Friday, May 1, 2009

The First And The Last Crop

The plot now is neglected and unkempt. Soon weeds will overgrow the area.

It was too good to last. Told myself that I should have started it three years ago when I retired from service. If I had started then I would have enjoyed at least three years of bliss tending to the small vegetable plot. As it happened I only started a couple of months back as I wrote in my blog about the vegetable gardening if you still can recall about it. Otherwise just read it here.
It was just a week ago that a team from a land survey company came to the plot of land where I planted my vegetables. Mr. Wee Tiat See the surveyor came with the landowner and asked me to help locate the nearest boundary stone so that they can do the survey to locate the other boundary stones demarcating the boundary of the three house lots on which the owners are going to build their houses. Apologizing profusely to Mr. Yee the land owner for working on his land without prior permission, I showed them the boundary stone at the corner of my plot of land.
Before the sun reaches it's zenith, all the nine boundary stones were located. With modern technology and equipments such as the use of a theodolite, survey work is so easy and accurate. "It was a first class survey and the location of the sun was taken into consideration" said the surveyor. So the landowner will have to pay for the first class work at a first class rate.
Thanks to me and my neighbour for working the land, the area was easily accessible as we had cleared much of the bushes that had grown over the land since it was left fallow for about thirteen years since it was last used. Mr. Yee and his other members of the family had bought the three parcels of land measuring about 500 sq meters each for RM80,000 per lot some four years ago. Wow that is alot of money comapred to the RM12,000 that I paid for my 522 sq. meters on which my present house was built on. Anyway that was some 30 years ago. I can say that is about the current price of my piece of land on which my house sits on.
Back to the crop of vegetables that I planted, I did manage to make many harvests and most of my neighbours had managed to enjoy the fresh vegetables which was innocent of any chemical treatment often associated with the modern vegetable farming. It was entirely organic as I used only manure to fertilize the soil.
Plucking some vegetables from the beds I handed a small bundle to Mr. Yee as a token of gratitude for letting me use his plot of land. He said his workers will becoming soon to clear the land. So that is all the time that I had to harvest all the vegetables. There will not be much problem with the leafy vegetables such as the kangkong and the bayams but the chillies, kesoms and sayur manis must be transplanted elsewhere.
Without any place to transplant, all I could do was to plant them in pots. That was what I did to the chilly, sayur manis and kesom plants. What other choice have I?

Plastic pots were used entirely as thy cost much less and are lighter to move around.

18 comments:

mamasita said...

Hai P.Z.
Your plastic pictures of veges look so neat and enticing!
Fatthiyah?? Vege goreng tonight? Just pilih je oi! Yey!!

mamasita said...

Alamak! Typo error pak! I meant plastic pots! hehehe

Tu laah..mengelamun jap. Tengah pikir pasai baby kailan goreng we bought yesterday from a restaurant in town? Masiin nya!
Nothing like goreng sendiri!

kenari said...

salam pak zawi, too bad the owner of the land showed up while your veges are all grown and about to be harvested. Where was he months before u started working on the plot?

Jika tak silap sy skrg ni ramai yg guna polybag khas utk bercucuk tanam. Kenape pak zawi tak gunakan polybag utk tanam sayur2 tu. Tak perlu ruang yg luas, boleh letak sekitar rumah je.

Unknown said...

Langkah yang terbaik..tanam sayur dalam pasu,tapi guna polybag lebih baik dan ekonomi.Selamat mencoba.

Pak Zawi said...

mamasita,
Datin, lum cukup untuk harvest dan masak. Nantila biar besar dulu. Only the vegetavles are planted in pots whereas the flowers are all in earthen pots.
Next time kalau emergency malam pun boleh harvest hehehehe.

Pak Zawi said...

kenari,
Can't blame the landowner. I didn't even know who they were until they showed up. It was only coincidental that they decided to build only after I grew the vegetables. I was expecting such a thing to happen. At least I did manage to harvest some crop and had some excercise working the land.
The plastic bags don't look neat. My wife wouldn't like it if I were to use those black plastic bags. Her uncle did plant chillies around the house using those bags with drip fertigation. His house was a mess.

Pak Zawi said...

uncleawang,
I tried to maximise every space available. Soon I will have vegetables all year round for the picking. No plastic bag will be used as per the reasons cited for kenari.

Pi Bani said...

Tanam dalam pot pun okay - easier to maintain I think. I tak tanam dalam pasu pasal ada kawasan keliling rumah. Kalau tak tanam apa-apa nanti naik hutan pulak...

Unknown said...

ZA: Nice vegies. About land and prices, my DdD is 620 sq.m. for which I paid 16K in 1996. It is worth about 60K now.

Pak Zawi said...

Pi,
You are very lucky to have a house compound that you can plant directly on the ground. Mine are all cemented up or paved up.
May have to move house to accomodate some form of real gardening like you.

Pak Zawi said...

ZR,
620 sq meter should be ample for a bunggalow and compound to plant your own vegies. The neighbours will benefit from your activities too.

sherry said...

Pak Zawi.

Rajinnya.

Kawasan rumah saya ni luas tapi punyalah rajin nak bercucuk tanam. Saya wakilkan Giant and Carrefour je jadi storekeeper sayur sayur saya and family.

Pak Zawi said...

Sherry,
Cuba ajak Nazmi buat nanti you akan rasa seronok dan akan jadi rajin juga. Tak achu tak tahu.

Pak Idrus said...

Zawi, you do have land. Just take out those brick block and voila you have plenty of space to turn into a garden. What you need is just about five sq.meter of garden and it would be just a place to grow all those herbs and the like. Moreover it keeps the house cool with the greens around your house. Have a nice day.

Pak Zawi said...

Pak idrus,
The pavings were laid because there were leeches (pacat) in the house compound. There will be lots of unnecessary shriekings around when the pacat manage to hook somewhere on the other half's anatomy. After the pavings were laid the problem with the leech was solved. I don't think she will allow me to remove the pavings.

~CovertOperations78~ said...

Salam Abang Zawi!

Oh man, what a blow. Baru tanam cantik-cantik, sekarang semua kena korek keluar. Hampa! But it was nobody's fault. Neither you nor the landowner acted with any malicious intent. It was nice of you to give them some of your veggies, though. He must be touched. Not only did he benefit from the cleared land, he got some organic veggies as a bonus. He must be thinking it was his lucky day.

I must agree that the plastic pots look neater than PTE bags. Put enough of them in rows and clusters and they could help you cool the home.

Good luck with the transplanted veggies and don't forget to get someone to look after them when you go off to Europe!

Cheerio,
CO78.

Pak Zawi said...

CO'78,
The transplanted Veggies has survived very well as I had carefully dug them with a ball of soil around their roots.
The old singlemum next door will take care of my plants thirst for water while we are away. She had been doing it for the past several years for a small token of gratitude from us.

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