Preparation for a week away

Preparation for a week away

I took these pictures before I went away for a week, not sure what the weather would hold, as it is the hot season, I was lucky that it rained a few days before, and rain was forecast for when I was away. I gave every thing a very good water before I went away, and tried my best to remove pests to give the plants a good chance. We shall see what becomes of them?

Papaya Tree

Borage

Mustard Cress

Ginger and Nasturtium

French Marigold and Basil

Aubergine/Eggplant

Ginger and Tomato

A Few New Additions

A Few New Additions

Sunset View Bar, Looking out onto Sairee Bay and Koh Nang Yuan

So some new additions have come about with the New Year, will just have to see how they turn out. Managed to get some dates, a dragon fruit seedling and I was amazed in this climate that an apple seedling would grow, will just have to see how well it will actually do!

Date Plant!

Start of a Dragon Fruit Seedling

Start of Apple Seedling

Tomatoes

Ginger Plant

Aubergines/Eggplants

Capsicums

Start of the New Year

Start of the New Year

Fallen trees on the road up to the abandoned resort at Laem Thian Bay

So during the break for Christmas I managed to venture on a few hikes and see some parts of Koh Tao inaccessible by transport, largely lovely and peaceful, but some tricky parts where the road has largely washed away.  Wish I could I have snapped some picture of all the butterflies, but they always seemed to be out focus. Here along the path there were fallen trees, and a small archway to get through.

So below are how the plants are getting along, as you can see they all seem to doing well at the moment.

Ginger Plant

Capsicum Plants and Aubergines behind

Sweet Chili

Aubergine/Eggplants growing well

Lemon Tree Seedlings

Back from Bali

 Back from Bali...

Dragonfly in Bali

Eggplant/Aubergine Seedlings

Could not believe the size that the aubergine plants had grown to in 2 weeks away, guessing that keeping them in such a small pot for so long was not doing them any good, but also guessing that the addition of some compost helped! 

Sweet Chilies

Ginger Plants

 These plants were also doing really well, was nervous that 2 weeks away would mean that they would all be dead, but at least the sweet chilies did ok.











The Ginger is going from strength to strength and the re potting with compost seems to have really helped.

Mango and Ginger

Tomatoes and Sweet Chilies

Unfortunately the one casualty from my trip away was the mango :(  I did dig it up and found that the pod was overrun with tiny white mites, not sure where they came from or the best course of action, but due to the crazy amount of mangoes here, I will try again, at least the ginger plant seems to be doing well.






Tomatoes and Sweet chilies still all doing well, just wondering how long it will take before they start producing flowers and then fruit!

Before our Jaunt to Bali...

Before our Jaunt to Bali...

A quick update of how the plants looked before I abandoned them to go to Bali for 10 days, it was fingers crossed to hope that it would rain enough whilst I was gone and would not kill them all.

Ginger Plants

Mango Plant, accompanied by a small ginger plant

Aubergine, repotted before I went away

Tomatoes and Sweet Chilies

Capsicums

Sweet Chilies and Garlic

Lemon Seedling

Before the Monsoon Hits

The Sun is Shining before Monsoon begins.....

Sairee Beach Palm Tree with Long Tail Boats

Garlic just keeps on growing

Ginger, now with two sprouts

Was amazed at how quickly the Garlic is taking, and how quickly it is shooting up, not to mention lots of roots. One of the benefits with the plastic containers is you get to see the root system growing.

Citrus Trees, note the couple of new sprouts

Lemon Tree Sprouts

The Ginger on the right seemed to die and wither away, but then burst back into life with a new shoot. Guess the message is that even if it looks like your ginger is dying, it is likely to bounce back, may just take some time.







The citrus trees are doing well, and was happy that some extra lemon seeds that I planted about a week before started to burst into life. These do not grow very quickly, but it is nice to see how far they have come.











These are definitely lemon sprouts, think the above ones are too, but planted a mixture of lemon and lime seeds, so will probably never know..

Just won't stop Growing

Just Won't Stop Growing

Thunderbolt and Lightning Koh Tao

Ok, so this isn't a picture of plants, was just extremely happy to actually capture a lightening bolt!

Ginger Sprouting and romping ahead

So the ginger is going through a real growth spurt, and I'm so glad that i have managed not to kill it yet!

Spring Onions grown from offcuts

Capsicum seedlings in their new pot

So these were grown from the offcuts of spring onions, was amazed at how quickly the roots took and how quickly they start shooting up.











The capsicum bell pepper seedlings took very well to their new bigger pot.

Garlic Sprout after 5 days

After our garlic seemed to be growing a life of it's own in our fridge, I decided to pop some cloves into soil and see what happened, and it sprouted and shot up really quickly.

Seedlings and Sproutings....

Seedlings and Sproutings

Flowers in Koh Tao

Here are some beautiful flowers from just outside our apartment, though I have no idea what they are, look like something similar to a hibiscus, so if you know, please feel free to let me know!

Tomato seedlings at 5 weeks

These are the tomato seedlings from the previous post, they have been growing exceptionally quickly, so much so that I had to re pot them.

Aubergine/Eggplant Seedlings at 4 weeks

The Aubergine/Eggplants depending on your preference, took ages to actually come through, these were some of the bought seeds, and seemed to perform worse than most that we took directly from the veg. The only exceptions are the sunflowers, which seem to do well everywhere!

Ginger starting to Sprout

   

  

The Ginger has been an ongoing conundrum, always tricking me into thinking it is dying then springing back into life, I have no idea what is the correct way to treat ginger, but suspect it is growing due to the tropical climate, and despite my interactions with it, rather than because of it!

Sunflowers at 5 weeks

The Sunflowers at around 5 weeks, not much else to say, except these seem to have done really well, just need lots of water.

Just Keep Growing.....

It Just Keeps on Growing

So here is the next installment of how the plants are doing. Here is a lovely picture of some turtle topiary with Sairee Bay in the background. It is lovely that this island is surrounded by greenery.

Turtle Topiary at Sairee, Koh Tao

                                                                           

Capsicum Seedlings at 2 weeks

So the Capsicum Bell Pepper seeds started sprouting at a phenomenal rate as you can see to the right. This picture was taken 10 days after the previous one on the blog, so shows just how far they have come. 

Tomato seedlings at 2 weeks

Here you can see the tomato seedlings, they were planted at the same time as the capsicums. I was amazed that they actually sprouted as they came direct from tomatoes rather than from seeds. Just hope this means that they will eventually flower and fruit....

Lemon/Lime Seedlings at around 8 Weeks

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The mystery still revolves around whether these are lemon or lime seedlings, but I do not mind as long as they just keep growing....

Ginger Root Sprouting

And lastly an update on the ginger, as you can see the original piece with life has withered away, whilst the piece that showed no life has slowly decided to grow again.