Let This Be My (Better) New Beginning

Yellow peeps, how’s life? It’s been so long since I last time logged in and actually wrote something on. Things came up, I was not in my best for months. My intrusive thoughts kept winning which made me question my sanity. It’s physically and mentally exhausting when anger, depression, disappointment eating us from within. Failures over failures also makes it worse. I understand that success can’t be measured from financial success alone, but still, financially independent is one way or another to tell that we have achieved something in life. Seriously, I can feel the desperation of others towards me too. I am torturing and killing myself slowly. Mr. Bald (hehehe… he’s proud of) has been tirelessly reminding me that I have him and there is no reason for me to feel down and alone. I have this thought to get down to the root of my issues, just I have no idea where to start from. My disappointment is rooted deep but I just realised it recently when I decided to work on my own which then made spend more time with my mother compared to the last 2 decades combined. I am not being ungrateful; I will never deny her efforts to raise us 3 brother & sisters. However, it’s painful whenever she uses her “mother card” to win arguments.

When I was younger I didn’t realise how bad it was just because I spent less time at home, thanks to school and uni days; and after I started working in the city, I have more and more reasons to not coming back home as often… because of works. Then, not being mean or anything but I have my own reasons for Mr. Bald and the two boys to have less contact with her. Our boys have their characters, they’re generally well-behaved but I don’t wish to hear anything hurtful from my mother because they don’t meet her expectations that only she and God knows what. My nieces experience it; it’s not pretty as they grow older and they keep theirs build up, deep inside. So, I am feel a little better after writing it down. I am sorry, this is a kind of therapeutic way to load off my jumble mind. I still do slow flow yoga on a daily and just returned to my breathwork routines after sometimes. I wish I could go for a walk more, but my implant in my left leg really bother me. I should have had my surgery last year but things came up then with all the drama I’ve grown anxious of getting surgery taking off my implant. Anesthesia, operating room, recovery, doctor visits triggers my anxiety by ten folds. I know I eventually have to see my doctor (orthopedist) again… Not now, please!

And so… I am not sure if I ever stated that I have been relearning on gardening for close to a year now. New methods have been introduced by many experts that I follow a couple of them. I failed on my first batch as I lost interest due to other people involvement who decided to outsmart me as they thought someone like me who spent more than half of my life in the city and in western influence would know nothing about gardening. These people seemed to forget that my late dad was an amazing farmer, too unfortunate he was not that success despite his knowledge and hard works. My late dad had tried hydroponic which was uncommon practice decades ago. He failed due to limited supply and sources; 3 decades ago our world was completely different. Supplies were scarce, even if there were it had to be bought in bulk which was hard for him finance his journey. He did share his knowledge to me, a drop of it, as the world changes rapidly with information and technology spread like wildfire. He would be amazed seeing the world changed rapidly, he’s open minded after all.

So yeah, I lost my interest and I let my mini garden overgrown by weeds. I could be a control freak, if others say so. I have to gain my control over whatever I am working on, in this case my mini garden. I put my efforts, my sweats, and I wanted others respect my way. I was not talk only, I showed them how to harvest my vegetables so I could have sustainable supplies over the weeks or months; they refused to follow my way and did whatever they see fit. When I talked it out, threw tantrum over it, they said the nastiest things I ever heard. I stopped. They could do whatever. They saw themselves how it went when they did what they wanted. I wanted to mock them, threw some sarcastic comments but I refrained myself from doing so which ended up I built more anger within. After all that, I began to get more depressed… Mind you, this is the case when we have less works load than we used to. I watched more gardening videos and then, I lied my eyes on hydroponic (again).

Three or four years ago, I was a little skeptical about hydroponic although my late dad had parted his knowledge when I was only 8 or 9 (roughly 3 decades ago). Like many subjects that deemed uncommon, there are many cons on the nutrition from vegetables or plants that grown hydroponically. I also had that doubt, especially when we were green-washed with “organic labelled products”. As hydroponic relies on nutrition solutions instead of nutrition derived from soils, it was categorised as chemically grown. But then. chemical is naturally available in nature. The never ending debates between “organic” and “unorganic”, in my opinion, is too shallow. What many claim as chemical fertiliser is factually synthetic fertiliser, again – we need to remember that chemical substances are naturally available in nature, let take Nitrogen and Oxygen as two chemical substances that readily available in nature. As I am writing this, I still can’t really find one exact number/level on how much of residues left that allow produce to be labelled as “organic”. Hence, the hesitant from years ago remains but as I read different source of information on agriculture, produce that are grown hydroponically has won its place in people’s heart, especially for home-gardener or small space gardening. It does not take much space to grow our own food through hydroponic method and large-scale companies also have set up their green house for bigger market supplies.

Then, earlier this month I bought nutrition solution to start my new gardening journey. I spent hours in my garden It is said that hydroponic system is relatively easy! Once again, RELATIVELY EASY! Guess what, I am using rockwool to germinate my oh-so-many-seeds-collection, from different varieties of chilies to kabocha squash. Taking this was my first time applying this method into consideration I chose relatively easy vegetables to start with, bok choy, water spinach, lettuce and caisim. I tried 6 mini blocks for every seed and out of those vegetables seeds, only 3 mini blocks of water spinach made it while the rest gone bad. Apparently I need to pay a very close attention to the humidity level of rockwool. Blindly following directions I read on the guide book that came along with a set of hydroponic system I purchased online does not give me real-life experience. I did not know (I still do not know, I am on a learning process) how wet is too wet, hence I keep spraying water that water came dripping off block of rockwools I was using. After 3 days, I saw water spinach seeds (only a couple of the seeds) sprouted. I immediately introduced it to direct sun (as directed) to support its growth and only moved it into its designated space when these seedlings had their true leaves. Currently I have 3 bottles of water spinach seedlings that I put into mineral water bottles. I thought it is a good idea as it helps reducing plastic waste.

On 13 July 2024, I started a new batch of bok choy, lettuce, caisim, red and green spinach. So far, only caisim and bok choy successfully germinated. I have a dozen of caisim seedlings and hald a dozen of bok choy. As I checked today (18 July 2024), a positive sign from the red and green spinach; high chance for them to germinate but still no luck with my lettuce. I wonder if my lettuce seeds that I collected from way back then have dead hence the failure to germinate. I will go another batch in a few days to check other lettuce seeds. I have plenty of lettuce seeds I collected as well as seeds I purchased online. I can not stop right now. There should be one that work for me, yes – at least one would work for me. I have plenty of time in Bali as I can’t return to down under yet without my implant remove. Just a little bit patience and determination to reach higher.

I will try to regularly update my hydroponic mini garden and share my failures and my success on this journey. It would be my gardening journal as well in order to record every necessary detail; the step by step notes to grow bigger. I aim higher this time with unwavering determination. I CAN DO IT!!

xx