Putrajaya Floria 2010 ~ a run through

FLORIA 2010
Putrajaya Flower & Garden Festival 2010

It was a quick run through, or rather a  brief walk through. I was quite busy lately, otherwise we could have visited the flower exhibition much earlier. Normally the first day is the best where flowers and plants on display is fresh and healthy. We went in  on the second  last day, around 10.30 am, and back by 12.00 noon. One and a half hour is brief by Kakdah's standard.  It was quite a repeat of last year show but still the crowd was quite big.


Something caught my attention, huh, a compost machine. With the price of a thousand dollar, it got me thinking when will the investment break even...... Our crude compost technique, open heap of composting material, only deals with garden waste.  Kitchen waste invariably will end up in garbage bin to be taken away by garbage lorry. What a waste... haha. Now with compost machine finding its way into houses, Kitchen waste will not be wasted ... But the price!!..

FLORIA 2010 , Putrajaya Flower & Garden Festival 2010 is open from 10th to 18th July 2010. We were not lavish this time. Three bags of organic soil, seeds (kale, celery and petola) and gardening utensils ( small scoop and fork) found their way to our little vegetable garden. Small sum, just 20 ringgit Malaysia. I didn't take many photographs of plants and flowers on show. Just a few to mark the occasion. However, Autumn Belle of My nice garden did a serial on the show ( click here  )

a section, where schools and institutions display their garden creativity.

not too hot, but umbrella is always helpful

Kakdah noticed these lovely yellow ground orchids 
and asked me to click a few.
We have purple variety in a container, 
and the blooms keep coming back on a continuous basis.

yellow ground orchid.

kakdah attracted by the lovely yellow bloom

everywhere was hot, 
Kakdah with her own shade and purple orchid by her side.

a small open transport, 
ferrying people from corner to corner. The lady was holding on the steel, I suppose such an open transport proved scary to some.

peat soil sold in 10kg bags.
We still have 2 bags from the last purchase at Bangi Agricultural Show.

the compost machine.
The guy was explaining how the machine works.
Quite a crowd interested to know, what the green rotating machine can really do.

The crowd heading towards different directions

bangchik

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composting the small way

The general understanding of composting is that the activity is good and it helps improving the soil. Thus nothing is wasted. Decomposition of living matter has been going on for zillion of years. Man is not a necessary party to the way nature sees decomposition. It has been the job of bacteria, and other little insects. Snails and slugs love to bite leaves, and worms love to eat dead leaves and leave their black poo on the ground. Termites will bite woody material to feed the young. So that's how it goes with decomposition.

Now that man values the black gold of humus so much, decomposition becomes a man made adventure. The other day, at Putrajaya Floria 2010, a guy was selling composting machine at RM1000. Man decides to turn composting as a business venture.

But my little vegetable garden in Putrajaya Malaysia, with its constraint of space,  keeps doing it the natural way. The heap will take it's own sweet time, to heat up and transform itself into powdery dark brown material called compost.

a compost heap

another compost heap

yet another compost heap
these are dead banana leaves.

references:
Fundamental Principles of composting ~compost org
Basic Principles of Composting ~LSUAg Center
Composting in the Tropics ll ~infonet-biovision.org

bangchik

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Introducing Kale into the garden.

Huh, when was the last time I grew kale? It must have been years. I was really mad recently at the failure to germinate kale using the old seeds . The recent visit to Putrajaya Floria 2010 brought home a few packets of seeds, kale included. For a change, I purposely vary the technique a little bit, by being less lavish on watering. Once the seeds were spread onto the surface, I sprayed lightly with water. Just once a day, very light not drowning them. It worked! Within a day, the seed coats broke, then little root tips appeared. The rest was history in the making... It could be the said technique or the new seeds that make germination successful.

kale seedlings in little pots
and there are more.
(benih kailan)

I would like to distribute kale all over the garden. Two sections of the raised bed has been prepared and reserved for kale. Pots that have been vacant after the harvest of cabbages will look nice with kale for a change. The previous attempts with kale two years ago, proved that the leaves were simply too tough for pests to bite. I dare not guess what will happen this time around.

kale: the first post 

bangchik and kakdah

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