A Homemaker’s Diary

Remember my previous entry about starting an edible garden of bayam merah? Well, after a few weeks of waiting for the first batch of bayam merah to grow, I decided to harvest them.

I also harvested sawi 5 bintang which I have planted earlier. For bayam merah, I didn’t pull out the whole plant from the soil because I was not sure whether it will regrow new leaves like sawi. We’ll see the progress of the bayam merah after this.

I have cooked sayur air bayam and used the sawi in mee goreng basah. It was certainly a great feeling to eat vegetables that you grow in your own garden.

I bought the seeds for bayam merah from a blog called Semua Menjadi. You can check her blogshop here : Jualan Benih Tanaman Semua Menjadi.

At first I didn’t expect the seeds to sprout so fast, but after like 2 days of sowing them in the pot, they sprouted well. The picture above was taken around 3 weeks after I first planted the seeds.

This is the first pot that I planted the seeds. After knowing how the bayam merah grows, I have planted another batch in a bigger pot. This time I sprinkled the seeds more lightly and quite far apart from one another.

Next I think I will buy timun jepun and daun sup seeds from the blog. Will update if there’s any progress with my edible garden.

A friend gave this plant a month or two before I was struck with morning sickness. She said it’s a herbs that could be used in cooking. Later I found out that this is aromatic basil or daun kemangi (known among Malays). I usually find these leaves to be used in Thai dishes and couldn’t really eat them for the strong flavor and taste.

However since the plant is growing really well despite the lack of care since July, I decided to prune the stalks and change the position of the pot to a sunny spot.

I actually love the purple and white flower that this aromatic basil has. I’m not sure what’s the best way to propagate it but I would like to have a few more pots of these kemangi plant in my garden.

Updated: After further reading, this plant is known as Thai basil. Daun Kemangi is actually lemon basil. There are many varieties of basil, the one used in pesto is known as Sweet Basil with green big leaves.

I have started my edible garden but nothing beats the satisfaction of seeing the flowers bloom.

Like today, it has been raining non stop since morning. Some states like Pahang even get flood problem. I was out in the garden when I see that this pot of rose of mine has bloomed.

Wonderful, isn’t it..the power of Allah’s creation 🙂

Last year I was all into rose gardening. I have about 30 different type of roses in my garden. Gradually some died and I was left with 15-20 pots. But after 4 months of pregnancy sickness, only 3 pots survive..huhu!

But the good thing is all the pandan plants given by a friend live well. At the moment I have 3 big pandan plants which I plan to use during my confinement.

I think for 2014, I’m going to stop planting new flowering plants (unless it has some medicinal value). My gardening plan for next year is to plant more edible plants, vegetables or herbs.