Purple Top Turnip

 I had so much fun growing purple top turnip this year after more than a year trying to grow them successfully but did not get much of a root to enjoy. But this year I got it right and the best thing was that I don't even took care of them, never water and feed them. The turnip plant grows only with rain water. What I did was only sowing the seeds. It was only the matter of sowing the seeds on the right time and season. To grow them easily will be early-mid autumn which is March and April. Later than that the turnip might not give me much root but will probably produce flower much earlier. Thank you to Mr. H owner of Subsistence Pattern for introducing me this beautiful root vegetable.

Purple Top Turnip Seedlings.

Sowing turnip seeds in spring for me is a bit tricky if it get stress out due to lack of water will bolt easily. We really have dry weather by end of spring so it hard to make sure the soil does not dry out quickly.

Its time to thin those plants.

Sometime I got confuse whether these are turnips or radish plants if the label gone missing. Yes, the small hands in our home love to collect these labels. I always wonder how in other gardens all round the corner of this humble earth their turnip roots develop rather quickly and some I read harvested the roots in two months. Ours turnip roots does take long time to develop in good size. Although I sow them early autumn, it usually in spring seasons that I can enjoy harvesting the root. The root starts develop in spring and not much in winter except for the leafy top.

Turnips rubbing shoulders because the gardener did not bother to thin them was on sick leave :P.

Can be grown in container.

Oh my that turnip is squashing a volunteer celery I see.

Slugs/Snails must have been having a taste of that turnip looking at those scratches.

The container I have been using is only about 20cm deep.

Yup yup yup had so much fun growing them this year.

Or should I said not taking care of them this year at all.

Watermelon Radish Life-Cycle

 Watermelon Radish looks like a fruit when you cut it into half as the bright reddish colour under the skin show itself. I would like to express my gratitude to Mr. H at Subsistence Pattern for introducing us to this gorgeous radish and the precious seeds we received. I miss Subsistence Pattern posting as their passion of growing their own food and saving seeds is always so inspiring. Surprisingly, this radish variety does not have the pungent radish smell like the other varieties in the radish group. Watermelon radish resemble turnip at a glance. But it can grow much bigger at the size of  my palm remaining juicy without becoming woody. Compared with other radish variety that we have grown in our garden, watermelon radish root growth is rather slow. However, we are very fond of this radish flavour compare with other radish. This is one of our favourite radish to grow in the garden list after the heat waves has gone and the weather turns milder.

 But in our climate, sowing watermelon radish in spring just make the plants bolt early without producing much root. This is similar case with daikon (Japanese radish) and some other varieties as well. I am not sure the reason why but I was thinking that some radish varieties might be sensitive to the longer-daylight hours.  The best season in our garden for sowing watermelon radish or daikon will be end of summer or early fall for producing nice size of roots. We also extend the sowing season up till June/July (early~mid winter) for succession sowing just to replace other veggies that have been harvested.

 Watermelon radish can be grown well in container. Just make sure the soil does not dry out, keep moist. If the part top of the root or shoulder is well-exposed to the sunlight, this part will turn green but still edible. I frequently make mistake with the watermelon radish spacing and sowed to closely with each other. I forgot that watermelon radish does seems to have larger size of leaves compared with the other radish that we grow. So more space in between is required to harvest bigger roots. 

Unintentionally, some watermelon radish starts to flower and it was nice timing at that time since no other brassica veggies were producing flower so it was a chance to collect seeds. I never can catch up in each spring with harvesting before the plants starts to flower. Letting one plant flower for collecting seeds is more than enough supply for a few years. The watermelon radish flower resembles daikon and kailan (chinese broccoli) closely. The watermelon radish seed pod is roundish at the bottom and with a long pointy end. Last end summer, we sowed some of this fresh seeds just to confirm whether the seeds is pure or not. We were happy that no cross-pollination occurred and we managed to harvest pure seeds.

Sorry, I have not been a good blogger friend this few months.

Since last Sunday Rayyan has not feeling well maybe caught some bug.

He transferred it to me, so I started not feeling well today.

Getting rounder and 37 weeks pregnant already, waiting for baby to decide her date of birth.

Its getting harder to fall asleep, feel like a zombie.

Hope to catch up.

Sesiapa yang berminat untuk cuba tanam watermelon radish lawatilah laman ini (klik ayat ini).

June Container Garden

I am glad that last spring I left many plants go to seeds. Now we have many self-seeding plants that the garden take care of itself while continuously provide us food. Not only edibles, but provide us many volunteer flower seedlings around the garden. The weather has started to get colder, maximum temperature has been below 15 degree Celsius and minimum average 4 degree Celsius this week. The container garden needs weeding but its hard to judge still which one is veggies, flowers or simply weeds. With the mood and mental state I am currently in, I just let it be for awhile since the brain is not functionally as sharp as when I am in good shape. I might make wrong decision. I have just started a low dose of antidepressant medication this morning and feel the moods lifted up a bit with a bit boost of energy but the minds feel like in clouds.

In this section, rainbow chard, tomato and leaf amaranth (bayam) that can be seen here are actually self-seeded plants growing among vegetables which were sowed March-April this year. 

There are some warm-loving vegetables in this container section that I am going to leave it alone and treated as perennials like capsicum inter-planting with cold season plants. We still actually have several sweet potato plants growing in containers that have not been harvested. The last parsnip and leek plants we have in container, saving them from harvest until I can really enjoy them.

We grow sweet potatoes at this section previously, after cleaning it up last month we sowed some Asian greens, spinach, beetroot, radish and florence fennel in this corner. Hopefully by July~August this corner will started to provide us fresh harvest. Lots of weeds there.

The cucumber season is over as seen in the photos and need to be disposed. So that other plants will receive more light from the sun. Behind the trellis, there are some containers as well with plants that now needed some light. It works well in summer to give some shade with the cucumber foliage but not now in winter.

Growing cape gooseberry plants for the first time in containers. I have not harvest any fruits from this plant yet though its fruiting at the moment. Not sure how tolerant is this plant with our winter here. The cape gooseberry plants did not like our dry summer here as it hardly grows at all during that time. The plant pick up growth again early fall. The cape gooseberry is sharing the container with capsicum and carrots. The capsicum plant was taller than the cape gooseberry previously in summer and has already produce fruits. Only a few capsicum fruit left on the plant as it really does take a long time ripen in this cold weather. Now that the cape gooseberry plants has certainly grown tall and bushier, it will helped protect the capsicum plants against cold wind.

This veggie corner needs to be organize a bit. So many different plants self-seeded at the back row containers like nasturtium, flat leaves parsley, chinese spinach, pot marigold, garlic. I can't see our florence fennel seedlings anymore must be suffocated by the nasturtium. Waiting for 'Jack be little' pumpkin ripening (can you see an orange fruit peeking near carrot leaves). Chilli and capsicum ripening as well and I am collecting seeds from this plant. This chilli plant is the second generation grown from seeds we collected and it has been tolerant with our summer heat and winter cold here now. It is a very hot chilli type, I was collecting the seeds without gloves this week and my hand stings for 2 days.

Have a lovely weekend!

3 Blind Mice Lovin' Sweet Potatoes

I found sweet potatoes are very easy to grow here in Adelaide plain as we have mild winters. Easier to grow than potato as you can simply leave sweet potatoes growing all year round. I usually have one spare plants growing in winter so I can cut some young shoots to propagate several new sweet potato plants when spring comes. Cut the shoots and put them in water by the window and roots grow from the veins very quick. Sweet potatoes are now weeds in our garden. If I buried the plants after harvesting, thinking in will be composted in winter, I have new plants popping out when the weather warm- can be invasive.

So I planned to plant more sweet potatoes in containers last spring as it grow without care and isolated it with other summer crops because of its invasive characteristic. To make the garden more productive I planted fast crop like Asian greens together with the young sweet potato plants. The one without Asian greens were already completely harvested. You can still have another round of fast crop with it like radish or bean and top up with compost later.

Grow without care...

But this situation welcome small critters to take shelter from the heat.

We did got some decent harvest from it, although we harvested it earlier than usual.

However, mice enjoyed them first.

Those pest even enjoyed the big ones until all left were only skin.

The ones that were save for us is the young tubers growing under the polystyrene in the ground soil. None harvest from the container for us.

Those polystyrene container were badly chewed on by mice to make bigger holes.

What we also found?

3 blind mice.

Still blind and unable to run.

The mice parents were not in time to take their babies out.

There were actually 4 babies, one of them, one of the parents tried to get it away.

But with all the confusion, squealing, hubby did not realised there were a baby mice under his boot as it was covered with sweet potato veins.

The parents were a bit agitated as it keeps running around as we put the babies in a pot near us while we clean up the area. Rayyan even named the babies- Mickey, Totoro and Ponyo. Told Rayyan we can't keep them as a pet. He was a bit upset followed his father to allocate them far away in the garden at the back of the reserve land.

Thats the story of 3 blind mice.

Have a nice weekend.

Early Fall Container Garden

I have not posted about our container garden at our small backyard since last year. Well nothing really nice to see last summer. The plants were struggling to survive back then and not much growth. It still not very nice to look at even now. The mild weather has made some of the plants grow crazy and now they grow wild. The plants have a mind of their own now. For example this spot, I have to scratch my head trying to remember what is growing here~watermelon, capsicum, parsnip, lemon basil, purple sweet potato, okra, kailan and jicama. Can you tell which is which? If you have a small place or even garden on a balcony, this kind of gardening is still possible. This is about 1 metre X 1 metre. Suits for a location that received at least 6 hours of direct sun.

What is growing in this 30 cm X 40 cm polystyrene container?

Cucumber plants climbing on the trellis, banana capsicum and carrots.

Not supposed to be there beetroot also wants to grow there.

Half of our backyard receive morning sun and the other half received afternoon sun.Took the photo in the morning and you can see the clear line light and shadow separation.This is the spaggetthi squash that I sowed last January in container to replace the ones that died due to the extreme heat. Very happy with the attempt because we already have squash in March, did not expected that it will give us fruit so fast. Its actually 2 plants in the same container and each plant has fruit on it. One is hiding somewhere in the long grass. Hopefully this weekend, I have time to spend in the garden to cut the grass and sow some seeds.

The different length of the trellis? We pick them up from hard waste during spring cleaning week in our suburb. At the back, I have cleared some of the containers and sow some seeds for cool season vegetable here. There is one long dangling angled luffa can be seen at the background. Sweet potato harassing lemon grass plant. Sweet potato are becoming invasive as they start to sprout in many different places in containers and on the ground. Lemon basil also growing as they please.

It might be hard to believe but these sweet potato plants are actually growing from containers. There are a row of 4 containers. Now they entered other plants territories. This section has given me much headache and cause the biggest problem for other section of the container garden. Because of this, we have trouble with mice. The mice took shelter here from the heat. They come out during night and dug up holes all around the container garden which have cause many young seedling uprooted and direct-sowed seeds failed to germinate or possibly lost. I don't think I have much to harvest here since the mice might enjoyed some of the sweet potato tubers. But I will wait perhaps until May before I clear up this place for good.

Let me think what plants are growing here ( 1.5 metre X 1 metre) ~ okra, jicama, capsicum, bush bean, parsnip, purple sweet potato, water spinach (kangkung), carrots and bitter gourd. The jicama seems to like the mild weather now. But I must remember to harvest them next month because the edible root will rot when the weather drops below 15 degree Celsius in consecutive days. The jicama tuber won't be big cause they don't have enough sufficient growing time and those plants are just starting to produce flower bud. Last year the bud did not managed to bloom but let see will it bloom this year or not.

Hope one day we see many green balcony from tall buildings.

What's growing in your container garden?

Hon tsai tai ~Purple Choy sum

We have been harvesting some Asian veggies hon tsai tai this month. Hon tsai tai is also known as purple choy sum. Its like choi sum twin but the stems and leave veins are purple. Usually its difficult to differentiate the leaf of some brassicas at the stage of newly sprouted seeds as they look similar. However, as it is clearly can be seen that the stem of hon tsai tai newly sprouted seedlings are purple.

The first true leave sets of hon tsai tai.

Look ready to be transplanted.

Ready to be pick Hon Tsai Tai.

They are also enjoyed harvested when flowering.

Flower part is also edible.

Hon tsai tai flower resemble choy sum flower closely.

Have to be aware that this plant will cross-pollinate with other Asian veggies.

On cooler weather, the purple part of hon tsai tai will turn darker.

Time fly so fast!

I have not been updating my blog regularly this year.

Hope to catch up with you and see what you are posting in your blog soon.

Water dragon year is sure a busy year for me.

Top 3 main things for me this year:

 (1) Complete my PhD before middle of this year.

(2) Rayyan has to undergo another surgery schedule in May.

(3) Hormonal changes and welcoming a water dragon child.

I am counting on the luck and blessing no. (3) to help with smooth (1) and (2) journey.

Growing shallots in container

We tried to grow shallot the first time this year and planted the shallot sets in May. The shallot sets that we ordered came in between medium to very small size sets. To get bigger shallots it is important to plant big size sets to ensure you get good size of shallot harvest. So when you harvest them remember to keep the big ones for next planting and use the rest for your cooking. Other than growing them in the ground soil, we also tried to grow them in container and see whether it grows well or not. We don't find any difference in growing them in container or on the ground soil. It is all much depend on the size of the sets were planted. Big sets bigger bulbs and small sets will resulted on small bulbs. So if you don't have much space, you can try growing them in containers since it takes almost 9 months to harvest them depending on your climate and location. The shallot variety we grow is matador.

Push in the shallot sets roughly this much into the soil and waited for it to sprout.

They sprout easily when the weather has cool down in fall.

Maybe leaving it in the fridge for few days can help it sprout?

After a few weeks later...

For more productivity in the garden since shallot will fill in that precious spot for sometime, don't forget to inter-plant with quick crop. For example we sowed some small globe radish type around the shallot and sowed some carrot seeds near the edge of the container. This vegetables is said to be good companion . Can you see some tiny carrot seedlings and some has not sprouted when the photo were taken.

How deep was our containers for growing shallot?

About 20cm deep.

Dragon carrots growing nicely together with shallot in the same container.

Shallots just starting to produce some bulbs.

Producing more shallot bulbs.

All the photos are from the same container to follow the shallot growing progress.

The right shallot plants are almost ready to be harvested and cured.

I am quite satisfied with my first time growing shallots. If I live in a suitable place to grow them I will certainly make sure I plant them every year. Big shallots harvest were from the right side shallot plants from photo above. There are more than 10 bulbs harvested from that plant. The small shallots were from small shallot sets planted on the ground soil. South-East Asian cooking uses shallots most frequently and that amount will probably only last me for 2~3weeks.

Shallots are commonly thinly sliced and fried crisply for garnishing dishes in Malaysia. You can easily find the ready-made fried shallots sold in shops in Malaysia. Shallot is one of the ingredient commonly use to make sambal belachan or dipping sauces for grilled fish. Shallot has very little calories that make it good for a person in diet by making his or her meal more appetising by using it as marinade. From my childhood memories, we rarely eat outside so it will be a special treat when we did that so satay was usually served accompanied with peanut sauce, rice cakes, cucumber slices and raw shallot slices.

What is your favourite shallot variety?

End Year Container Garden 2011

It has been sometime that I have not posted pictures of our container garden. This is because of the cleaning up of winter plants and waiting for the right moment to sow warm loving veggies made the container garden look very not organise and bare. So now some of the containers has filled up a bit. It probably look greenish now but continuous high temperature will make them look very dreadful later on.

From Container Garden

Orange sweet potato veins at this corner of our container garden. They don't follow orders really well so this summer they have been isolated from the rest of the plants. Experimenting in one of the containers is growing soy beans and sweet potato together. Soy bean plants grow straight right up whilst sweet potato leaves will keep the soil more moist as they cover up the soil.

From Container Garden

Growing "Jack Be Little" pumpkin at this corner and this pumpkin plant actually giving some shade to strawberry plants. The strawberry plants is clever enough to send out stalk for the berries to ripen while keeping it foliage out of the harmful summer sun.

From Container Garden

This summer is our first time trying to grow purple skin and white flesh sweet potatoes. I thought it has purple flesh at first but bought the wrong one. Young seedlings of jicama (sengkuang) and Clemson spineless okra sharing the same container. I had some encouraging result growing them together last year so repeating this combination again. Leek and parsnip growing side by side. Dragon carrot growing together with cherrytime capsicum.

From Container Garden

This is a bit of complex situation because that trellis was intended for bitter gourd. But bitter gourd end up sharing that trellis with volunteer tomato plant. The spagetthi squash is also inching its way to the trellis as well. There are one promising (indicate with arrow) spagetthi squash at the moment. We are excited to harvest the fruit cos this is our first time growing this squash and of course will be our first taste of it. Lenay spied one female bitter gourd flower this week and has pollinated it with male flowers. Hopefully the success for the female bitter gourd fruit to grow won't be deterred by the very warm days we are having for several days.

Last year we did not have that much a problem starting cucumbers early. But this year the cucumber seeds seems to be on strike until end of November when those seeds favor to sprout. Its not only one variety playing hooky but all the varieties of cucumber that we plan to grow this summer. So we probably have late cucumber harvest season this summer compared last year if growing them are successful. This corner we grow cucumber "Suyo Long" in container together with beetroot and Topweight carrot.

From Container Garden

At the back row are orange sweet potato and "Royal Blue" potato plant. In the front, angled luffa growing together with "New Red Kuroda" carrot and jicama.

From Container Garden

Another volunteer tomato growing in the garlic container. This is the only garlic that I have not dug out yet. I probably should since all the leaves dried up. But it was too hot this week I simply don't have the motivation. We also grow white sweet potatoes at this corner here. First time growing shallot and I am not sure when is the perfect time to harvest and cure them. I need some advice; from looking at the shallot in the container, do you think it is ready to be harvested?

Hope you have a joyous moments with your love ones during this festive season.

'Topweight' Carrot for Winter season

We have been trying to sow carrot seeds each month (succession sowing) to ensure continuous supply for our kitchen as it is one of our favourite vegetables.  Sowing carrots in winter is tricky it probably won't give you root but gives you flower. Last cool season, we tried growing 3 different varieties of carrot which is Afghanistan carrot, dragon carrot and topweight carrot. Sowing Afghanistan carrot and dragon carrot after the month of May (end autumn) has the tendency to bolt rather than produce root. This is the second year we grow topweight carrot in winter season and they tend to be more resistant to bolt. I sowed some topweight carrot in polystyrene container early winter (June) and the seeds germination rate was good. The seeds germinate quicker than it usually does.

New topweight carrot seedlings last June.

After 16 weeks from sowing, a reasonable size of carrot roots to harvest. In winter, growth should be slower than usual so I was not expecting a big root. Winter growing carrot taste sweeter.

We usually harvest only the amount needed and left the rest to grow. But by November all those carrots have to be harvested because the carrot core begins to become woody. It was nice to have fresh carrots in spring while waiting for the spring-sown carrot roots to grow.

Topweight carrot seems to be a good all year round carrot.

This variety also does well in partial shade.

It also can be force grown in hard clay soil.

But you won't expect a good size of root from clay soil.

But you can get a baby carrot size.

We started to harvest topweight carrot sowed in end winter.

Want More Polystyrene Containers?

If you are living in Adelaide, you can obtain polystyrene containers easily at Torrens Island Market site. The Torrens Island Market is every Sunday and ends around noon. You can come collect polystyrene containers at the garbage late in the afternoon. Not many people around during that time so no need to be embarrass. Only a few people that come fishing is around. If you are lucky you can even watch a pink sunset or dolphins.

A budding fisherman practising his skill.

Rayyan even surprised us on trying to assemble the hook line on the fishing rod by himself while others were fishing which is still too dangerous for his age. Because he wanted one all by himself. He insist on holding the fishing rod by himself.

It always shock me on how many vegetables thrown in the garbage. Some of the vegetables and fruits that were thrown were just a little black or bruise because it does not look fresh and pretty anymore. But those vegetables are still edible. If I have a pet like bunny or chooks, I would have taken some back for them. Because I remembered when my brother had bunnies for his pet, my parents usually bought old vegetables from supermarkets like Giant in Malaysia that has been reduced it price sometime RM1 perbag for his dear pet. So much food waste and people dying of hunger in other part of this world. Polystyrene containers in the photo were full of beans!

Heaps of polystyrene containers on our collection day.

No more space to grow on your veggie patch?

Grow some veggies in polystyrene containers.

Economical and good insulators against those summer heat.