I am preparing to go on a week-long trip and other than thinking about what I need to pack, I’m also thinking about my plant babies that I’ll be leaving behind for a week.  As you may have noticed through my blog posts and IG feed, I’m finally getting around to starting a garden. I have a few plant babies that are growing in my yard.

This first pic is not a baby plant, but I am thrilled to watch it produce a few sweet salad peppers this summer. I got the toddler plant from Garden Exchange earlier this summer. It took root easily and is growing nicely. In fact, I had to prune back a few branches.  I just found this sprout. I think it is my kabocha vine. I buried the seeds I saved from a kabocha I purchased and cooked and the seeds are finally growing!  (7/12 update:  I checked the sprouts before I left for my trip and they are gone.  I think snails may have eaten it.)

I have a corn plant growing in the garden that sprouted from some kernels I threw in with the compost.  A baby corn is growing! I have a bunch of eggplant seedlings that I hope won’t die while I’m gone.  I started these eggplants from seeds and just transplanted them to the yard earlier this week. If you don’t want to wait a long time for your seedlings to grow, you can buy a toddler plant from Garden Exchange to get to the point of harvest more quickly. I got this one a few weeks ago and it seems to be growing nicely. I did have a flower on it that I was hoping would be the first eggplant but I think a bird or a cat knocked the flower off. I found the flower bud on the ground one day earlier this week. I recently got a branch from Grace’s malunggay (moringa) tree that I stuck in the ground that seems to be alive and starting to bud. I’m hoping to see leaves from it soon to share this nutritional powerhouse with friends. I planted seeds from some bittermelons to add to my bittermelon patch for more bittermelon production since my husband and I both love bittermelon.  I have some bittermelon recipe posts scheduled to be published soon.I also added to my wing bean patch so I can have enough to share.  I’m hoping one of my future blog posts will be about a garden-to-table pinakbet with eggplant, wing beans, and bittermelon from my garden. Well–I’m sure that like my human children, my plant babies will be fine when I’m gone and even might flourish in my absence.  Crossing my fingers!  Hasta luego!