pumpkin / labu, Tanah Merah.

little pumpkin

I hope I will be lucky this time.

bangchik and kakdah

A single pumpkin in the garden

I sow three pumpkin seeds, very calculative I might say. Only one seeds popped out and grow healthy, another one germinated but stayed small for weeks and eventually died. The third failed altogether, ended up as humus in the little pot. Pumpkin was introduced in here around the same time with other veggies; petola, bittergourds,

 (picture was taken on 20th of November 2010, pumpkin still in pot.)

Now the single pumpkin is beginning to provide shade to the new cow grass. Tendrils hang on the grass as anchor and grass in return love the temporary shade....... Then I noticed a group of bugs making pumpkin leaves as their temporary home. So far they hit the older leaves....., and I think I am about to get rid of them.

 A nice little fruit had emerged,

baby pumpkin viewed from the top

tendril just grab anything..

 tendril grabs grass

the bright yellow pumpkin flower

and I hope the baby pumpkin will stay and grow big.... 

and I don't mind if it grows as big as this

 

Howard Dill's Atlantic Giant Pumpkin

bangchik and kakdah

menanam labu atau pumpkin

Tanah Merah Kelantan

pumpkins germinating

Just to be on the safe side, I sow four pumpkin seeds. 

One seed rooted first, the rest are still working on it. I have to wait for the others to really come out before putting them into the Three Sisters garden to join sweet corns.

pumpkin germinating, root first

pumpkin germinating, 
stem becoming green and leaves about to break open.

I do hope the eventual fruits 

will look like those in the seed cover.

bangchik

sweet corns, first to join.

Sweet corn is not new here. We grew sweet corns during the first half of  last year with some measure of success. Now sweet corns are coming back with a new role to play.  They form a major component as in the Legend of Three Sisters Garden. 

I am facing this problem again and again. Ten  old corn seeds failed to germinate except for one. Then I quickly rush to Mydin supermarket to purchase a new packet of sweet corns seeds.  Now the new seedlings join the sole representative of the earlier batch in the garden bed that was once filled with Ulam Raja, Marigolds, Amaranth tricolour, Spinach, peanuts and raddish. They are transplanted as in the design of Three Sisters Garden.with a little bit of modification.

 

the first trio of sweet corns.
Notice the bigger plant as the sole representative of the old seeds batch.
All sort of seedlings appear as a result of self seeding, mainly spinach, amaranth, and ulam raja. These will be pulled out and some will be scooped out to another location.

the second trio of sweet corns

Peanut plants are visible at the top. I think some peanuts 

from the earlier plants are still in the ground and they germinate. 

I am going to leave those in for a while 

before winged beans really grow.

So corns are the first to join the Legend of Three Sisters. 

Winged beans were sown direct into the ground and so far nothing happen yet. The third component is pumpkins, which are now in tiny pots. One seed has rooted and is pushing the first pair of leaves up. The rest are still quiet.

There will be regular updates on the development of Three Sisters.

bangchik

Putrajaya Malaysia