One of the perks of moving to our new places in Shah Alam is that being a corner unit,we have a bit of land for gardening, and since some of you have commented in my previous cooking posts wanting to take a peek at the garden, here it is!
our current garden, with only a strip of planting bed
The area that we currently set up for planting is basically a strip of land about 30 feet or so along the fence. We’ve set up a makeshift PVC roof of sort with certain part covered in clear plastic sheet for weather protection. The roof is also reinforced with wire mesh, which conveniently served as trellis for our long bean plant.
At the car porch, we also have an outdoor IKEA glass house that serves as a nursery for seedlings to protect them from the elements.
tiny capsicum, fig tree, white pepper, parsley & oregano
In these photos you may have noticed that there are some black pipes around the plants, this is the soaker pipes we set up for irrigation. Our irrigation timer (bought from mudah for RM 100) is set up to water the plants automagically twice everyday, which makes life easier when we aren’t home to keep the plants hydrated. Skipping watering a couple days can easily kill some of them.
long bean, way too much fruit from one plant
For the planting plot, we actually had it dug out about a foot deep and amended it by adding a couple layers of organic chicken shit and compost. This was to make the plot more fertile and to looser, our original soil was hard and with too many stones in them.
rosemary, galangal, mint, thyme, basil, oregano, lime
When planting, you do need to know the requirements for each of them, as they can be quite different. Some plants want to be in the shades, others like full sun light, and some wants to be soaked in water, but there are also those that likes the soil well drained.
kale, bayam, lettuce
For herbs we have the following:
- oregano
- thyme
- mint
- rosemary
- basil
- galanga
- lemongrass
Vegetables/fruits:
- bayam
- lettuce
- long bean
- kale
- radish (harvested)
- capsicum
- chili (upcoming)
- lime
- pegaga
- fig
- lychee (doubt this will actually fruit)
pegaga, basil, lemongrass, chili & flower plant seedlings
This garden should look very different in a few month’s time, as we are about ready to delete everything and redo the whole area with proper trellis, irrigation, a hydroponic element, and design that is more pleasing to the eyes. It’s gonna be quite a lot of work but it’s a project we’re looking forward to!
Get planting!