, arriving the next day at 3.00am. It was leisure driving, 750 km altogeher, numerous stops along the way. It's tiring, but it's alright. Over the many years, we probably have done millions kilometers of driving.. So, 750km from Tanah Merah to Johor is little...

The very next day, clitoria ternatea, sunflower and ulam raja were germinated in small brown pots. Being fresh seeds, ulam raja sprout within two days.. The other two stay quiet. Then kangkung and lady's fingers were soaked and wrapped in tissue. They are OK now...

Most potted plants are here in Johor, getting used to new environment. It's cooler around the house than Tanah Merah. Two large raintrees almost covered the whole sky.....

Plants in new environment in Johor.



YELLOW ORCHIDS, facing the road



ORANGE ORCHIDS

PURPLE ORCHIDS

POTTED PLANTS  in a new setting

DELICATE BROWN LEAVES

BROWN ORCHIDS

HANGING POTS: at the back of the house

Kakdah's plants hanging in a different house.

and quite visible on the ground is future vegetable bed, clearly marked.

Three rows of vegetable bed half way through.

The space at the back of the house is massive......

I will need sometime to create  new litle vegetable garden in Johor. Not too ambitious, just enough to keep the spirit going. It is going to be exciting.....

bangchik and kakdah

on the road again....

I do not know what Willie Nelson had in mind as he swung that number on the road again...., strumming, smiling to the masses. It's the same old song, taking the country crowd to the brink of ecstasy.

Willie Nelson - on the road again

I look at the garden again, it has not picked up well...., having gone through many weekends without both of us. It's only weekend that we can spend a little bit more time. Days getting shorter now, sun closing down just after 7pm...... By the time I get home, plants are ready to sleep.  I am tired too..... Something odd happened yesterday. The pump stopped working. Chili plants grieved........ and many came to cheer them up, Hj Hem, Effly, Rockzany, and Adziem. Hj Derani boys came too, crawled over ceiling to check for broken wire. In the end Azwar put a new pump. The plants smiled as their roots were bathed lovingly..... with water and fertiliser.

So Shab was right in J factor..... the mutuality of things, comradeship, about being honest and giving out only the best, and about how things must jive in like jigsaw puzzle.  Jalil was right too about Sun Tzu and the 13 chapters....., and another friend with blue ocean, Kotter's 8 steps putting life on different perspective. But I am still a gardener, having roselle, balsam and ulam raja as friends.

But days are getting lesser..... before I bid farewell to the place, the darling of all places. Tanah Merah.  Sungai Kelantan must have known about my short stay here, as it flows lazily from Pergau to the sea. I wonder what Tokgawa Ne would say, knowing the friendship could develop far deeper. Life is never long, so is my stay in Tanah Merah, Kelantan. Of course I will come back as a much older man.......

Gardening is like going through life on a fast mode, You see births upon births. You see generations in front of you, almost like a civilization of 1000 years in human term. A gardener orchestrates a civilization of plants, bees, butterflies.  But gardener is also a component of the whole thing, a subset of things rather than the overall encompassing master of musical drama. I hope Bob Geldof didn't include Tanah Merah, and the new place I am going to, in his haunting song, I don't like Mondays......

Bob Geldof Boomtown Rats - I dont like mondays

How could I convince Bob Dylan,  rolling stone should not be echoed in all its extreme negativity, as if world is about to end the next day. It's just how things should behave, as the stones roll, as rivers meander, as plants grow and die, to perpetuate what's known as life....... It's earthly. It's short, no permanence. Like a rolling stone should sound as sweet in a positive mood....

Bob Dylan - like a rolling stone

Freddie Mercury -we are the champions

So I will be on the road again. Only, I wont be singing with Willie Nelson happy country mood.  How can I forget the tune of Boomtown Rats, I dont like Mondays, and looking after number one.  Who can beat Freddie Mercury on being extremely dramatic and heroic..... as he kept pointing to the sky in we are the champions, a song sung by millions, and being melancholic as he hummed on Seaside Rendezvous putting chilling message as we stroll along Kelantan river.

I know, I will tell friends here to take the lead what's historically was entrusted on Serdang's UPM. It's alright to take responsibility to the limit in all sincerity, setting up the stage that has been left unattended for decades. Raden can't argue, how can he?

I sincerely hope Singapore in all its modern extravaganza, will accept me as it's neighbour. I have nothing to offer, except for rainbows on my left and green on my right. I will put rainbows in the sky and paint the earth greener. 

So I will be on the road again.......

When you are a hobby gardener not a businessman.

With plants you care about, there is somewhat a bond. You tend to remember them individually, the one that grows tallest, the biggest, the badly affected by pests, the one with biggest fruit and so on. Like children at home, you know the differences, their liking and dislike, and their specific inclinations. Children and plants are changing...  In modern leadership concept, there is one element called change leadership. Gardening is all about going for change...... for better or for worse., and the gardener is managing the change to his/her best.

Months ago, Izam a friend with IT business mentioned about my little vegetable garden blog through the eye of a businessman. He mentioned about how a blog can be turned into money spinning adventure. I said, I need three months to work it out. Now, three months is over, yet I am still sitting on it. I am still a gardener.

 Last two weeks, a lady came to buy Kakdah orchids....., Kakdah said orchids are not for sale...., then the lady asked for a stevia plant, and paid 10 RM. Kakdah has no attachment to stevia plants, at least not in the scale with her orchids. The lady mentioned about her previous purchase of three stevia plants from Cameron Highlands and all died within a month.

Keladi, I have not decided where to plant them.

Keladi, a close-up

Kakdah, her daughter and grandchildren

Recently a friend Zali asked for the whole tray of Kiwi seedlings (about 80) and paid 20 RM. Those are our babies, so when Zali took the whole tray away, it made us sad in a way. On Kiwi, I am happy,  knowing Zali will make it big........... No one seems to be growing Kiwi in Kelantan, so Zali will definitely make it big and big!

Kakdah loves her orchids and flowers, and I love the rest of the plants, vegetables especially. To be a businessman or businesswoman, you must be nonchalant about plants...., the attachment, the bond must be as little as possible otherwise you just can't sell plants, fruits, seedlings or any harvest at all.

kakdah's orchid

bangchik and kakdah

Our garden, a glimpse.

I normally post on specific plant, write about specific characteristic and behaviour. For a change, I display many plants here for a bigger glimpse. At least two of them are from seeds giveaways. Radish from gittan last year, and balsam from Malar this year. Bloggers and gardeners connect well botanically, in a way even green earth campaigner can't compete. Radish and okra are enjoying pampered environment in white polybag, bathed with automatic irrigation system.

radish: seeds from Gittan, blogger friend

a row of radish

  I could have put more radish in each bag.

Okra /lady's fingers/ bendi : flowering & fruiting

exotic climber: red bud

exotic climber

balsam flowering: seeds from a blogger friend Malar.

bangchik and kakdah

Tanah Merah