Urban Gardening Notes: The Wind, The Afternoon Sun, and Pressing On

Bitter gourd/melon

I got mixed results from sowing seeds a bit too late in the year.  Or is it?  It's El Niño season so I can be wrong. The wind funnel effect of living in a building sandwiched in between other buildings is proving to be tricky in trying to grow my own bitter gourd (ampalaya) which is a climbing vine. I'm still trying and the vines are still holding on so we'll see. The wind may just have an effect in making the surviving vines stronger and more resilient.

Basil getting bigger

I also moved some of the potted plants around, taking the basil and hot chili plants out of the longer western sun exposure (my balcony faces west though the ledge casts a shadow on one side of the balcony area) along with my dragontail plants (Epipremnum pinnatum) which thrives more on reflected light compared to its cousin, the Pothos plants I have in abundance (I use a few pots indoors for cleaning indoor air and letting a bit of nature inside).

The basil is thriving, growing larger leaves which in a few weeks' time, I can use in cooking or to make an aromatic olive oil mix since I would have to trim it anyway.  But I'm so happy it's doing well. The other time I tried growing some, the Eurasian sparrows who I used to feed in my former abode, would feed on the leaves when they ran out of birdseed.  I miss the birds and I wonder if they themselves wonder what happened to the human who used to feed them daily for almost two decades. In time, I would go back to feeding the birds and hopefully some of the sparrows can find my new location.  For the time being, I'm happy growing some of my own herbs and edibles.

An Empath's Indoor Garden & A Short Note on ANSI LED grow light

My indoor garden & ANSI LED Grow Light

I've been gardening ever since I was a kid so I personally know the joy of getting your hands on the earth (I don't like calling it dirt), making do with whatever resources I had at that time, growing plants either from leftover seeds from eaten veggies or cuttings culled from the neighborhood gardens.  The resurgence of interest in gardening last year IMHO, is both a good and a bad thing.  

ANSILED 24W grow light (ANSI website)

Good because it made a lot of people connect back to nature.  Bad because even my erstwhile favorite store (not anymore as she turned snooty) at the Cartimar garden stores is charging so much for plants I used to grow from free cuttings.  Also bittersweet is that I used to see really humongous Alocasia in the forests when I used to go hiking up the mountains.

Plants such as Pothos (also called Devil's Ivy) and Adansonii (Swiss cheese plant because the leaves have holes in them when receiving adequate sunlight) were among my favorite shrubs before.  Now, a small pot of pothos (depending on the variety) can cost P200-400.  Some enterprising sellers (a lot of them non-gardeners) even sell on a per-leaf basis which is like highway robbery.