Winter survivors

We have several warm loving vegetable plants I left in the veggie patch that have gone through winter exposed to the cool temperature and winds. These plants are perennials in warm countries but treated as annual in temperate or cool climate countries.These plants look so sad and we gave them hard pruning a few times until spring come there were half the size of their original size from their gloriest moment and some are bare of leaves. There were times I almost gave up on them and thought to replace them with other veggies. But now I am glad that I let them grow and now start to bear fruit. Almost all these survivors were planted by my mother when I just gave birth to Rayyan 15 months ago. 

Last summer I grew this Lebanese eggplant in pot. Then in spring I transplanted it on the ground and now it has started to produce. I did not realised it was fruiting until I was helping my mother transplanting zinnia seedlings in front of it. Opps as you can observe in the picture, I sowed the okra seeds a bit too close to the eggplant plant.

We grow many plants of early long purple eggplant last year but only 3 plants managed to survive the winter. This variety bear many fruits in early summer and autumn. In several occasion, I had to give away many of them to my neighbours and friends because there were too many of eggplants to eat. We almost got sick of it and now we miss this eggplant. Although it has already start to flower in early spring, it cannot form fruit properly due to the cold termperature at night. Then during middle of summer (mid January~mid March) when the weather was too hot  last year, the plant has problem setting fruit and the flowers won't last long. No good harvest of early long purple eggplant in this duration. Hopefully we can get some nice harvest before heat waves after heat waves.

Capsicum has also start fruiting. Phew...I almost going to toss this plant in compost a few weeks ago.

We had so many chili plants last year from cili kering (dried chilies) bought from Asian groceries that we boiled and put into mixer to make chili paste for cooking and its seeds my mother just chucked it on the soil. Chili seedlings pop up like weeds that I have to scoop many of them into recycled milk containers and giveaway to friends. We had endless supply of chilies in winter but in spring it stopped and I start panicking. From observation, I think my chili did good in winter because there were snuggle in between the broccoli leaves and protected from wind. After I cleared up the broccoli, our chilies stop producing. As we still have cold night still in early summer, we have problem with chili and capsicum seed germination. Feel much better now that our old pal is producing again.

Self-seeded tomato that pop up in winter has start to producie many fruits, can;t wait to see them turn to juicy red. I should stake and make more good air circulation for them. But I don't have much time for them with catching up with my studies and need to find some stakes.