Drought Fruit Season Harvest June

 I was competing with the squirrel this morning for Sabah's Honey pineapple (Nanas Madu Sabah) fruits. I was weeding one of the section of the veggie patch at the backyard and on my way to the house checking how the kids are doing because Abby was still sleeping before I started weeding. Just when I was heading to the house on the corner of my eyes I thought I saw a tail wiggling on one of our pineapple patch that we have been waiting patiently for the fruits to ripe. I quickly ran towards the pineapple section and one squirrel was running away. I have been checking on the pineapple everyday because the squirrels has already stolen one last month. So this time, as you can see one pineapple has been chomped by the squirrel. I quickly harvest the ones that quarter of it has been shared with the squirrel. I checked the other fruits and luckily it wasn't stolen yet and it is much riper. Because I just had to snap the branch and easily it came off. Collecting side-shoot pineapple top at the moment to increase the number of plants in the garden, one of the aim for this year. Harvest some star gooseberry leaves for tonight dinner.

 Last week the hens and ducks were laying quite a number of eggs, shared some with friends.  I think we collected at least 15 duck eggs last week. Lemons are also readily available last week.

 Butterfly pea blooms never disappoint us. Instead of harvesting the whole plant, we just bandicoot some ginger rhizome when we are out of stock in the kitchen.

Tumeric bandicoot harvest.

 The roselle plants that we sowed in March has now started its fruit season. Roselle plants is doing really well without any help of watering since we transplanted the seedlings. All the roselle plants are more than 5 feets tall and waiting the buds to bloom. We also harvested calamansi limes, bird-eyes chillies, pea eggplants and cucumber tree fruits last week.

 We finally decided to dig up the Mexican Turnip (jicama) that we sowed the seeds last end December which has been left pretty neglected from the start. We did not expected to find one jicama that is over 1kg and it took me more than 20 minutes to carefully dug it out. I think that location we grown jicama is a good soil to grow root crop, rhizome or tuber plants which we will sow some seeds again on that area after the drought season end. I am not planning to water that area which why will wait when the rains come often again. One papaya tree snap so many of the fruits were all over the ground.

 It is drought season now this time of the year, we have not had any rain for almost 2 weeks now. But surprisingly we have been able to harvest a few varieties of fruits last week. Jackfruits are often harvested which has been enjoyed by by squirrels first. Even the fruits look like that, half of it still edible and really sweet.

 Papaya and sapodilla fruits is also harvested from the garden. We managed to harvest several papaya fruits last week because there were plenty to share with the birds and squirrels.

 I am not sure what is the name of this fruits in the weave basket above but we just called it marjerin fruit. Many of the fruits are ripening on the same time. It is more golden in colour but with the lighting it looks paler than it is.

I am trying to make our tropical garden here a sowing schedule like the one I did for our Adelaide garden. I found that sowing the right plant seeds at certain months makes gardening much easier and less effort every year. Recording the harvest by monthly will make it easier to estimate which sow to seeds later on as reference.

Daphne's Dandelions Harvest Monday.

Marching into March Harvest

 Since we came back last November lemon harvest season has been very long or continue until now in our garden. Lemon trees has been fruiting very well and lemon fruits has been dominating some space in the wet kitchen. When we have several days of warm weather, I really have to harvest the lemon quite often. Passion fruits also has been making its way back to the kitchen this March as some fruits are seen ripening up on the tree and some has drop for picking.

Other small fruit harvest this early March is velvet apples, soursop and papayas.

Okra fruits also growing long so fast in just 2 days it can be more than 15 cm. Need to check on the okra plants almost everyday to pick the fruits. Butterfly pea blooms are generous everyday.

 We also harvested jicama tubers, sweet basil leaves, birds-eye chillies, pandan leaves and nam nam fruits. I was clearing up a patch and one volunteer javanese ginseng was growing on that spot. Pulled out the javanese ginseng and got a nice ginseng root. Javanese ginseng root is as potent as Chinese/Korean ginseng root.  The leaves and flowers from the javanese ginseng is edibles and I add into the stir-fried pasta for a quick simple lunch for us. We also deep-fried sweet basil leaves and butterfly pea flowers battered with tempura flour. I was surprised the boys ate them so quickly like snacks came out from the potato chips bag. I thought they won't find it interesting at first. I had to compete with the kids to have a bite or two before it finishes.

Join in Daphne's Dandelions : Harvest Monday.

Kitaran Hidup Sengkuang (Seeds Give-Away)

 We did a lot of digging this week and one of the happy digging time was taking out the jicama/mexican turnip or in Malaysia known as sengkuang' tubers out from the soil. Now I need some ideas from other gardeners how to enjoy this sengkuang, Any favourite dishes? Facebook buddy gardeners has introduce me to Nyonya dish 'Ju Hu Char' which is jicama stir-fry with dried cuttlefish which I would like to try as soon as I get some dried cuttlefish.

 Sengkuang grows easily in the tropics as it loves heat and high humidity. Definitely a good plant for novice gardener in tropics to try. For juicy tubers will need lots of water. Not enough water will cause the growing tubers to crack which happened when we tried growing them in Adelaide that have really dry summer because we did not water enough the plants in summer as we should. Infrequent consistent watering during drought season might resulted in crack tubers. It was a tricky attempts at growing sengkuang in Mediterranean climate but so easily grown here in the tropics. Experiencing different climate growing sengkuang was to me a valuable one. Don't judge by the size of the sengkuang tubers, younger tubers are more sweeter than the older ones.

Sprouted sengkuang seeds poking out.

 Sengkuang actually does not require many space to grow. In fact it can also be grown in containers which we did in our previous home with limited space (link). Sengkuang plants is a half-climber. When the plants are small you train them up and later on they find their own way. If you don't have a rich fertile soil, you can grow sengkuang plant first as they are legume, a natural nitrogen-fixer.

 Sengkuang flowers. The sengkuang plants that we grown in Adelaide never produces flowers. The lilac flower shape resembles closely to winged bean and snake bean.

Dried Sengkuang Seed pods. The sengkuang beans are not edible. 

Sengkuang Seeds.

This week we harvested a pamelo, lemons, bananas, bird-eyes chilli, Pandan leaves, Passion fruit, Calamansi fruits, Nam Nam fruit, Tamarind Fruits, Asam Gelugor (Garcinia atroviridis) leaves.

 I am giving away some sengkuang seeds for 3 gardeners randomly picked from the comments. Will announce the recipient at my next post.

Have a lovely weekend.

2013 kick off harvest

 The first garden harvest for the year 2013 and I finally managed to take some pictures what we have been harvesting in this month of January. Frequently, we harvested butterfly pea flowers to make  syrupy blue drink  (popular in Thai known as nam dok anchan) for dinner. Quick to prepare while cooking dinner.

 Our winged bean plants has started to produce a lot that we have to make sure to harvest the beans twice a week. This is the first time our boys tasted the beans, I was really surprised that Ilhan like this bean very much. It is only a simple and quick dish to prepare for one very satisfied happy customer. I stir-fried the chopped beans with fried dried anchovies and just add a little bit of soy sauce. Ilhan made his mama speechless by saying spontaneously mama cook yummy vegetables. To be honest, Ilhan mama never like winged beans in her entirely life until Ilhan convince his mama that fresh home grown winged bean is delicious. Wonders how kids can change the mind set easily.  Rose apples harvest season is back in our garden for dessert. Lemons are also very generous this month. Chicken and ducks are laying eggs so we have enough supply for the kitchen. I also started to harvest our traditional leafy vegetables known to us as cekur manis and the botanical name is Sauropus androgynus (star gooseberry/sweet leaf). I like to stir-fry this sweet leaf with eggs. 

Harvested some jicama/ Mexican turnip before it gets too fibrous.

We also harvested some cassava. Boiled and ate with sambal tumis.

 Just a few strawberry fruits available. Of course the boys wants more and I said this is not like the Adelaide garden.

 We also harvested a few sponge luffa every week. I like them when the luffa fruit are medium size or zucchini size because more tender. Big ones are sometime starting to be a bit too fibrous for my taste.

What are you harvesting this month?

Join in Daphne's Dandelions Harvest Monday.

Thank you for your advise about the stolen post

I hope everyone benefit from comments@advise from my previous posting by blogger friends about stolen post/photos about what to do when your post has been stolen or how to prevent them from being taken. I really appreciate each helpful advise and your kind support. I have reported to blogger and gave them 10URL postings from the thief blog that belongs to me and blogger has taken action within less than a day  to delete this 10postings from that theif blog. It will take me sometime to report more than 300 posts that it is still there. Hmmm...wondering how to convince blogger to close that theif blog account since it will be much easier for me.

Any suggestion?

I have just left comment to the theif blog today about deleting all my post on that blog will see what that person will do.

Daphne reminded us that there is a link at the top to report abuse example for stealing copyrighted material.

Autumn Belle gave 3 points to protect your copyright:

1) Install 'right click disabled' on the blog post.

2) Insert watermarks in photos

3) Insert a copyright message in all blog post.

You can also get the right click disabled code from Herny to copy the code.

Tina give good tips for 'Feed Setting', better set it to short than a full one. My Feed setting was full so I think that is the reason it was easier to copy the whole post. Thus, I have changed it to short. 

There are also several good links from blogger friends as well left in the comments from my previous post.

Cooking varieties has recently posted about stealing other blogger post.

A few posts/photos being stolen is not unusual but all of your postings will be too much. Hope many benefits from my unfortunate experience and helpful to alert other blogger especially new members in the blogger community.

It has taken me years to gain confidant on myself for speaking publicly about my thoughts and share my experience by blogging. Instead of keeping quiet about this matter, I decided to take action. I was annoyed this time because some family personnel post is there as well such as Rayyan previous surgery postings. 

To be more positive thinking and on a cheerful sight from our garden space,  we got bitter gourd, capsicum, cucumber, beans and eggplant for fresh harvest for last week and hopefully this week too. Beet roots are also available for fresh picking (notice anything on the beetroot?).

To avoid our only 5 jicama (yam bean) plants tuber from getting rotten, I harvested them earlier this year compared to last year as the weather can be under 15 degree Celsius at night now. Jicama tubers are very sensitive with cold, prone to rot. Harvested tubers were about the same size last year but last year harvest was much sweeter. I think because we have warmer summer this year so less moisture in the soil effect the taste. Two of the tubers are really small though and one has cracked indicates not given enough water. These was sowed in October and growing in container with okra. The plants did produce buds but they never bloom here. However, early January I went back to Malaysia and did manage to sow some jicama seeds in my mother garden. My cousin reported that there are jicama flower blooming in my mother garden and some has produce seed pods to save seeds from the ones I sowed. Jicama really likes humidity and needs plenty of moisture to grow well. It will be a challenge for hot and dry summer to grow them but it still can be fun not impossible.

This is for Sean. 

I grow kangkong for 3 years in our garden during warm season.

But this is the first time, the kangkong plant gave me a bloom.

I was really surprised.

I would not notice it, if I don't water the plant in the morning last weekend,

That is why there are water droplets on the plant.

I did not one to bore anyone with my kangkong harvest this week, 

so I like to share the kangkong bloom instead.

Resemble closely to morning glory since they belong to the same family.

Join in Daphne's Dandelions Harvest Monday.

I still left many question in comments unanswered yet.

Will reply, sorry for the wait though.

Growing yam bean in Adelaide

I wasn’t sure whether we were able to grow yam bean or also known as jicama here in Adelaide as it is said to need a long growing season. But like angled luffa I was sceptical. So jicama was a new challenge for us growing them in our small little garden last warm season. Adelaide weather for me is a bit strange the weather change dramatically and temperature fluctuation is really high. Day and night temperature can sometime differ more than 10 degree Celsius. The normal summer will be blazing hot. So I expected many days of really hot weather and night which I won’t be able to sleep that much. During summer we always camp in the living room to sleep. However, we had only few really hot days and not a single night sleeping in the living room through summer.

I have never seen a yam bean plant my whole entire life. End of November I direct-sowed the seeds and when it sprouted it made me panic at first. I thought all my new jicama seedlings have been nibbled by pest because they were no leaf. if you use the camera and zoom in they do like small hands waving at you. But the naked eye view they look like it has been chomped by critters.

So it was a relieved to see their true leaves form. So next time we know what to expect from newly sprouted seeds.

More growth…

When the first heat-wave came, all of our yam bean plants growing on the front yard veggie patch died. I did not have a very deep container to sow yam bean seeds because it was full with other plants. So without any thought of success I simply sowed some seeds in 25cm depth container and 5 seeds sprouted. Well I have to console myself if it did not give me any tubers, we still can treat them as green manure. So it is still a win-win situation. Yam beans are legume relative of beans and lupins. Unlike beans and peas which the pods are harvested, yam bean pods are toxic and other parts as well. The only edible part is actually the root (tuber) which is deliciously eaten raw.

Middle of February and jicama growing together with kailan.

Early April of jicama progress. Jicama is a half-climber but needed help with climbing lesson on the okra plants. Suddenly we had ginger and nasturtium sprouting in jicama container some time during summer. Just to take note, we harvested the ginger and it was actually growing more rhizomes compare to the previous ginger harvest.

Our jicama plants did produce some buds at the end of summer but it never bloom. I suspect it is due to cold nights. I was hoping to collect some seeds and of course sharing it with other gardeners. Nope it won’t give me seeds.

This is how the plants look before we decided to quickly harvest all of them. I had to ask Lenay to help because I was too busy this week at school. Moreover, I just read that jicama tubers are very sensitive to temperatures below 12 degree Celsius it will start to rot. Believe it or not this is true. I should have harvested them earlier, yes sadly most of our tubers were rotten! JICAMA TUBER IS VERY SENSITIVE WITH TEMPERATURE. I had a bad feeling last week because suddenly nights were really cold because my husband who goes to work before 4AM told me several days when he entered the car it is 2 degree Celsius. The plants were still not looking that bad 10 days before we harvested them. Suddenly last week our jicama plants completely withered.

A lot of rain won’t cause the tuber to rot but please remember temperature is important factor to consider. Why do I say this because Lenay mother grows jicama plants in tropical weather (Borneo island) and after the plants died she just left all the tubers on the ground for months.  When Lenay went back to her mother place end last year she followed her mother to her farm. They dug some yam bean tubers to bring back home and some were almost as big as a soccer ball. She said one plant can spread to 5m²  of many yam bean tubers. Needless to say, Lenay was not impressed with our jicama harvest. Although some got rotten, I am getting excited on growing jicama again next spring because at first I don’t think we will actually got to see tubers.

Hooray! We can grow yam bean here in Adelaide and it is also possible to grow them in containers. I had one plant that were sowed early January which was grown in container. The harvested tuber were the size of medium size apple.  Just giving them 5 months to grow before harvesting should be fine.

This was the first time I tasted fresh home-grown yam bean. I think this is a plant worthy to grow and wait for 5 months. Definitely will plant much more next spring. Yam bean after washing out the dirt. See some got rotten?

We sliced those yam bean and dip it in Rojak sauce.

So happy to know the true flavour of yam bean. No more store ones for me. Can’t make a promise though, I might have cravings.We are growing kohlrabi for the first time this cool season. I read some comments that kohlrabi taste a bit like yam bean. Hope this is true and looking forward to taste it.

First winter harvest and a jicama

Keeping up with winter colours, our veggie garden has given us white colour vegetable to harvest such as daikon and snowball turnip. Other regular harvest are snow peas and yellow cherry tomatoes. We also harvested our last angled luffah for this year.

Harvested some sweet corn and chili last week.

Ilhan had some buttered sweet corn for breakfast.

Clearing up old plants in container which is not productively producing last weekend. We were surprised to harvest some sweet potato tuber that were invading carrot container. Due to that, carrots were so much smaller than sweet potato tubers.

Da Cheong Chae look so terrible from pest attack that I pull out all of them. Bitter gourd still produce female flower but the fruit won't grow that big so I harvested them last weekend. Clearing up the containers with unproductive old plant for new planting given us some leeks and spring onions. We don't usually allocate space for spring onion usually inter-planted them with other plants.

End last spring, we sowed jicama (sengkuang/yam bean) seeds for the first time in our veggie garden. The sad thing that direct-sowed seedlings on our patch that received full sun all day died on the first heat wave of 40+degree Celcius.  Jicama plants that survived are growing in containers which received only morning sun. As we had already enter winter, jicama plants does not look good. So I am a bit worried at the moment whether we actually have some tuber to harvest or not. Moreover, I worry if too much rain will make the tuber rot if we don't harvest them quickly. So last weekend, gently I moved the soil away from one jicama plant to see whether we get any tuber or not. Surprisingly, the root went very deep, I had to dig about 20cm deep to finally see some white root. Our first home-grown jicama and look like a top.

See other gardeners around the world harvest this week at Daphne's Dandelion Harvest Monday.