An Hour Of Rush In The Garden

Always, when you have guests around, time seems to pass by unnoticed. Very soon, it was time for us to pack our things and go back to Kuala Lumpur. At the very last couple of hours however, there were still lots of things which were not yet done in the garden. I had yet to take pictures of it and harvest the remaining vegetables. I had yet to apply the coffee ground fertilizer and condition the soil with my diluted homemade, eco-friendly enzyme. I had to be extra quick. Else, we could be stuck in a traffic jam if we start going back later than twelve noon. I just had an hour or so to spend on these tasks.

Luckily one of my guests love to do harvesting a lot though she never really likes gardening actually. She had volunteered to give me a hand on this. So, I let her harvest the top parts of the Gynura bicolor and Basil leaf plants using a pair of scissors. The bottom of the plants were left to continue their growths. As most of my guests ( who are typical city people ) are phobia of tiny creatures, I had to shake off uncountable ants which were running about the vegetables as much as I could before packing them in plastic bags for them to bring back to Kuala Lumpur as souvenirs.

Here is one third of my total harvest from the Gynura bicolor plants.

Here is one third of my total harvest from the Basil leaf plants.

I did not have enough time to even think about growing new vegetables this time. Luckily, I had got some chilli seeds ( which my eldest sister had given me sometime back ) and some saved sweet potato cuttings from an earlier harvest. At least there were something to fill up the precious empty space in the planter. Else, the space would be fast taken up by weeds in no time. After sowing the chilli seeds at a corner of the planter and planting the sweet potato cuttings, I top-dressed the whole planter with coffee grounds which my eldest sister's neighbour had given me. So far, it had been such a good mulch and nutrient source for my soil. Normally, I would leave this top-dressing task until the very last minute because coffee grounds tend to have a kind of foul smell that is very difficult to ignore. All my tasks were deemed to have completed after I sprayed the already top-dressed soil with my diluted homemade, eco-friendly enzyme.

Picture of my backyard planter - after the harvests and after the soil was top-dressed with coffee grounds and sprayed with my diluted, homemade eco-friendly enzyme.

Picture of my backyard planter - after the harvests and after the soil was top-dressed with coffee grounds and sprayed with my diluted, homemade eco-friendly enzyme.

The chilli seeds which I had sown at the corner of my backyard planter

There was not enough time to pluck the Madeira Vine's leaves one by one this time. So, I had to leave them on the vines. 

I found it difficult to judge whether the pumpkin was mature enough for harvest. So, it took me a long time to finally decide leaving it on the vine. Hopefully, it could still wait until the next time I go back - which could possibly be around mid of March. Till then...Wish me luck!