True leaves of the Cosmos flower

Many of you might be wondering what is the meaning of "true leaves". Well, It's simple. When a seed starts to grow, two-sets of identical leaves will form first. Then after a few days, a third kind of leaf ,or leaves, will emerge looking totally different from the first two leaves. That is the true leaf.

True leaves of Cosmos: small and thin emerging between the first leaves.

When the true leaves come out, that is the perfect time where you can start transplanting them to bigger pots.

These are my Cosmos on their 18th day of life and approx. 5 weeks to go until they can start flowering.

Portulaca and Dahlia seedlings

My little Portulacas (left) and Dahlias (right) are "hatching" and soon, when they get a bit bigger, I'll place them in the greenhouse together with my Zinnias to get a little sunshine. I'm getting really surprised that my little seeds are all germinating really fast than expected.

At first, I thought the Portulaca seedlings were the just invasive little plants that came together with the soil. I noticed It yesterday when they started to come out, but today, after giving a closer look, I saw the seed casing attached to the little plants tip! I'm so surprised how tiny the Portulaca seedlings are and yet to be strong plants when they are mature in just approx. 6 weeks.

Closer look at the Portulaca seedlings. About 5 mm tall.

Dahlia germinating. Seed casing still attached to the plant.

My Carnations and Phlox are not showing any signs of germination at all but I'll give them a little more time before I start to sow a second batch of them with the same soil as the others that germinated.

As for my tomato plant, well the bottom leaves are all dying due to the fungus but the top leaves are still nice and healthy. The local florist and nursery is still far away from where I live so I will have to wait for my husband to come back home from his holiday so that he can give me a ride. Hopefully I would still have time to save it. 

*These seeds are from the Horti brand and It costed 1.69$ each packet*

Germination of Zinnias and Dahlias

I'm so overjoyed! My little Zinnia and Dahlia seeds are now little seedlings! They germinated very very fast and I wasn't expecting them to germinate not until next week. Oh the joys of gardening!

Look at those little sprouts <3 These are the Zinnia seedlings that germinated in 3-4 days. Next to it are the Dahlias but Its still very small. Tomorrow, or next week, my carnation seeds should be starting to germinate but I don't see any signs of anything poping out yet. I used different soil for the carnation and zinnia so I will have to monitor that or maybe change the carnation soil in the future.
I cut the Zinnia pots and place them inside my little green house in the living room to get sunlight during morning hours and to protect my hungry cat from eating it!

My cherry tomato plant is not really getting any better. Last 2 days I ventured out and tried the home-remedy for my tomato plant by rubbing alcohol on the mealybugs which It said that It would suffocate the bugs. Today I found my tomato plant leaves are suffering from fungi disease (You can tell by the brown spots on the leaves)! I don't know If it was caused by the alcohol or watering the leaves but all I know is that my tomato plant is dying! Guess I have to stop again at the flower shop and get a fungicide while its too late.

Anyone with a similar story? Please share your ideas!

Sowing Frenzy!!

I'm so greedy! I bought sooo much seeds at Ji Mei Flower Shop down at Thompson and Giants and a few other stuff like soil, fertilizers and tools. How can you possibly resist the diversity of colors and ideas that you can do with these flowers!

So I added Livingstone Daisies, Portulaca, Dahlias, Zinnia Lilliput, Gold Medallion, Lavender, Pink Sun Flower and Cactus Mixed into my collection. All of them planted except for the cactus since it requires "their" own type of soil.

This time I placed them in peat pots that I purchased at Ji Mei at 9.90$ for 36 tiny pots. And because I'm new into gardening, I've never done transplanting to any plant. I was so afraid to damage the roots so I got the peat pots to facilitate the work. After doing some research through the Internet, peat pots are pots that comes in various shapes and sizes that are made with sphagnum moss peat and wood pulp fibers that are excellent for water absorption to help keep your soil and seeds moist. What I like about it, is the fact that you can just place the whole peat pot into the established pot that your plant will spend the rest of his life in. The roots of your new plant can still penetrate the walls of the peat pot! So It's a pretty good way for beginners to start sowing their seeds and not needing to worry about root damaging during the process of transplanting. Cool, huh? 

I bought a set of 3 mini gardening tools at Giants for 3.95$ and great tools for plant thinning just in case you're not using peat pots. But I bought mine just because it's cute...

After sowing them in their own little pot, I gently sprayed water and applied a bit of flowering fertilizer from Zagro and then leave them on my kitchen windowsill. 

My husband planted this beautiful Cherry Tomato plant from seed a few weeks ago, and look how much it grown! But I'm facing a bit of a headache now... It's infected with mealybugs! These bugs were responsible for the damage they caused to my chili plant that ultimately died. And It would be a pity If this beautiful tomato plant will end up in the garbage bin. So I applied a concentrated pesticide from IJO (It's Just Organic) that It's specially formulated to prevent and repel these annoying bugs by mixing 500ml of water with 1 teaspoon of pesticide and sprayed all over the leaves and roots and, of course, directly on these bugs. Let's see how will it turn out tomorrow!

Here are the photos of the pesticide that I used on my tomatoes and the foliar fertilizer that I used on my seeds. 

IJO costed 7.90$ and the fertilizer, 9.80$ and both purchased at Ji Mei flower shop.

Sowing Carnation and Phlox seeds: First attempt

Today is my first attempt to sow carnation and phlox flowers and I'm really excited to see the first tiny plants come out.

I bought these seeds in Giants hypermarket at Vivocity for 1.69$ each packet from the Horti brand, then lightly sow them in a potting mix soil that I bought at a local florist shop. The carnation seeds will germinate, hopefully, in 10-14 days and the phlox in approx 14 days. I lightly water them using a gentle spray twice a day leaving the soil damp and not entirely wet then I leave them to rest on my windowsill where not much of direct sunlight but has warmth.

I think I'm safe If I follow all of the instructions! Let's finger-cross!

I might pass by Giants again to buy other types of flowers since I have so much empty pots and soil at home.

Rest them on 10cm pots

Here are the seedlings of the cosmos flower I planted last week! Aren't they cute? First attempt to seed them as well and pretty happy that they germinated in just a few days! Hopefully they'll grow into beautiful strong plants in the following days! I placed them outdoors in my corridor after they have germinated to catch up with the beautiful sunshine in the early morning.

                                            

A close up look at the cosmos seedlings

I know little about these beautiful flowers but what I do know is that these flowers are easy to grow and requires minimum care since it can adapt to tropical weathers. 

Can't wait for what the next days will bring!

Hi! Thank you for stopping by!

Hello there! Welcome to my little world where you will discover so much of my passions. But primarily purpose of this blog is to share my new experience with gardening living in a flat. Here, I will post my progresses of my growing seeds, share ideas, tips and hints and show you that it is possible to grow a small part of nature inside your home.
It's a whole new experience to me as I know nothing about gardening. I first started growing my own seeds not long ago but I found it so interesting and got immediately fascinated about the whole process from seed to plant. So from there, I decided to record it on a blog to simply see how this exciting gardening journey will turn up.

I live among people who simply shares a passion for gardening. I think what inspired me the most to start gardening is because of my Dad. He loves growing his own vegetables in his small rented garden back in Portugal where he would spend all weekends there, sowing and tending plants, watering endless rows of vegetables and coming home extremely exhausted. I used to hate it there due to the stinky cow poo he used as fertilizers, but at the end of the day of hard work he would come back home with freshly organic veggies and fruits. And I miss those days. How I wish I could turn back time and learn this skill way back where we had a garden to do so. 

Now my Dad lives in a apartment, on the 19th floor, with a confined balcony like mine but it didn't stop him from growing his own veggies! He now has around 10 pots filled with herbs, chilies and some greens. And I'm about to follow his footsteps! 

Apart from blogging about gardening, I will share other of my passions or anything that can be helpful. Like I said, this is my little world and you are welcome to be apart of my new journey where we all can share ideas!