Mid Autumn

September 2012.  Summer was tough on my plants... many typhoons meant many scorching days with terribly polluted air (it goes very hazy whenever there are typhoons in the region)... I lost a lot of plants... my lovely chilli padi and conical chilli plants, both the thymes.  Sniff... many of the plants are just recovering now.

Part of the problem could also have been the lack of fertiliser while we were away for a few weeks.  I also suspect that the organic fertiliser attracted ants (being organic) and sadly the ants also affect the plants.  I've switched to phostrogen and non-organic fertilisers for a while.  I've, however, also started using crushed egg-shells as I understand that's quite good for the plants.

The weakened plants were also susceptible to pests like spider mites and I was horrified to find what I now think are "cut worms" in the soil.  They are probably some sort of caterpillar, but they look very creepy because they have translucent skin and live inside the soil so give me a bit of a shock when I was re-potting the lemongrass.  Thankfully I did decide to repot the lemongrass as it was not doing very well and as I discovered, this was due to the "cut worms" eating up the new shoots (and probably some of the roots).

Mid Autumn festival, as ever, has thankfully brought cooler weather so hopefully that will give my plants a chance to recover and regenerate.  Am now getting more flowers and fruits starting....

Flowers on the CNY orange bush which I retrieved from the rubbish

Tiny oranges starting to form

I was also delighted to discover what I had read about before but not seen - a turmeric flower.  Supposedly a sign that the plant is doing well...

Delicate White Turmeric Flower

And then another surprise... a ginger bud... actually I discovered today that there is a second one... Not quite as pretty as the turmeric flower but still 

Normal ginger flower bud

I also had a wonderful surprise with the ginger in August when I decided to cut some of it off because it was about to break through the plastic pot it was growing in...

rhizome pushing out sides of pot

after cutting out part of plant

fresh succulent young ginger - yum!