trial and error-compose bin

after 2 successful batch on the composting bin. (in little bins) 

I had more confidences and started a new batch of compost pile in a bigger bin.

I added greens weekly to the bin and I think I went overboard with it. 

being lazy and not cutting it to smaller pieces, I dump the whole waste to the bin. 
like my pineapple skin with the lefty top.

weeks went by and the next thing i knew, my compost has gone bad.

I tried to save it by sunning it weekly,... 

tossing it to give it more oxygen,...

adding more browns... 

weeks and months went by... to be exact, 3 months after i discover it had gone bad...

I knew I had to toss it away.... the weather wasn't helping at all as it rained practically everyday for that period of time.

It smelled like a rubbish dump and partly the 'dog' was having some skin problem for weeks. the bin was attracting flies which was not helping with the dog's skin problem as well.

i'm taking a break from composing since i still have a pile of it from my previous batch. am using it bit by bit...

this was my 2nd successful compose bin. 

this happened after a few months.

and by the 7th months(i think) it was gone and now it's like this. 

as you can see, there's bits and pieces of egg shells. it's taking forever to compose. 

I've been using it for my veggie pots and it's working like magic!.

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harvesting bok choy

I managed to harvest all my baby bok choy except 3 or 4 which was destroyed by leaf miner problems.

I'm only disappointed with the size. I guess they don't call it Baby Bok Choy for nothing.
;)

photo by melmok

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bye bye leaf miner

After spraying some neem oil with garlic juice and planted garlic chives next to the bok choy. The leaf miner have gone to heaven. It's free from leaf miner for now. woo hoo

Just can't wait to harvest the veggies now.

photo by melmok

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trails that never leaves...

Just as my bok choy was growing nicely.
The little pests (leaf miner) came back!...

Argghhhh...

photo by melmok

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growing bok choy

hehehe... it is finally growing...
*I'm seeing bigger leaves.....* woo hoo....

photo by melmok

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Soil compose after 6 months

My soil compose is finally ready to be use. Let's just see how well the lemongrass and baby pak choy will grow...
*oh my baby pak choy.. Forever that height....*

stagnant bok choy

I tried to organize my labels/tags for all my post the other day and realize that when an update was made, my post automatically goes up as the latest post.
Shouldn't it just stay there as it's originally posted date?... hmm...

Anyways, I manage to kill the leaf miners with garlic juice spray. Woo Hoo....
But now my bok choy has been in the same condition for weeks now.. no sign of growing or dying. I couldn't stand it being stagnant so I decided to put a couple of chicken poo to it.

photo by melmok on Flickr.

Few days later, I manage to get around to collect the used coffee powder from JT. So now my bok choy is filled with chicken poo and coffee powder.
Hope I don't over kill it with fertilizer... hahaha....

Shall wait and see what's going to happen next....

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Thyme - up..up...

I've tried to grow thyme uncountable times and my most achievable 'state' was an inch height with 3-4 mini leaves... After that, it just died! I've wasted a lot of seeds then I decided to take a little break from my 'hobby' and my little break became a year... :D

2 weeks ago, I decided to give it another shot.


My thyme started to germinate....

photo by melmok

4 days after ... more came out to play...

photo by melmok

wooo hoooo...
I hope it will grow more then an inch height this time around.

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trying to grow bok choy

I went over board with the bok choy seeds and made the same mistake again. I sow too many of them in my little DIY starter pots (little recyclable newspaper pots)!

photo by melmok

A week or so later, it germinated to a bunch which I had to kill all of these seedlings and save only one.... *hmmm...* 
I tried splitting it to a few but it was too stressful for me.

photo by melmok

I thought I could lay back and wait for my seedlings to do it's thing. But then few days ago..
I notice something. Did my research and found that my little seedlings has leafminers. *blahhh...*

photo by melmok

Temporarily I've sprayed garlic juice on my seedlings and now I'm waiting for my neem oil to arrive so that I kill these leafminers and it's larvae...


On top of that, I notice that 1-2 leaves in each seedlings is getting yellow... argghh...
I shall wait and see....

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thinning thyme and coriander

Its been 3 weeks now. It's still growing. Some of the leaves are browning and I think I should thin these plants. But I don't know how tooooo.....

photo by melmok

photo by melmok

I'm clueless now... leave it or thin it?
Argh...

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