Happy Sunday! Just a short post after watering my corridor garden...and show off some of my flowering plants and vegetables...
I started to grow flowers and foliage plants along the corridor out side our 5 room flat since I moved in...Thanks to my neighbours, they give me a lot of space to grow all these green, and even help me water the plants whenever I am too busy in work to take care of them. Recently  I start to grow more edible herbs, and would like to share with my dear neighbours friends. There are common herbs like mint, rosemary...I have been trying out sweet potatoes leaves, tomato, and even ChiQua which grow by itself, and now I was crazy in love with some medicinal plants, will do more researches...It is fun to observe that each plant has its own beautiful aspect, each plant has their own character...

Here’s what Chayote fruit looks like, my friend grow it in her back yard garden in LA. My friend told me that Chayote shoots also known as 龍鬚菜 in Chinese, Just simple stir fry with oil, chopped garlic and seasoning with salt,  Simply yummy!

My small potted pepper plants, small but with quite a number of fruits on it. I was growing them from seeds, which I bought the yellow peppers from super market, I kept the seeds and actually I was not planning to grow them, just throw them somewhere in one of my potted plant.

Growing peppers in containers in Singapore HDB house? I was thinking that is a joke, but I did it.It took about 2 months to harvest, :) That is fun to see them growing from seeds we leftover after cooking, especially if you grow them together with kids...

It is not that difficult to grow peppers in container, It is important to keep them in a sunny place. They need full sun. Move pots around if necessary to keep them in as much sun as possible.


They love fertilizer too. You can buy those ready package from florists or garden nursery, but do remember to check out the content on the package outside, choose those nutrients that are beneficial for peppers include calcium, sulfur, and magnesium. Do NOT choose those fertilizer have too much nitrogen, otherwise you will end up with beautiful plants but no fruit.

Here are some of my tips of growing this beautiful vegetable:
1.  Plant them in a pot that is at least 8 inches deep and 12 inches in diameter, too small container have no room for the roots to grow.
2. I added egg shell to the soil.
3. Use well-drained soil, keep the plants uniformly moist (but not water-logged) during the peak growing season.
4. Regularly check for sticky "dew" on the underside of leaves caused by aphids. They can be easily eliminated by spraying the underside of leaves with a mild soapy solution. I never use any other chemical sprays.
Well, if my tips do work for you, let me know. I like to hear from you and if you do enjoy gardening, I would like to share more tips with all the plants lovers.
Cheers! Try your own container garden today.

Welcome to another Outdoor Wednesday! This week I will bring you to see a vegetable farm, the harvest season is coming. Oh I miss the lovely Fall, of course it is not in Singapore. Singapore children see these vegetable in super market.  Most of them don’t even know how those vegetable look like before they are sold in the super market. Not only children, even me, I don’t get to see many vegetable growing in the farm.  :)

Loofah or Luffa, common name for a climbing plant of the cucumber family and for the vegetable sponge derived from the plant. There are six species of loofah plant, all of which are native to the Tropics and subtropics of Asia and Africa.

Loofah is an annual, monoecious vine (where male and female flowers appear on different parts of the plant), with deep yellow flowers. The female flowers are borne singly and the male flowers are in clusters. The flowers are open for pollination only 1 day.

We had this plants in our garden when I was young, I always like to use cotton bud to help the male and female flowers pollinating, just in case there are no bees or butterflies. That is very fun memory for me.

The leaves are hairless, lobed, and triangular in outline. Tendrils arise from the stems near the leaves and the numerous branches are long and slender. The fruit itself will be a deep green reaching to approximately 30-40cm long and hangs down from the stems owing to its weight. It will have a smooth cylindrical shape, resembling a cucumber.

The skin of the fruit is ridged and green, becoming straw-colored at maturity.  The young fruits of Luffah are editable, It is cooked as vegetables soups with eggs, sweet taste but most of the kids don’t like it, up to now I still don’t know the reasons.  The luffah is ready to be harvested for its sponge when the outer shell has begun to turn brown and the seeds can be heard rattling inside when the luffah is shaken. The small, brown or black seeds are wrinkled on the surface and look like watermelon seeds. It must be kept to grow the new plants in the coming year.  Place the luffah in a pot of hot water and let soak for approximately 2-3 hours. The skin on the outside of the luffah should be able to slide off. Luffah is familiar as a nice rough thing to scratch your back with when in the bath. They are used in kitchen to wash woks.    Pictures from wiki above are show:  A bag of natural luffahs, the seeds, a luffah sponge A luffa sponge whose coarse texture helps with skin polishing. Singapore now is such a modern city that our young children hardly get to see all these plants in everyday life. They are learning since about male flowers, female flowers and pollination etc only from the text book. This is such a common plants growing in every backyard garden when I was young. Last week my daughter found this plants growing in Singapore HortPark, she was so excited to see those yellow flowers and young fruits…Poor Singapore children. Lol.

This is a very easy growing plants and grow from seeds, I am wondering why those primary school not planting them in their school garden, it is a live lesson to our young children who never get a chance to see the live loofah plants and many other plants. Well, this is some thoughts long in my mind, I would like to share it here with other plants lover for this Mellow Yellow Monday.

Cheers and have a happy week ahead.