Project “Pineapple"

Cindy and I love pineapple! It is a wonderful and delicious tropical fruit.
One of the experiments we did this year were trying to plant our own pineapple.. it is quite an interesting experience for us and it is really fun seeing it grows....

It was an easy process to grow an pineapple, anyone can do it at home..

Step 1 - Buy a pineapple,
Step 2 - Remove the crown/head from the pineapple..
Step 3 - Root the crown by placing the crown on a glass/bowl of water.(Change water every 5-7 days)
Step 4 - Plant the crown on the pot.

Try ”Google/YouTube" on pineapple growing, there are many planting tips and information you can find over there, but there are about similar method...

Anyway.. Here are some of the pictures to share...


1st week - Need to keep the soil moist for 1-2 weeks..





After 3 months...




After 3 months - Different view...




We also tried to grow it on a ground beside our compost bin, it grows beautifully with not much maintenance needed...


Our next challenge is to wait for it to start flowering and produce a ripe fruit..... 1-2 years maybe.. hahahaa...

芥菜+蘆筍

阿馨兩年前給我們播的蘆筍苗今年終於可以收成了。。其實蘆筍挺好種的﹐平時只要澆澆水﹐長得太茂盛時修一修﹐ 其他時間就不用怎麼處理(沒蟲害﹐不必常施肥﹐而且耐寒。。) 很方便喲。。

上禮拜六採收了一小把﹐ 本想說可以用來做蘆筍抄辣蝦。。結果雁姐表明自己種﹐ 第一次採收要吃原味的說。。我只能說﹕ OK 嘍~~

去年十二月播種的芥菜﹐ 現在也可以開始收了...順便也介紹一下我們家壞了的蒜頭﹐ 也被我們種下與芥菜作伴﹐ 書上說是可以防蟲作用。。。

春天來了。。。可以開始播種種菜嘍。。。鄰居們。。大家一起加油吧!!

House Finch & Sparrow

We welcome our new guests - House Finch and Sparrow. Cindy and I enjoy watching them using our feeders at our back yard.

Couple videos to share - taken this morning while I was working on the garden... The red head is an adult male house finch.. female house finches has brown back and streak fronts..

At one time, there was a full house on the feeders....

Some facts about House finch... Source from allaboutbirds.com

Keys to identification 

Finches

• Size & Shape

  House Finches are small-bodied finches with fairly large beaks and somewhat long, flat heads. The wings are short, making the tail seem long by comparison. Many finches have distinctly notched tails, but the House Finch has a relatively shallow notch in its tail.

• Color Pattern

  Adult males are rosy red around the face and upper breast, with streaky brown back, belly and tail. In flight, the red rump is conspicuous. Adult females aren’t red; they are plain grayish-brown with thick, blurry streaks and an indistinctly marked face.

• Behavior

  House Finches are gregarious birds that collect at feeders or perch high in nearby trees. When they’re not at feeders, they feed on the ground, on weed stalks, or in trees. They move fairly slowly and sit still as they shell seeds by crushing them with rapid bites. Flight is bouncy, like many finches.

• Habitat

  House Finches frequent city parks, backyards, urban centers, farms, and forest edges across the continent. In the western U.S., you’ll also find House Finches in their native habitats of deserts, grassland, chaparral, and open woods
  .

Tulips are growing...

We wrote about our Tulips planting experiment in our previous post.
Couple weeks ago, we had few days of hard freeze in Houston.. We are glad that our Tulips survived this crazy cold temperature!!
Now they are growing.... Some pictures to share below:

Here comes the Tulip Tailo...be the 1st to bloom...

Planting Tulips

We bought a $1 pot of tulip at Wal-Mart early this year, surprisingly it did blooms well, and  when we found out that Costco is selling a bag of tulip bulbs, we told ourselves why not try to grow some tulips start from the bulbs at our back garden. So, the experiment start....

Tulip bulbs from Costco

Organic Compost for the bedding- got it from Lowes

Pre-bedding with compost mixtures..

Here is the quick snapshot of the bulbs... pretty large in size..

Planting the bulbs..

Another closer view of the bulbs arrangement...

Final Step will be fill up the bed and water thoroughly after planting... Then we will wait for the beautiful blooms at Spring 2011... 

When To Plant Tulips: Tulips should be planted sometime between September and December (depending on which zone you live in, usually about one month before the heavy Fall frost is a good time).

Where To Plant Them: Plant tulips where they will receive at least six hours of sun, the bulbs need plenty of sun so they can store energy for next year’s blooms. Soil should be well draining to prevent bulb rot.

Blooming Beauty - $1 Tulip from Wal-Mart we bought on Feb 2010...

2010 - 絲瓜

開始採收了我們家2010年的絲瓜。。今年跟去年一樣。。都有種了普通絲瓜及稜角絲瓜,不同的是去年是姨丈給的苗﹐今年是用去年留下來的子所發的苗。今年從我們家也分出去了好幾株苗﹐不知大家種得如何﹖ 


與大家分享~~

稜角絲瓜 又稱八角瓜、十角絲瓜、角瓜、廣東絲瓜、澎湖絲瓜、金門菜瓜或雨傘瓜

普通絲瓜 - 這個長得有點像個 J 形。。

這就長得比較好。。授粉及成長空間都是因素。。。

阿蜜蜂正在忙。。。

絲瓜花現正盛開。。

如果今年像去年那樣盛產﹐ 將與村名及好友們分享。。一起期待。。

Watermelon

We have our first ever homegrown watermelon harvest today... yeah.. our little watermelon finally ripe.. Both Cindy and I were really excited....

.. after 60days... 1 ripe watermelon... ~3.5 lbs

It is time to cut it.....  We were very curious how good it is inside.. :)

Here we go....

Chop.....

Ta...da....Wow....

Closer Look...Not bad at all..

Ready to serve!!

The overall taste were really good, very sweet and great texture. Since this is a total organic, my only complain will be too many seeds in there, yeah. I know.. being spoiled by the genetic altered/hybrid seedless watermelon in the market...

We looking forward for couple more watermelon harvest in next few weeks.. 

Watermelon vertically hanging on a vine...

New addition to our garden...

I have been searching for Kaffir lime leaf for past couple weeks, being craving for one of my favorite Nyonya dish and Kaffir lime leaf is one of the must have ingredients for the dish. On Saturday, after having dinner with our fellow neighbors at Chinatown, we stop by at one of the local Vietnamese nursery to check out whether they have the tree we want.

Yes!!... they do have it!!! This is it... Kaffir Lime Tree (Tai-Ko Kam)

Here is the closer look of the Kaffir Lime leaves, it always serves as popular ingredient in South East Asia.

In the meantime, Cindy also found her favorite passion fruit tree, she has been thinking for growing a passion fruit tree for a while, just couldn't find one in Houston, and today, she is bringing it back home!! 

Both of us went home with our face smiling.......

2010 - Our Organic Garden

People were asking how is our vegetables garden doing this year? We kind of take a step further to expand our backyard to grow even more this year.. The following is a quick snapshot on what is going on now at our back garden, I will post a little more details on each individual topic(vegetables, soils, fertilizer..etc)...only if I have time.. :)

Baby "Bok-Choy" 小白菜... Did you notice the ladybug... :p

"Yin Choi" 莧菜

芥蘭菜

A-菜

高麗菜

大番茄

Snow Peas...

Cucumber - 小黃瓜

Taro - 小芋頭 - from 阿馨

EEggplant -茄子 - Still growing~~

Bitter Melon - 苦瓜

Broccoli - 西蘭花

Garlic Chives - 韭菜

Sweet Potato Leaf - 番薯葉

 Long Bean - 長豆

Green Bell Pepper - 青椒

Jagung

Perilla - 紅紫蘇

Ridged Gourd - 絲瓜

Blackberry

Blueberry

Sugar Apple

Watermelon

Last but not least.. Cindy's favorite Herbs Garden...

There are still some of the plants/tree that I have not got a chance to introduce... will definitely introduce them on a separate post... Looking forward to share with our family and friends on a vegetables galore...