Balcony Herb Garden

Citrus adventures

March 2015. The two weeks of Chinese New Year have just finished and sadly the lovely orange trees (Calamondin) get thrown away! So, as I have done before, I have retrieved one to keep. The oranges have to be thrown away as the growers apparently use lots of growth hormone to make the tree fruit :(

Calamondin oranges (we call them calamansi limes but they are actually oranges) is a citrofortunella hybrid between mostly like mandarin oranges and kumquats (fortunella).

Freshly retrieved plant - in a very healthy state!

Summer 2014

End of May 2014. The heat and humidity have arrived after a prolonged cool, dry spring... This suits some of the herbs better than others.

The curry leaf plant which had not been doing well for a very long time - not sure why - has been sprouting new growth which is now maturing and settling down nicely - phew! I thought I had nearly lost the plant at one point...

Herb Flowers

April 2014. Spring Onion flower from bud to fully open

And it continues to evolve...

Seed pods forming

September 2012. Herb flowers are rather subtle but have their own beauty... here is a collection of flowers which have emerged on my balcony since the beginning of the year...

Mints

April 2014.

Managed to find a number of new different types of mint this month to add to my peppermint.

Not sure but think this is Chocolate Mint!

Spearmint

Cuban Oregano - not cuban and not oregano but a type of mint which is supposed to be good for coughs!

Nasi Ulam Herbs

February 2014.

Decided to try making Nasi Ulam using herbs from my garden. This is what I collected...

Clockwise from left - Laksa leaves, Lime leaves, Thai lemon basil, lemongrass, turmeric leaves (under), mint (below)

Beginnings in herb gardening

August 2013. Some one just asked recently when I started my interest in Herb Gardening and coincidentally I was just going through all my pictures of my plants sorting them out by type of plant. Looking at the dates on the pictures, I deduced (as memory fails!) that I first started growing herbs around May/June 2011.

Thrips

July 2013. Having come back after several weeks away, I have discovered that the thrips have had a field day with a number of my plants! At first look, I just thought that many of the plants were suffering from neglect and the effects of either too much rain or swelteringly hot temperatures - typical summer weather here in Hong Kong.

"Winter"

January 2013. Going to Sydney and Brisbane in our summer, their winter, made me realize that my concept of our cold season in Hong Kong in terms of the herbs was all wrong! This is the problem with having grown up in the tropics! So I realized that with our relatively mild winters, I should be thinking of this time of year as the growing season not the dormant season. I realize too that looking back on my blogs from a year ago that this was the time when the eggplants and tomatoes were all fruiting, much to my surprise then. Sadly I have given up with those veggies as the amount of space they took up on my balcony in proportion to the amount of fruit they produced was not justifiable. They also looked rather unsightly most of the time. So I decided to major on herbs....

Pests! and other visitors

Late August 2014. Found this very interesting blog post on the most common type of caterpillars in the balcony. Apparently they like curry leaf and citrus plants - exactly the 2 plants that I keep finding them on!

Here is one which I didn't find early enough...

Unfortunately I think it didn't survive as it hasn't moved in several hours... yuck!

Harvesting the Galangal and Ginger

October 2012. I have been looking at my galangal plant for a while now thinking that it needed to be harvested before it split the bag it is in or before it reached the roof!

Turmeric Flowers

October 2012. Just noticed more turmeric "buds" growing. They are really unusual in the way they form so decided to do a separate post about them... (it seems they all form on the side which is in the shade for some reason - not sure why)..

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.

Basils

May 2012. Basils are great to grow because they are so easy to look after and can be propagated by off cuts. I started growing some sweet basil and basil neapolitan from seeds last year and loved their aroma. Because they grow so easily, they have multiplied over and over and I've started having to give the leaves away when I do a major pruning....