Organic lemongrass – from market to garden

Here’s another plant that you can grow from what you buy in the market :)

Lemongrass, or Cymbopogon citratus, is used in cooking in Malaysia – though not as much as in Thailand. It gives a spicy lemony flavour to food, and anyone who tried Tom Yam (the Thai seafood dish) will recognise it. It’s called serai makan in Malay (literally ‘lemongrass eat’), distinguishing it from serai wangi (‘lemongrass fragrant’) or Cymbopogon nardus, from which citronella is extracted – it’s effective in keeping mosquitoes away, but is invasive.


WW just stuck two of the stems we got from the market into the ground; actually they had been in the fridge for some days – and I was dubious about whether they would grow. But after about a week one of them started to sprout

They prefer full sun, or light shade, and a loamy soil. After 12 days the second stem was growing too. They don’t smell of anything yet though.


Eventually, it can become a largish clump of ornamental grass – for the moment it will stay in the pot until we can decide what to do with it


Here are some tips for American gardeners who want to try it; and some more advice and well as recipes.

Growing organic mint from cuttings - Update

Sorry for the long hiatus – got a lot on my plate at the moment…

Here’s an update on the organic mint cuttings. The ones I put in the water have failed miserably


there was one leaf valiantly hanging on when I took this photo, but it soon went too. Maybe I should have changed the water? Or used clean water originally? I dunno…

Anyway, for the other ones I planted most of them died, but some survived and are starting to grow :)


This pot is an experiment – it has no drainage (originally used for ‘water cabbage’ or Pistia stratiotes) – so it fills up with water. This is not good for mint in theory, which prefers drained soil, but I have put the pot in a place that does not get most of the rain, and empty it out after rain; I’m wondering whether, when there is enough mint growing, the plants will draw up and use the water – meaning it will not get waterlogged.

There’s a high chance that won’t work, so I moved some to another pot where it also seems to have taken root.


I had a sniff at the leaf the other day and it smells really fresh and nice! I can’t wait to have enough to be able to harvest and put some in my tea in the morning :)

Tiger Orchid and Dragonfly

Just a short one. There will more pictures of the my parents-in-law's blossoming Tiger Orchid, or Rossioglossum grande later on, but the other night there were two dragonflies on it for some reason. And I found out that a flash at night can have a useful effect sometimes (the black background).

Growing organic mint from cuttings

Well, I love to have fresh mint tea, and some fresh mint can really improve some dishes, so I've been meaning to grow some for a while now. Typically I buy a bunch like this from the pasar malam (night market)


There are many types of mint, but I think this kind is spearmint, or Mentha spicata. It will cost about RM1.50 (apprx. 40 US cents), but the problem is that mint quickly wilts and goes mushy. No doubt it has also been sprayed with pesticides, etc.

I had been looking around for seeds or plants, and then someone told me that they are easy to grow from cuttings - so I did a quick Google and found this helpful guide (it's a pdf).

First, strip the stalks of the lower leaves (reduces water loss through transpiration apparently).


Secondly, plant in a pot - I just buried as much as I could in the soil as the roots will grow from the nodes where the leaves were.


Importantly, note that mint is very invasive - put it in a pot, or bottomless pot in the ground.

Apparently, you can also get the roots started in water (like here), so I'm trying that too.


It will be interesting to see the roots growing. I put some of my organic vermicompost in the water to supply nutrients.

It will take 2-3 weeks to get some results, will update then.

Harvesting organic vermicompost

I just harvested the organic vermicompost from my worm bin after leaving it for about eight weeks.

There’s a lot I have still to learn, but I’m not displeased with my first harvest – perhaps a kilo of vermicompost. It’s not all dry and in little pellets as it would be if you bought it (e.g. Worm Castings - 30lb), but that’s because they usually sieve it, and so on. I will spread it under my jasmine bush, the Rangoon creeper and use some to mix into the soil for some new plants.

Here’s a short film (three minutes) showing the process of removing the compost and restarting the worm bin.


There’s lots of information by more knowledgeable people out there of course. Virginia Cooperative Extension has a useful short guide here; and a PowerPoint here.

You can also locate vermicomposters near you at vermicomposters.com.

I’ve seen this book recommended as well:

Why do I garden?

I garden to take time off from a world where everything moves too fast; I garden to learn more about the earth I’m standing on.

This is for the Blotanical competition :) If I get one of the books, it's going to my mum in Belgium as it wouldn't be much use to me here in Malaysia...

Zingiberaceae in Laos (?)

This is another plant spotted on the sidewalk in Vientiane, Laos.


I can only guess at what it is – the reddish bamboo-like stalks reminded me of the Zingiberaceae (ginger) family, which is surprisingly large as I am finding out recently – there are more than 1300 species, and even turmeric is part of the ginger family (which I should have guessed, having seen fresh turmeric root on sale in the pasar malam (night market)).

This one attracted me because of the unusual dangling flower stems, which incidentally rather look like crimped hair. Because of this feature, I think that it is of the Globbeae (or Globba) genus.


And the flower was a very delicate, paper tissue-like pale pink.


The photos don't really do them justice, they were very nice :)