Chillies, why are you such bullies?

I can never grow chilly plants properly. The reason behind is a lost cause! I still am unable to comprehend why all my attempts at trying to grow a decent, healthy chilly plant is always met with zero success and plenty of obstacles? In the past, my chilly plants either "dried out" and die with the leaves badly burnt and shrivelled despite me giving them enough water, or as seen for one chilly plant, it just doesn't bear fruits in spite of the many blooming flowers. I have a different experience this time round though. For the few chilly plants I have, the leaves have virtually all fallen off! I have some new buds growing now but believe me, these buds are not doing so well at all and I have no idea why! I just hope something miraculous can happen to revive my existing two chilly babies and somehow, at the end of the day, I will be enjoying at least one chilly fruit on one of them. Will that be too much of a stretch?

Update: Gomphrena globosa gone

I mentioned in my earlier post that the G. globosa seeds that I have sown had germinated. Well, the downright unfortunate thing has happened: all my seedlings have perished in less than 3 days after their tiny red leaves barely emerged from the soil. This indeed brings tears to my eyes as I was hoping fervently that they would successfully develop into adults with their signature papery flowers blooming all along my corridor. I even had the wish to use these fantastic flowers in floral arrangement. I guess that is really my wishful thinking. I shouldn't have harboured so much hope and pinning them on such small delicate beauties. Nevertheless, I shall try again. Maybe this time I will look for the adult plant and propagate the species by cuttings instead this time around. I seriously have no idea.

Update for new project - 1 July 2011

I am back with an update. My new year project - officially called Mirabilis 2011 - has begun! To this date, I have successfully germinated my globe amaranth (Gomphrena globosa). I can already see a few small red seedlings smiling at me. How exciting! I can really hear my heart flutter at the sight of such a wonderful miracle of nature! Besides my G. globosa, more choy sum seedlings have emerged as well. The truth is, some of these choy sum seedlings were sown when the G. globosa seeds did not germinate at the start. Now that they have, I am much relieved. Nevertheless, they are still seedlings as we speak; more time will definitely be needed for them to establish themselves.

Other than sowing seeds, I am also starting on some herbs through cuttings. One such herb to mention would be Sage. I bought the fresh cuttings from Cold Storage today. It will be some kind of experiment to determine which soil mix would be beneficial or more superior for the rooting process for sage. Of course, the results would be biased towards my corridor environment (my mini garden is situated at the corridor, in case you are wondering). There are two sets of mix I am using: the first being tref compost mix with perlite; the second being tref compost mix with garden soil. I just hope, with my fingers crossed, the sage cuttings would even root in the first place. More updates coming up soon. Watch this space.