The garden

Since i live in a condo, I don't have a yard for any plants. I do have a balcony which is really too small to even walk out onto so I decided to make use of it and started growing a some plants a few months ago. Basil, sunflowers, avocado tree, chinese celery, lavender, and hot chili peppers. I started the basil from seeds and wasn't sure if it would grow very well in the heat here but so far there's a ton of it- it's all still to small though so I'll have to keep it alive a while longer so it can get big enough to eat. I don't know what to do with the chinese celery...at first I thought maybe it was similar to cilantro/coriander- it looks almost the same but it's so different. I can't find mint anywhere but I want some as a renewable source for mojitos- I'm sure it would grow really well here (meaning faster than I could consume it in mojitos). I need to find it somewhere! You know, at first I thought growing plants on that balcony would be so easy because they should get plenty of sun and water with all the rain every day.* The last week has been extraordinarily sunny and dry though and it seems like there's no humidity at all... almost perfect weather for people... but much more dry than I thought for the plants. So imagine my surprise when I returned from work today and all the plants were bone dry and wilted. I couldn't believe! I will need to make a point to water the plants every day since it seems the natural Singapore weather will not sustain them as I planned. The avocado tree is growing fast though which is nice- Avocado grows well in SE Asia though so I'm not that surprised, Indonedia is one of the top avocado producing nations. I just hope this dry spell doesn't go on too long... I don't know if I care bare it without the rain much longer ~grin~

*I'd heard stories about people growing such huge fruits and vegetables in Alaska when they get like 20 hours of sun every day and how in Thailand when they grow grapes for their wine they get two crops a year which presents them with a problem about how to label their vintages... should they throw one of the harvests out or should they try to combine the grapes from both harvests or should they keep the second crop from producing grapes at all? who knows! because they have no idea how to make wine in Thailand yet!