(Article) Fermented milk fertilizer

Adapted from PetuniaLee’s blog post with permission

“With so many people wanting to know the hows, whys and wherefores, I thought it would be good to do up a post on how to make fermented milk fertiliser.”

Full article here

(Photography) Undisclosed location

Note: Location being kept a secret because there are wild nepenthes species there and I want to keep them from being poached.

Scale insects.

(Article) Monsoon periods in Singapore

Adapted from The Curious Gardener’s blog post with permission

“So, the weather has broken and the northeast monsoons are finally done. It’s funny how we tend to forget that “monsoon” refers to the winds, and not rainy weather.”

Full article here

(This post is a good guide to when the wet and dry monsoon seasons are in Singapore. Thank you, The Curious Gardener!)

(Pest control) 1-step ant poison

I refer to this post I’d written not too long ago, on using a newly-bought liquid ant killer.

Over the past week of daily   application along my house all the way to the other end of my neighbor’s house, I have seen a gradual decline of ants along their usual trail.

The day after I’d applied the ant poison outside one of my neighbor’s house, my neighbor approached my dad to tell him what I did (I asked for his permission first), said that the ants IN his house had vanished, and asked if I could buy a set for him.

I suppose this 1-step ant killer does work.

Their ant poison can be found here.

(Pest control) Mealy bugs

Just a note to everyone regarding killing mealy bugs with whatever kind of spray: use a high-pressure spray and make sure the white protective coating of the mealies are blasted off when you spray, so that whatever chemicals you use have all the more effect in eradicating them.

Credit: Sarracenia.com

(Growing conditions) Roman chamomile

The Roman chamomile is a soft but rather versatile plant that has been used, like the German chamomile, to cure various physical ailments from menstrual cramps and stomach discomfort, to using them for scenting such as in potpourris. The Roman chamomile is known especially for having a sweet apple scent that soothes the mind and body.

Personally, I much prefer the Roman chamomile as compared with the German one for one reason: the former is a perennial which, if taken care of well, grows small plantlet offshoots which one can use to divide and propagate; the latter is an annual which, although it regrows faster after pruning, gives a bit of inconvenience due to the yearly resowing of seeds.

I find that for any Mediterranean herbs, the most important factor is the media which the plant is in, and the amount of sun it gets, especially for a high-rise setting. I was given three pots of Roman chamomile by a friend on Christmas eve of 2009. Two pots have died. Those two pots have had their soil media changed to a well-draining one of volcanic sand and Tref potting mix. However, those two pots were placed in my room, which receives about three hours of direct morning sun. Soon, they browned very quickly, became lanky and unhealthy looking, and prone to pest attacks. Scales took the chance to cover almost every inch of those two pots.

At the same time, the current surviving pot which was placed in my balcony, which received up to five/six hours of hot afternoon sun, and which is planted in the same media as the other two, thrived very well, even after an initial bout of scale attacks.

Garbage enzyme was sprayed liberally on all three pots. However, due to the sunlight factor, only one pot survived, and is now overflowing the pot.

As the Roman chamomile is a small plant which reaches barely four inches high, is fairly maintenance-free, I recommend it if you live in a high-rise apartment with at least four hours of sun daily. With these factors, even if you water the media thoroughly everyday, the plant will not suffer from rot, if the media is well-draining enough.

Care: Well-draining and rich soil mix
Sunlight: As much sun as possible; preferably at least four hours of afternoon sun
Water: Once a day
Propagation: By seeds, or reputedly through cuttings

(Photography) Pulau Ubin

Infra-red shot.

(Pest control) Ants

With the pelleted ant poison not working (yeah, I sat there for half an hour observing the ants and their behavior, and only less than 1% of the total ant trail population would pick up the pelleted poison), I was forced to consider other chemical alternatives.

I chanced upon liquid poison at a homefix (I think) store in a local mall yesterday, and bought the pack of poison for $5.90.

I’d applied the liquid at various points along the extremely long ant trail (I live in a corner unit in a block which is built in an L-shape, and the trail went all the way to the other end of the ‘L’), and over one hour, I saw hundreds of ants congregate at the liquid poison points.

It will probably take a few days to a week to check on the effectiveness of the poison, after which I will update once more.

(Pest control) Ants

It seems that ants these days have grown accustomed to ant poison in pellet form, and largely avoid them.

Seeing ants congregate and climbing up and down my vitex trifolia plant which seems to be constantly infected with scales (although daily spraying of garbage enzyme helps A LOT to keep their numbers down) drives me a bit nutty since ants farm scales for their sweet nectarish secretions. Good for the ants, bad for my plant. So, it’s them which has to go, both ants and scales.

I found the whole ant trail this morning, and as a first round of attack, I sprayed home-made white oil on all of them. The white oil consists of about 30ml water, one teaspoon of cooking oil, and one squirt of dishwashing liquid. Unfortunately (in the past at least), these ratios are too strong for plants’ leaves, so one has to make sure that the plant has been watered beforehand, or you don’t spray on the leaves directly at all.

I made sure all the ants on the trail were dead. I must have killed hundreds of them. If I continue doing that every day, I expect to see larger and larger ants coming out each day, which mean that the nest’s worker ants has diminished and they’re sending out soldier ants now.

I’ve tried the corn meal method, but I cannot be sure it works since 1) I can’t see the ants when they take the corn meal back to their nest and I’m not sure if they really do explode; 2) my packet or corn meal got infested by some weevil things.

However, I will be dunking the whole pot of my vitex trifolia in warm water soon to kill the ants which have made a nest in it. And couple it up with a two-pronged attack by spraying more white oil or white vinegar on any other ants I see.

Credit: Google Images

WikiHow contains some amusing techniques to kill ants without using pesticides