When I wake up in the morning, the Mini Garden becomes a serene green retreat. The sounds of birds, roosters crowing, and the gentle breeze. The rural atmosphere is so peaceful; people are busy with their morning routines—heading to work, school, or the garden—all done early in the morning. But for me, it’s different.
After getting busy in the kitchen preparing breakfast and my husband’s lunch, my favorite spot—while sipping warm water—is the garden. Isn’t it even more beautiful to see the garden’s produce growing more lush with each passing day?. Plus, the morning air is still so fresh—I really love this part of my house, even though many of my plants, like the water spinach, were destroyed by the neighbor’s chickens. Thank God, everything is back in order now, and the neighbor’s chickens don’t come around anymore.
This month has been full of surprises. The chili peppers, which used to be small and sometimes took a very long time to ripen, are now ready for harvest almost every day—especially the bird’s eye chili peppers.
Now I don’t need to buy them anymore; my garden already meets my daily chili pepper needs. My garden yields a bountiful harvest of chili peppers every day—more than enough for daily cooking and even for making sambal.
It feels so rewarding to turn a small plot of land into a source of such an essential kitchen ingredient, so I no longer have to buy them. This, of course, helps me save money in these increasingly difficult economic times.
I don’t just grow “devil’s chili” peppers; next to them are some small local chili plants. Unfortunately, even though the leaves are lush, it seems these plants have been infested with aphids. Even though they’ve already started bearing fruit, it’s such a shame they’ve had to deal with this problem.
Every shoot that’s starting to form a fruit is infested with aphids—this is really unfortunate. Aphids are particularly fond of chili plants; from the time they’re young, these plants are constantly under attack by aphids. I spray them with an aphid pesticide, which is usually effective at eliminating the aphids, though it often has the side effect of damaging the leaves.
I resort to this alternative when the aphid infestation is out of control and the population has become too large. Usually, it’s not just aphids—red ants are also very fond of chili plants. I’ve often found red ants attacking the tips of the chili leaves and the bases of the chili fruits.
It’s not just the chili peppers—even some of my tomato plants are experiencing the same problem. It’s such a shame to see thriving plants suffer from pests like this.
Well, some of the tomato plants that have survived are starting to recover—they’ve already begun blooming again. Hopefully, they’ll bear fruit soon so that my garden will be complete again.
Due to the constant rain in my area, my shallots have also died; all parts of the bulbs have started to rot. I still haven’t managed to plant shallots. I’ll have to start over
I’ve also started transplanting the basil into larger pots; it’s growing well even though I harvested a few shoots yesterday—now new shoots are starting to appear. The same goes for the celery: after the chickens damaged it, it’s starting to bounce back and grow well again. Hopefully, I’ll be able to harvest the celery soon so I won’t have to buy it at the market when I’m cooking.
Of course, I’m really looking forward to an update on one of the vegetables I’m growing: cauliflower. It’s already quite large. Yesterday, I added some compost made from burned leaves to the growing medium. The growing medium is excellent, but I’ve noticed the cauliflower still hasn’t produced any heads. The florets aren’t visible yet, even though the plant is nearly two months old. I’m still learning how to grow cauliflower from seed; according to the information I’ve gathered, cauliflower has a very long growing season.
The leaves are very lush and growing quite well, but I still haven’t seen any flower buds at all—this has me really curious. Hopefully, it will bloom soon and the heads will develop well.
Everything in the garden is growing well, even though some plants have been attacked by pests, have died, or faced other issues—that’s just how gardening goes; it’s all part of the process. However, this is a moment we rarely get to experience amid our busy schedules. Even a quick visit to the garden, using whatever seeds are available, will surely yield something beautiful. My hope for this month is that my garden will continue to improve and that the plants in my home will keep producing.
For those of you who don’t know where to start with gardening, all you need is confidence and the right mindset—I’m sure you’ll do just fine. Start small, and you’ll eventually get the hang of it.
Welcome to this blog, I have a real name "Nurul", who comes from Indonesia. I have several hobbies, reading, writing, gardening, I also love food and cooking, even art related. And the most interesting one is spending the whole day traveling. From those hobbies, I will share some inspiring content for all of you, I hope you like my blog, please and reblog this post if you like it!
