Enjoying The End Of The Year With Gardening

The end of the year isn't about holidays for me. Especially since my family doesn't celebrate Christmas. So, it's not a holiday date at all.

Public places will also be crowded with families taking their leave from work during the end-of-year holidays. So, my husband and I usually just stay home. And if we want a vacation, we'll choose a day that isn't part of the collective leave.

Besides, I've already been away from my garden for two weeks, a week for my husband's family event. So, I consider myself already using my vacation time.

My workload has increased because I've started gardening again. I've started growing plants for daily use in my kitchen, especially for cooking spices.

Shallots and chilies. I'm focusing on these two plants. I'm grateful for my chili plants, which are bearing fruit abundantly even though chili prices are currently very high in the market.

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Some chilies I planted directly in raised beds, while others I planted in used gallon containers. So far, they've been relatively safe, although some in my other garden have been affected by disease. It's the current chili disease season, so prices have skyrocketed.

The chili plants in the raised beds are growing tall, which gives me a shady corner to work on other gardening tasks. For example, this time, I'm filling small polybags to prepare for sowing various vegetable seeds.

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I'm aiming to fill about 80 seedling polybags with growing medium.

The growing medium in the raised beds has been left for almost a month to restore its fertility, as it was previously used to plant harvested crops.

Besides filling the polybags, I also relax with a cup of coffee between my work. I take a break to think about my next garden arrangement to make it more efficient.

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Next, in the afternoon, I sow water spinach directly in the white polybags. Water spinach grows easily, even in under five days. They can be harvested about 20 days after sowing.

I covered the water spinach seedlings with cardboard to protect them from excessive heat and rain. Then, three days after sowing, I opened the seedlings.

Once they sprout, it's important to expose them to direct sunlight to prevent the stems from becoming spindly and to ensure the water spinach stems are sturdy and upright.

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The star of my garden: shallots. I planted them from bulbs, not seeds. This allows for a quicker harvest. The shallot bulbs sprout in three to five days.

Once the shallot bulbs sprout, I gradually add more growing medium to avoid covering the short, young leaves.

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After seven days, I add liquid organic fertilizer. I'm accompanied by my neighbor's cat, who comes to my garden every morning.

She's very sweet and doesn't make a mess. So, I enjoy gardening with her. She's a very cute cat, isn't she?

Happy holidays to all of you, and I hope you find something to update your new year with that makes you happy. Cheers!

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Best Regards,
Anggrek Lestari

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