SEPTEMBER GREENS: Planting New Beginnings amid Life’s Hustle and Bustle

Hello, my dearest gardeners here at @gardenhive! It’s been a while since my last update. Life has been so busy lately that I haven’t gotten around to writing my garden stories. I have started my new job at a university, so I have been occupied with dealing with lectures and preparations. But this time, I made sure that I could update my September Garden Journal.

Before August ended, my sister, mother, and I were able to grow seeds in our mini seedling table in the backyard. These include cucumber, eggplant, snow cabbage and lady’s fingers.

Among these seedlings, the cucumbers were transplanted first since they grew faster than the other seeds we germinated, and now they are climbing and flowering.

Just last Saturday, September 13, around 300 eggplant seedlings were transplanted to a wider space. It was my day off, and the electric cooperative in our place scheduled a 12-hour power interruption, plus the weather was really good – it was gloomy and a little rainy, which was ideal for transplanting, so I helped my parents and my sister. It was fun, as if we were just playing and enjoying the moment to bond as a family.

Right after transplanting the eggplants, I still had spare time, so I decided to make 100 pieces of DIY seedling pots out of banana leaves. These were for germinating chili pepper seeds. These seeds were from the fruit of my old chili peppers planted near our bitter gourds, so I didn’t buy seeds anymore.

And just today, I made around 75 pieces of DIY seedling pots where I put sponge gourd seeds for germination. Sponge gourds are easy to grow and don’t require much attention or tending. Also, wholesalers always look for more supplies, but we only have a little, so I guess 75 vines will be enough for the demand.

I also moved the snow cabbages to individual pots since they were a little overcrowded in the single pot where I germinated them. In this way, they can grow better and bigger, ready for transplanting to a garden bed. I don’t usually transplant them with just two or three leaves – better if they have at least four bigger leaves – enough to be recognized as snow cabbages. This is to ensure the mortality of the transplanted seedlings. When these new seedlings are ready for transplanting, I will be harvesting the old ones that I planted.

While we are also starting to germinate seeds and plant more seedlings, our bitter gourds, which we planted last June, are still giving more yield. We can harvest from 3 – 7 kilos every other day out of 30 vines.

We are also nurturing around 200 seeds of bitter gourd on our seedling table to be transplanted in the next 15 days when all of them fully germinate and are big enough to survive and thrive in the planting area.

We are very hopeful that in the coming months, we will be reaping more harvests with these seedlings that we prepared. We are targeting the high demand and good prices during the ‘ber’ months, especially for the holiday season in December until the New Year.

Thanks for taking the time to read my garden journal for September. It’s been a while but I will try to keep my presence in this community despite busy schedules. Happy gardening!

(This article was originally made by me and all the photos attached are mine.)