The Greens Outside My Doors

Thanking God that I have a small little backyard at the back of my place. I am a city girl and gardening is complete stranger to me. But well, with a backyard and some inspiration and encouragement from MIL and SIL (mother-in-law and sister-in-law respectively), I thought that I shall adventure a bit... and also thinking that I can save a bit of grocery shopping money by planting some of my own supply of veggies and herbs.

Come have a look at my backyard as I show you photos of them:

My patio with pots of plants and seedlings

The side of my place (where it leads to the bins). I have a palm tree, chives, 2 basil plants, sweet potato leaves, a parsley seedling and some orchid plants.

Down the lawn, there is a patch of soil. That strip was just cleared of various plants and trees over the weekend. FIL helped to clear the area so that I can plant more veggies, etc.

The remnants of the plants and weeds pulled out and left there until our bin can fit them to throw away. There is an aloe vera plant on the side near the fence.

A colourful bird can be sighted on the trees just outside my fence

Chilli plant. SIL gave me this chilli that repels gravity and grows pointing up to the skies.


Thai basil. This is one of the latest addition, given to us by our friends. I have to go figure how to use it in my cooking

On the left: chives. In the middle: 2 sweet basil plants. I just made half a bottle of fresh basil pesto from these leaves last week.

Sweet potato leaves. I planted an entire sweet potato into the soil and out comes the leaves. I am gonna cut up these leaves and stir-try them soon...

The chilli plant left behind by the previous occupants. There are at least 20 green chillis on it now and I am waiting for them to turn red. To prevent bugs from feasting on them, I have wrapped around some of them as an experiment to see if it helps at all.

Roma tomato. It has bore one tomato at the moment. However bugs have helped themselves to it. So I cut it off, removed the seeds and re-planted them nearby. Hopefully they will grow and bear another new tomato plant.


? This plant is starting to flower. You can see the little white flower on the top. I wonder what this is. My FIL says it looked like some useful plant (not a weed). Shall keep it for a while and observe.


Last but not least, this is my favourite photo - a caterpillar. This was hanging on a plant just outside my window in the front. I saw this through the window from inside the house and decided to go close to take a photo of it. I am afraid of creepy crawlies and so it happens that his little one was on the other side of the window and I am not scared to go near it.

I have a couple more succulents, some orchid plants (not flowering yet. It will take years!) and a frangipani tree seedling growing in my backyard. I am a bit lazy to the photos up. I really hope and pray that my plants will grow. Any gardening tips from anyone?