fishbrain goes green

My lotus has bloomed! Another on the way. In a few weeks, I will have my own seeds. Will be happy to pass to anyone who want to try planting it.

Last two weeks a when I was away for business trip, it was raining heavily with strong wind. My sunflower was toppled down and the fall eventually cracked the stem a little. I have to bandage it with soil and cloth, I don't know it will work or not...

Finally, my mutated okra decided to have it first flower. I always thought it will never will. Sadly the flower only last for one day, and then it will become fruit, basically lady finger.

My personal best, 7 and the half feet tall (89 inches), and still growing! My target is to reach 10 feet. Even at 7 ft, it looks very tall!

The lotus that was started from seed now has grown into a adult plant. Aerial leafs are shooting up and the leafs are getting bigger and bigger. I can't wait for the flower to come out, it should be quite beautiful.

Sadly, the fishes that I kept inside the pot to prevent mosquito larvaes are getting lesser, only left two. Even the alga eaters died. The next bunch of fishes, I will probably get those ikan longkang.

My watermelon fruit has stopped growing and the vine connected to the fruit is drying up. Is that a sign of the fruit is ready to be harvested? Though it is not the size that I am expecting, it looks good and big enough for me and wife to consume.

Now another question pops up, do I start again?

Looking closely at the flower head, it looks more like a mammoth's seed than kong, so I might be mistaken ID it all the while.

But the head is real big now and getting heavy, therefore you can see it is wilting downwards...

My sunflower 'kong' has grown up to 6ft high and now has a big bud. So unfortunate as it will not grow much more taller, was aiming for like 10ft. Nevertheless, it looks beautiful. Check out the photos below...

But my mammoth is still growing and show no sign of bub yet, basically means it still reaching for the sky.

I am still very crazy about sunflowers, even after my 1st batch came out successful. I manage to keep alive two giant variety, the giant mammoth and 'kong' sunflower.

I know the 'kong' sunflower sounds funny, but its a hybrid breed. You can check out the video at youtube, and also a few other variety, love the green ice:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=croSx9zoZDw

The seedlings

So unfortunately that my watermelon plant only have one fruit growing. The other babies doesn't see to be able to grow and always dry out and dropped from the vine.

Well, even though it is only one fruit, I think it is a good for me as this is my first time trying to grow watermelon. The fruit has been getting bigger and bigger. The growth is very obvious, each day you look at it, you can see it getting bigger. It is something very unique to watch.

Hopefully the watermelon will grow into the right size for me to harvest and we can have our first homegrown watermelon fruit. That is if my wife has not step on it and crush it yet...

Here we go again...

The first batch was a success one, which I have learn a lot on how to grow it and maximize the potential of its growing process. This time, my second batch, I am determined to make it even better! Simply means, I will try to grow it taller and have bigger flower heads.

I have sow two different variety, which is Giant Mammoth and Red Prado.

The giant mammoth is one of the large variety, and probably on this particular ground patch I will not able to get the maximum potential growth due to the low depth of the soil. While the Red Prado is a shorter cultivar that may grow up to 5ft high but with the flower head ray petals red in color.

Will post again once I see any of the seeds germinated...

I was feeling destructive today... so I decided to chopped all my sunflowers down.

I had the sunflower head dried by hanging upside down for the past few days. Today I see it is quite dry already so I decided to harvest the seeds. Unfortunately only a few good seeds and lots of bad seeds that very skinny and soft.


Here is some picture of my process:-

My watermelon is fruiting, actually there were several baby watermelon, but they dont get bigger unless it is pollinated. I leave it naturally to pollinate, and now one managed. It is growing bigger day by day and quite fast too. It is now about 2 and half inches long, one inch wide in diameter...

Some of the flower heads are beginning to dry up and turning yellowish, and soon it will be dark brown. I manage to capture the ripe seeds that is ready to be harvested.

My watermelon plant is bearing fruits... check out the baby watermelon. Got a few of them...