This should have been an earlier post, but due to the Night of Elegence & Virtuosity,I have to postpone this post to a later date.

Here goes nothing...

The only things good about Mr Tay's Nursery management is that
-The test question is given to you beforehand, so you can do research and write 3 page assays which I am good at.
-Full of working experience knowledge
-Nice field trips

So here we are, at the Compost Centre of Kiat Lee, at Kranji (no, its not meant to rhyme)
It was raining very heavily, but miraculously, the rain stopped once we reached there.

Here's the place.


The few things in chronological order you will notice is
1) What's that smell (I find it nice anyways. Its kinda like the smell of incense and a bit of charcoal)
2) WTF what a big pile of shit! (If you are not a HLM student. If you are, you know that its plant matter, not shit. Shit comes from animals. )

If you are a shitophile (An invented word by Alex. Someone who loves shit or Jessica, which kinda means the same. No, its not an insult. She wants to be called shit herself.) you would love this photo.

Yes. more shit. Nice, yes?
NO. From now on, you will know this shit as COMPOST.

Some basic information about compost:
1) Compost is NOT shit. But it MAY contain shit. However, commercial compost does not contain shit.
2) Compost, when ready to use, smells nice like dried tea and is COOL not WARM.
3) When the decomposing process starts the compost heap will warm up, and you may even see smoke, or worse if you are a compost noob, burn and start a fire. Bacteria sure get all burn up with their metabolism, don't they?

Now, a HLM joke:

For your information, PPE is a course in HLM known as 'Plant Pathology & Enthomology'. In this case, it means 'Protective Equipment', I think.
Laugh you dumb dumbs.

Now to show you an expensive piece of equipment. One that burns!!!
Presenting, *Drum rolls* Weighing 3500 tons, the Carbonizer!!!!

What does it do? It carbonizes plant waste to form charcoal, which has good water retention properties, which, of course, makes the compost retain water better, not only that, it hold the compost together too, making it a better compost for you and for me, Amen.

Look, it even blows steam.


And it urinates too, to form...

Wood vinegar (No, not 100 plus went wrong) . All natural insect repellant, moisturiser and cleanser, or so uncle Raymond who works there says. But must dilute 1 is to 200 first, be warned. Don't blame me if your face melts (perhaps it'll even look better. I don't know.)
It stinks. (As you can see from Nora's covered nose) Be warned.
I got one bottle home. Might be useful one day.

HOLY SHIT! LOADS OF COMPOST!!!!

Ok, they are not compost. They are wood chips. But thats Gaia loads of chips.
Wish they were potato chips. Ah, the joys of being swallowed up by a pile of junkies and eating it from inside out like a parasite.
Thank you for indulging me in that little thought.

Always wanted to drive something like this:

No chance in Gaia for me. *Shoves away all idiots*

Look at me baring my teeth, roar!!!


Rahhhh!


And this, my friends, are charcoal.

As you can see, the charcoal is small, like chips (Yum. Chips.), not the kind that we use in BBQ, which is big. Why is it in chips? This is because it will have more surface area to volume ratio, which means more surface to use its good water retention properties, which, of course, makes the compost retain water better, not only that, it hold the compost together too, making it a better compost for you and for me, Amen. (Yes, you have seen these paragraph sometime in your life before. Deja vu.
They are steaming because they are horny.
Ok, thats not the reason. They are steaming because charcoal catches fire easily, and they are very good insulators of heat. Any dry periods will start a fire in them. Not only that, charcoal right out of the *Dreadful piano music* Carbonizer is warm and thus need to be dozed with water to avoid it catching fire in the sun, thus causing the smoke. More water, more smoke.
Remember this fact when you are BBQing the next time.
Those concrete slabs are to isolate the fires.

All this, and expensive machinery, for a nice, big, brown and fat pile of...

Compost. (No. NOT SHIT.)

Seriously, you don't want to smell compost heaps while they are decomposing. They smell like alcohol. Very, very strong alcohol. Its really noxious smelling. Kinda blew me away actually.

Do you know that these people earn money not but selling the compost? (hich, by the way, is free and you can get them from their place. Just ask nicely.) They earn money there by REMOVING WASTE. Yes. Those plant matter are waste. The compost is also considered by the government as waste. If the centre contains too much compost, it is liable for summons (A Fine.) by the environmental agency.
Why? Because compost are flammable. They burn. (Burn baby burn!!!)
Which of course means they have to deliever these compost out to the contractors as fast as they can produce them.
They sell the wood vinegar though.

And now, presenting to all, my dearest HLM class 2G01

Can you find me?

Now to kiat Lee's main business: Nursery!!! Horticulture!!! Ooo La La!!! ^^


Look! They mix their own soil!!!

Weeds can grow anywhere. but some weeds look nicer then others.

Anyways, weeds are plants that you don't want that trys to compete for space with places that you want. Therefore, even roses can be weeds, if you think about it.

Just look at their orchid propagation area:

Its orchid heaven.
They don't sell wholesale. Their nursery is out of bounds to EVERYONE. So don't even think about it.

Because Uncle Raymond is so nice, he decided to give us a stalk of the flower of any orchid we want!!!
So nice right?
A stalk, by the way, rarely contains one flower. A stalk is something like this:

Yes. Full of flowers right?

I almost chose this.

But it looks like a pussy. So no thanks.

Anyways, if you come to think of it, it IS a pussy. Flowers are the reproductive organs of the plants. So... you are, in fact, giving a bunch heavily fungicided, penises and vaginas to your beloved.
How romantic.

Too ordinary.

Actually. I hate orchids. They are epiphytes and cling onto trees. Yuck. Talk about inaquitted love.
I kinda feel bad about having to choose one and cut it. Why? What if I cut off your penis or vagina and hang it on a wall for 2 weeks? I mean, it has better use if its left there on your body, right?

The roots of an orchid.

Yuck. Straight out of Aliens.

As Pek Yong the Uncle says, 'choose the most expensive one lor, its free anyways' and 'don't choose the one can find in market one.'
Guess what I chose?


Nice right? its orange and cheerful and robust and full of nice spotty flowers!!! And it so looks like the fleur-de-lil. Amazing. So youthful and cute.
Just like me right? ^_^

Here's me, Amalina and Xiao Yu with our prized pickings...

They say different orchids attract different people. Some people find some orchids ugly, yet find some nice, and sometimes other people might find it the other way round. I think orchids are just like people. If you just look at it for a longer while, you might still not love the orchid, but you may grow to like it.

Well, my friends, that is all. Cheers!!!