Mahli’s Musing

and I’m currently near the bottom. Just found two weeks ago a journal paper (and from there a bunch of others) that covers pretty much what I’ve been doing. Was quite a shock when that paper came to light, since it’s already “old” (~10 years) and didn’t get referred to this paper. Now I’m ploughing through this paper, and hoping that I’ll (still) find something to work on. ギブアップはないよ、でもさ。。。

Hab auch versucht in den letzten Wochen, Instantpudding vorzubereiten, ohne Erfolg. Ein bisschen ungeduld, und ein bisschen zu viel Milch, ein bisschen zu wenig Zucker, usw. Mensch, Nachtisch ist wirklich nicht mein Bereich.

And I have so many todos for this year that hasn’t been ticked off. I haven’t started my driving lessons over here… I don’t think I’ll be starting it this year, as the next 4 weekends I’m completely booked for studying and travelling. C1 exam is still in the air, and it doesn’t help that my german knowledge is declining.

Ah speaking of german, allow me to side track a bit. During the group meeting today, I had to sign that I’ve read this 5 page document (in German). Basically it describes what corruption is, that it doesn’t have any formal definition in German law, that it’s a process rather than a state, what signs I should notice to avoid myself from being corrupted, what I should do when I know or suspect my colleagues are corrupt, and so on. Nothing quite new from my perspective, but it makes me wonder whether such exposition is also present in Indonesian public offices. Although short, 5 pages, this document is quite thorough with how one can prevent him/herself from such activities.

Anyway, back to the todos, I still haven’t got any real publications this year. And with that paper blow I described earlier, it does seem quite bleak. Love life sucks.

Well what’s running well? My garden is still doing quite well despite the significant decrease of sunshine. The green tomatoes are turning red, the Chinese greens are doing good, and I’ve cleaned up all the carrots and basils. I’ve rejoined the gym, and been exercising quite dilligently the past few weeks. Still have a thick stomach, but it’s slowly disappearing (yay). Financial matter is in order too, although I’m spending slightly more than I want.

And it’s just 1 1/2 weeks before I can say I’ve been in Kaiserslautern for 2 1/2 years. Better to stay positive!

It’s the last Sunday of October and my garden still has quite a bit to offer. Have been harvesting 7 carrots in the past two days, as part of my plan to roast enough chickens to make more concentrated chicken breast. The carrots have decent size (so that you know, the height of the tetra paks are about 20 cm), and they tasted quite sweet too. So roasting only made them even sweeter. I will definitely grow some more carrots next year.

While it shouldn’t be totally surprising, I still found it delightful to see an earthworm within one of the tetrapaks. I mean I’ve put in this worm cast into the soil mix, and although it’s said to have been sterilized, some worm eggs seem to have more resistant to the heat. Enough rotting stuff from the compost I bought kept some alive.

Tomatoes are, well, keeping their green fruits pretty well. I suppose it was rather late for me to give the rice water last month, and now when they have all the green fruits ready to ripen, the weather is not warm enough. Oh well. Interesting aside, some lady bugs started to settle in the garden as the one I captured hiding behind a leaf of one of the bushy tomato plants. Unfortunately, they’re not doing anything significant to the aphid community that has been well-established in the chinese green population.

If the aphids weren’t there, my bok choys and choy sums would have flourished greatly, as one can see in the two self-watering pots perpendicularly laid to the polka dot barrier. The population is so pronounced one of the pots, that most of the choy sums are going yellow so quickly. I’ve harvested some a few weeks back, but I don’t think I’ll be having any more harvest from that pot. It’s probably wise too to get rid of the pot entirely. That’s something to do in the near future. In any case, the chinese greens I’ve been enjoying the past few weeks taste as they should be. Having choy sum with noodles is a special treat for me

Still have that small green bell peppers hanging around. I’ll use them soon, before getting rid of the tired plant. Same with the dill. The chinese greens, chives, parsley and tomatoes seem to be holding out pretty well, so they’re not going away soon, unless the weather drastically takes a turn for the worse. The basils cannot stand the coldness, and I’ll have to bring in the rosemary soon. It will be a bit difficult to choose which plants I should be wintering since there’s not so much place inside that has access to sun.

I probably still have 1-2 garden updates left this year. I just hope the weather will stay just fine, that is no sudden drop in temperature.

Earlier today I reported with the help of my group’s secretary that there’s some problem with the window seal on my office window, that is the air comes in when the wind blows quite hard. And that’s quite a problem when it’s winter. And just now (that is within an hour of the report being sent), an in-house personnel came to check on it. While he didn’t have the proper rubber (because each building has its own window design and thus different kinds of window seal), he solved temporarily the problem by using some tissues available on my desk. Of course I still feel a bit of wind, but it’s better already than before.

All in all, I’m quite amazed by how prompt the problem’s being tackled

Update: And while I went for lunch, the new seal was installed! Yay

Argh… The sun has shown itself prominently for the past 3 days. While the warming rays themselves are welcomed, I certainly don’t like the side effect it produces, namely letting so many fruit flies to hatch! Just yesterday in the middle of afternoon, my room was suddenly filled with fruit flies. While they don’t exactly do any harm, it’s extremely annoying to see them around. I’ve tried making water and vinegar concoction in a small bottle which is left open and managed to get a significant portion of the population gone, but I need to keep an eye on it. If I let the bottle open too long, then the flies don’t get attracted any more. So exactly when they’re crowding the bottle head, I need to close it and shake the whole thing up.

And this morning, I still see them latching on the mirror, the windows, the white cupboards, anything white… Hopefully this is only a temporary thing.

So yeah, I decided to buy a breadmaker, and got this Unold 68100 when Ebay.de posted a deal (which is not as cheap as one could get from an auction, but good enough). After some delay, I got it like a few days ago.

This breadmaker has basically two main functions: baking bread from scratch (i.e., from water, flour, yeast, etc.) or just preparing the dough. This particular model has 12 options capturing different requirements needed to make different types of bread/dough. To be honest I’m really more excited about the second part, because I like to make pasta from scratch. But I kinda dislike the mess that I have to deal with the flour and so on, because I don’t have a large worktop to work with.

To get acquainted with these functions, yesterday I made some wholewheat bread, while today I made some wholewheat pizza. I have to say, I’m very pleased with the practicality the breadmaker offers.

Regarding the garden, it’s doing just fine. The choy sum and bok choys are heavily invested by aphids, and I don’t think I can do much about it, except trying to get rid of huge patches of aphids every now and again. And I still haven’t harvested the carrots… hmmm need to start doing it soon!

It’s been a while since I gave an update on my garden. The plants are doing well. Been harvesting quite a lot, and also dumping a few tetra packs because the season was simply up for them. Planted carrots and second batch of choy sums and bok choys. They’re doing great. The tomatoes are now having a second life, so I’m getting more harvest in the coming weeks, and also thanks to the great weather we’re experiencing here in Germany.

This season, I learn quite a few things. I won’t grow bellpeppers anymore, because they simply need big pots. Tetra pack just don’t cut it well. I got only at most 1 pepper per plant. Barely enough for a meal. Another solution would be to increase the number of tetra packs, but that also mean that I would have to invest more on the soil. Better to use the space for something else.

I need to do more rosemary and basil cuttings, but that also depends how often I’m gonna use them. When I get a breadmaker, I’ll probably need more rosemary. And they grow very slowly around here. So plenty more will be needed. And if I get a blender, then I can probably make pesto more often, hence more basils. But really, basil is really easy to propagate, more so than rosemary, because of the quicker “response” time.

Anyway, enough babbling.

So, it’s been 2 weeks since the last garden update. Not much news except that I’m getting a few red tomatoes and red chilies yay The dill seeds start to dry, and I need to take care of all the choy sum pods… Dunno when I’ll have time for that. The peas are dying out, but that’s to be expected. The parsley starts to bolt, again it is about time. Carrots are not doing too good; I blame the aphids for that. And that’s about it. Gonna fertilize the tomatoes tomorrow, and need to put on more soil here and there, and mulch them to prevent the soil from drying out too soon.

I thank Dasha for watering the plants while I was away.

The weekly installment of garden update this week features less aphids, a bit of harvesting produce and seeds, and 3 gonna-be bellpeppers. Still though, those bloody aphids keep popping up, so daily manual inspection is still in place.

Anyway, my parsley starts to flower, so they’ve decided it’s time to end their bilennial cycle. I’ll have to buy some replacement. I harvested some bush beans for BBQ last Wednesday with some guests from Stockholm. Marinated with olive oil and a pinch of salt, brushed with rosemary and garlic, grilled on charcoal, the bush beans were fantastic! Love fresh stuff

Peas are producing second batch of crop. More than 10 pods I’ve sighted. So that’s quite good. Fava beans are producing slightly more. This time I plan to harvest the pods a bit later, so I get bigger beans.

I’ve thinned the carrots and was so “thrilled” to see aphids munching on the nutrition on those tiny seedlings. They managed to deform some leaves of the seedlings Hate them a lot. But hopefully, the ones standing now will be tough enough to deal with the aphids, with some help from me.

Tomatoes are producing like crazy. At least 80 tomatoes! Unfortunately for me (and fortunately for the lucky fellow), I won’t be the one who’ll harvest them. And finally, I saw some bellpeppers! Still small, but OK.

Dill is doing just fine, the same with spring onions and thyme. The spring onions should have red stems, but so far I haven’t seen any signs of redness.

The choy sum pods are going yellow, and I’ve harvested some yesterday. Around 15-20 pods (around 10% of the whole things), and I got ~200 seeds already. What will I do with the rest of the seeds I wonder… Next time, I’ll only let exactly one plant to seed. Not like 10 I have now

Some spinach are blooming. I don’t know whether I’ll grow them again. I really don’t know what’s the secret to get it big like the two I had. The rest a(/we)re so small :/

The rosemary cuttings are confirmed to be alive The basil cuttings are astonishingly so easy to flower. Must make more aggressive pruning. The flowers smell nice and do attract beneficial bugs (I hope), but the product of interest is really the leaf, not the flower (or seeds thereafter).

Harvested some beans again, and after harvesting peas, I’m getting the second crop. Looking forward to eating them too. I think I will have non-stop supply of bush beans before going home for a vacation.

Tomatoes are doing wonderful. Some even have full 7 tomatoes hanging on a single flower stalk. So no problem with the fertilization part. Bellpeppers, however, are another story. I couldn’t save the biggest plant, and some got this wierd virus that causing the leaves to crumpled and not developing nicely It seems I won’t get much out of it.

Spring onions are doing fine, but still a few months away from the mature growth. In the mean time, the thyme border is looking just fine.

Parsley starts to develop the flowering stalk. So it may be the time for me to buy some new plant. We’ll see. Basil’s doing great. Managed to relieve one to Dasha And then there’s dill. Seeds start to form, so I should get

Carrots are doing well, and I still need to thin them (haven’t done it yet. Need to research when I should do it). Choy sum seed pods start to yellow, but some white dust (powdery mildew?) is coating them. So I’ll need to clean them before harvesting the seeds. Hope they’ll be ready in 3-4 weeks so I have time to do it.

Anyway, enjoy the pics. I’ve been reminiscing a bit as well how the garden evolved.

First wind casualty: The biggest bellpepper plant. That was and still is a shock when I woke up and walked into my balcony. I found the top part of the bellpepper plant laying on the ground! Snapped really “nicely” from the root base. I’m trying to salvage it now by putting it into water, but honestly the chance of it rooting back and recovering is really slim I’m taking desperate measure and bringing the whole colony of bellpeppers inside until the wind calms down.

This week also contains other bad news: aphid manifestation. I had to threw my marigold away and checked every single tomato plant for aphids. A labourious process. Fortunately they’re not yet too established on the tomatoes, so manual control is still possible. But now I have to perform control like every 1-2 days to let the aphids no chance of bouncing back.

Well to end stuff in a more positive note, yesterday I harvested around 380 gr of beans, some fava beans, some bush beans. They all made it into the shepherd’s pie I baked yesterday. Sweet and crunchy! Like it a lot. I don’t think I’ll get significantly more fava beans in the next month, so it’ll get the axe not to grow it again. I’ll stick with peas and bush beans instead, but try to grow some other varieties.

Man o man… what a week on my garden.