The passing of Princess Basil

Yup, she kaputed before I can take a picture of her to post on my blog…

And I am the direct contribution to her premature death.

Firstly, I should have bought good, decent soil from a reliable source instead of some Pasar Malam. The soil was infested with trips (a kind of pest with wings and can fly!), and that was a very bad start for Princess Basil…

And because of that, I changed the soil and repotted Basil 3 times and I guess the final repotting process was too much of a trauma for her. Yup, according to my reading, plants do suffer from repotting shock… and sometimes, do not recover from the trauma of the new soil.

The irony was that Princess Basil was actually doing not too bad before my itchy fingers decided to buy a new batch of compost/soil and repotted her.

Sigh, I should have just left her alone … she would have been still alive.

Anyhow, my itchy fingers previously also repotted 4 clumps of pineapple plantlets. Previously, my father-in-law bought a pretty and spiky pineapple for display during the Lunar New Year. Although technically the pineapple is fit for consumption, it was a rather small fruit and since my FIL was intending to throw away the fruit after the New Year, I decided to pluck some of the small plantlets, that are found at the sides of the pineapple, stuck them into a tray of the screwed-up soil from the Pasar Malam, and basically forgot all about it.

Weeks later, Viola! Some roots began to appear and all 4 of them made it! Apparently it’s really difficult to kill these pineapple babies as they are such HARDY plants.

A perfect morale boost to an aspiring gardener. It’s finally assuring to see some plants ALIVE and GREEN.

So, any aspiring gardener out there. Get yourself a pineapple and start a pineapple plantation!