Watering, I can

I’ve been hankering for one ever since I started this project. In fact, I’ve even had an actual dream of purchasing one. Yesterday, I put my proverbial foot down right on top of my procrastination devil and decided to act already.

I went to the hardware section of SM North to peruse their stocks of watering cans. They have all of 5 types – all plastic, no metal – and only one had a dubious recyclable sign on them. I stood in front of the shelf for all of 20 minutes debating on whether to get the butt-ugly one with the dubious recyclable sign and design, or the nice-looking one without a recyclable sign but has a more intelligent design. I figured since the plastic-monger kids have absolutely no discrimination when it comes to plastic, even stealing taking the cracked plastic water drum from our backyard, it’s only reasonable to go for the latter model which looks a lot a like as pictured only in terracotta brown and sooo much more prettier.

I’m glad I did. Reading with hindsight eHow’s How to Select a Watering Can article, my new watering can fits all four things to look out for in a watering can:

1. it has a long nozzle
2. it has a removable nozzle
3. it’s plastic, hence it’s lighter than a metal can
4. it’s the perfect size based on when I tried it out this morning
5. plus, it’s sooo pretty!

Update: Posted a picture of my watering can.

First Casualties of Neglect

I leave them alone for one whole day and they die on me. How could it have happened? Here the story goes.

My sister called Sunday night to say that our cousin April from Cebu has come to stay at her apartment for a month. I haven’t seen April since God knows when, so it’s a “Yey, I’ll come over for dinner tomorrow night! What? We’ll having crabs? Yahoo!” And of course, having dinner means sleeping over too. We spent Monday night with dinner at Bizu after a half-hearted attempt to cook a crab dinner, lots of catching up with gossip huddled in front of a warm LCD screen before dropping off to sleep in whatever position we land on. I went straight to work the following day, came home at around 9pm, thought a bit about watering the plants then said I’ll do it tomorrow morning as usual.

By Wednesday morning, my little tomato and bellpepper sprouts are lying limp over the sides of the paper pots. I stood there for a minute thinking wildly – should I whip out a syringe and inject water in the plant stems? Which one takes in water – the xylem or the phloem? In the end I just shrugged and watered as usual.

By the next day, all my tomatoes have recovered but only one bellpepper pot out of the 5 pots sprouting survived. May my bellpeppers rest in peace.

The good news is today is that one bellpepper pot that I thought would never sprout did! Two little green things are pushing through the dirt.

Bothered by the Backyard

I’ve just planted siling labuyo seeds yesterday, the bell peppers are sprouting nicely and my tomatoes are about 5cm high now – half-way there to being transplanted to a more spacious spot.

There’s going to be a problem. I had planned, in some vague future, to make vegetable planting beds in the backyard. They’ll be in nice orderly rows of about 2 or 3, with an empty one for my trench compost. Surrounded by bougainvillea along the perimeter of the backyard (for security purposes, will write about it later) and a bamboo tree in one corner, thus have I envisioned my edible landscape.

But the backyard still looks like some illegal logger went on a rampage and hacked everything in sight. A few weeks back – okay, it’s been a whole month – my uncle had people from the munisipiyo chop down three coconut trees and a chico tree because of horrendous termite problem. They took away most of the larger debris but the ground is still covered with a ton of leaves, small twigs, somewhat larger branches and a coconut leaves? palm fronds? stuff. And I have yet to clear up the space, since just looking at the mess makes my lazy couch potato self all dizzy.

Eh, what to do? I must have have it cleared by next weekend since I’ll be gone by the following weekend and the next off to play tourist with my sister. Maybe get some more munisipiyo men to help out?

Who knew? It actually grew!

After about 7 days, little leaves appeared. I felt like 8 again with my little rice/munggo science experiment. This gave me the impetus to start with the bell peppers. My friend, Mar, told me they’re one of the easiest to grow. They’re there on the little newspaper pots on the left.

Now that the tomatoes are growing, I’ve only just realized I crowded the tomatoes a bit. Which is why I made smaller newspaper pots and just put 4 bell pepper seeds in them.

I can feel the tip of my thumb actually turning a pale shade of green.

Hello green, green world!

The other week I bought a new trowel, some tomato seeds and a pair of super-cute gardening gloves to jumpstart my transformation from being an indoor-lazy-geek self to a new living-by-my-principles-outdoorsy me. The pair of gloves was the clincher. I couldn’t resist the cuteness of a pair of bright blue gloves with bright stripes. And so, armed with my new gear and my irrepressible procrastination, I started my tomato project yesterday.

Now I must confess, the only other gardening experience I had was a dismal story, of use only as a good anecdote of incompetence. Last December, I brought home three potted herbs to augment my developing cooking skills: basil, Thai mint, and rosemary. The entire first week, I forgot to water the poor plants. The second week, I inundated them everyday with remorse. The basil struggled valiantly and lasted a few days more than its siblings before finally giving in.

I wonder what will become of my poor little tomato seeds?