Life is really an interesting phenomena. I still vividly remembers the excitement when i saw leaves grow out of my green bean for my primary school science experiment. The same excitement came back when i saw my mini diy garden grows.
The neighbourhood beside us becomes a dengue hot spot before the hazy season started. We were monitoring the national numbers daily and was quite worried and "troubled" by the increase mosquitoes bites every nite. We started buying anti mosquitoes strips, candles and do the daily 5 steps check.
We feels that our precaution measures are quite OK, but news of friends who we think they are quite healthy around us got dengue, prompt us to look for some long term measures as the pharmacy selves anti mosquitoes are depleting at an alarm rate especially after the 2 dengue victims died. (they both live within 5km radius near our place)
Then, during a facebook chat with my cousin, she shared that her girls have just returned from a school field trip from a farm. During the trips, the girls learned that certain plants will make the mosquitoes "u-turn". I got excited and start researched on those plants and found that some of them are active ingredient in the natural anti mosquitoes spray we bought.
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| Dill |
My husband's friend works in a vegetable farm and i recalled during one of my visit to the farm, i saw them selling some herbs plants. I got my husband to check of they have those plants, but was told it was all sold. When i felt despaired, my husband passed me four paper packages. I almost thought treat them as rubbish and discarded them away. My husband fanatically stop me (very drama, haha). He pointed at the ink stamped words on the package then realised those are seeds of the plants i am looking for, his friends sold him the seeds. Before we could plant them, haze is back and mosquitoes problem seem to clear away.
It is until end of july during the off day, i started to plant them. At first, i was a bit lost how to plant them. My husband take out some cotton gauzes. I recalled a sitcom by Mr. Bean, he took stem and leaf out from his kitchen windows for "snack", so
convenient, right? It’s like having fresh herbs at your disposal.
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| 3rd day - Sweet basil |
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| 13th day - Sweet basil |
The
next thing, i saw that we have some plastic bottles for recycle. I thought i can use the top part of the bottles as they have a cap and i drain away excess water easily. I tried to germinate the seeds (consisting of parsley, sweet basil, Thai basil, dill and lemon balm) by spreading them on wet cotton gauze in their individual bottle. Label the name on the bottle and hang them using the plant chain. Hook against our kitchen window grill area where the amount of sunlight is just right. I also used a secret weapon: shower them with rice water.
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| Sweet basil |
Now the plants are blooming. My dear husband, if you are reading this, i know you are a little bit busy recently, but it is time that you should be getting the long flower pot you said you will buy. The plants are feeling crowded already!
The whole process is really enjoyable and it bring back fond memories of childhood. I can't wait to see them grow like the fortune plant along my corridor. I am always happy to see the shoot grow out of the it.
If you have kids, it think mini diy garden and exciting project you can teach your kids. Educational, train them patience and also foster bonding. Also you can use the herbs for spice up your cooking and keeping the mozzies out.
Where can you get the seeds. I think major supermarket, some local florist and nursery may have the seeds. My husband gets the seeds from Oh’s Farm, which is at located 14 Bah Soon Pah road beside Khatib Camp. Not very accessible if you do not drive. You can also grabs some fresh vegetables if you get there. Probably your children has been there on school trip too, there is a mini butterfly lodge there where i saw many school children went there during school holidays.
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