Sweet potato leaves

During the Japanese occupation, my family ate sweet potato leaves to survive. Now they are a delicacy. So I decided to plant them. Except that the variegated ones I bought from the landscape company looked too colourful.

You may be thinking that we eat a lot of home grown vegetables in our home. With 3 types of rosemary plants, basil, long beans etc etc. But you are wrong. I know the bats eat my jambu. But its one bite on each fruit. Such waste. Or its the monkeys. My neighbour Jeslin said they’re back. One tried to eat her cactus. One tried to eat my air plant. Maybe it mistook it for the top of a pineapple.

Himself says that the sweet potato leaves look too colorful. Its like eating koi or goldfish. What’s your excuse?

I live in an apartment with a large balcony. So no ground for it to creep.

But in a box. A very large pot. Next to the frangipani.

Netting for drainage.

Do you think I’ll try the escapelier next?

A layer of filter.

Finally the plants which spread really fast.

Frying them with belachan chilli would be nice.

Update: the sweet potato leaves were planted in Jan 2017. Since then, I have  a lime/calamansi plant and 2 pygmy banana plants in the space. The sweet potato is so tiny that I am having second thoughts.

Vertical Green

 For a long while we cracked our heads over how to maximise this long vertical wall. I'd like to get a vertical green to draw emphasis on this luxurious space. But getting one of those stacked trays at Goodwood would set us back by thousands of dollars with no guarantee that the plants would survive. Our wall gets quite a lot of sun.

Another idea is to set up a water lily pond in this small balcony. If I'd a way to prevent water from seeping into the elephant climber, i'd  combine both.  L's other question is how do I water the elephant climber with the lily pond. This picture was taken after 4 weeks. The leaves are yellow from too much rain.

 

Our elephant climber focuses on one "arm" at a time.  This is really team work, I gave L the idea and he executed it, coming up with the ingenious idea of tying 3 fishing lines up the wall, tied at each end with simple hooks (type used for hanging pictures).I hope the hooks can sustain the weight of the creepers.