Last Harvest Monday 2013

 Yesterday, I decided to do a last posting for Harvest Monday 2013 since it has been a while we joined in at Daphne's Dandelions. Usually it is raining on the afternoon here as we are in the Monsoon season. Therefore limited time to get a lot of the 'task to do' be ticked off on the list. We rarely get to take pictures of the harvest now as it has always been a rush or me harvesting while cooking dashing in and out from the kitchen to the kebun. Here is an overview of some goods that we were able to harvest yesterday. Malabar spinaches, winged bean, various long-yard beans, and lemons. We also have cotton bolls to harvest from the garden. Instead of using tissues we can used organic cotton bolls as wipers.

 Sapodilla (ciku), and canistel fruit trees are always so generous producing all year round. In the land below the wind, Sabah state, there are many fans of canistel fruit which makes the market price at the moment according to our mother surveys RM8.00 per-kilogram (If you are interested you are welcome to contact us, too many for our small family). Occasionally we get pamelo or guava fruits from the backyard. The tree that produce tangerine-like fruit which my mother sowed from seeds from her hometown has also started it fruiting season.

 The native fruit tree called nam nam (fruit looks like brain), also never stopped producing. Many first-timers told us that the ripe ones tasted a bit like pear when we shared some.

 The passion fruit are ripening on the tree. 

 November and December months are rambutan season every year in our place. This year most of the rambutan trees bear fruits a lot. We have more than 5 rambutan trees fruiting happily.

 Cempedak is also very generous this month. 'Cempedak' is a relative to jackfruit but a smaller version of it. People like to make cempedak fritters like banana fritters from the yellow flesh that covers the seeds, a popular tea snack.

 We also have some Pulasan fruits to enjoy (a squirrel left a mark on the pulasan fruit in above photo). Pulasan is a relative to 'Rambutan'. Can you notice the difference of the hairstyle between 'Pulasan' and 'Rambutan'. 'Rambut' in Malay Language is 'hair', while 'Pulas' in Malay Language is 'twist'.

Happy New Year!

Hazy Harvest

 Haze condition in some of the places in Peninsular Malaysia is really bad. Schools has been closed now until the haze level goes down. The kids are now limited indoors and fortunately has not get bored yet on the activities they focusing on at the moment. The television has not been switched  on at all for more than a week at least. Gardeners too need to avoid not spending too much time outdoors. Hope the plants will be strong and fare well in this kind of predicament. Tuberose plants has been producing flower stalks one by one this month, I think this bulbous plant has respond the need to create offspring in giving flowers due to the drought and hot weather. It nice to get to snip some tuberose flower stalks starting to bloom bringing them inside the house for their strong alluring fragrance. Because we have haze now, harvesting the butterfly pea flowers task came back to the parents instead of the kids. The haze has kind of effected the duck and eggs production in our place too. We also harvested a tiny squash last week. Readily available to harvest last week and this week are also lemons, pea eggplants and chillies.

 Some of the fresh traditional raw salads available in our garden to eat with sambal belacan.

 We also harvested some roselles, Surinam spinaches, and a guava last week.

 Papaya fruits also some of the main harvest last week from our garden. Why are they in the plastic? This is for my next door neighbour portions.

 I just realised that the okras has already started producing yesterday and I harvested all the fruits regardless some are still small because I knew I won't be able to go into the garden in this bad haze condition today or probably tomorrow. I skipped the garden for 2 days locked up after some late night ruckus that is why I did not realised they started flowering. This is the first time I harvested 'Mammoth Spineless' heirloom okra. Quite surprised this variety okra fruit size are fatter than the other varieties that I usually grow. We also harvested some Marjerine fruits. Almost seven year old male cat 'Jack' having a nap. Jack is always a good boy towards me since I'm his adopted mom, so this is not his doing but unfortunately mine. I am sorry I am kind of slow replying comments or visiting as I am still suffering from my postnatal depression from time to time. But it does make me cheer up reading your comments or receiving your emails. I do know I need to seek professional help but I guess I got tired or couldn't be bothered anymore for trying to think how I am going to drag myself there with kids while having some session with the expert. I am still kind of lost as well where to seek the closest help I can. Enough of the rambling today and I try to keep my mind quiet, hush hush hush.

Happy Harvest Monday.

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.

Lemon Tree and March Mains

 My kids and I are all feeling under the weather this week, sadly for the kids it is school holiday this week so the museum trip is being postponed for the time being. There are certain things as a parents it is not easy to explain regarding our own basic customs or culture because our children spent more living in Adelaide than here for the time being. The almost six years old Ilhan getting curious what is a Sultan and Malaysia democracy system for example. So my other half suggested probably the National Museum will be good for them. When my parents came back this month, I got to identified many plants and its origin from Mama. One of the plants that surprised me the most is her lemon plants. For all my teasing her (gulps with regrets when I was staying in Adelaide), she successfully grown so many lemons trees from the seeds that she collected from fresh lemons that we received from 'Fruit & Vegetables Swap' meetings. On top of that, the plants were bearing heavy fruits when I came back . For a fruit plant, the lemon plant my mother grown from seeds must be very young especially to start bearing fruit compared to a grafted one. I don't think I can catch up with her green thumb at growing plants. The most amazing thing I observed was the plants that she bought from our local nursery did not produce juicy lemon (mostly dried pulps), but the ones she sowed from seeds were so juicy and far better than the ones we ever bought in the market. We are so blessed with lemons since we came back, each week we will have some to harvest and sometime I got lazy to pick them.

 A few gardeners in Malaysia were a bit sceptical (just kidding, jangan marah ya) that we can grow lemons in Malaysia and asked for us to post lemon plant pictures. Well here is one of our superstar, picture taken last December. This plant height is just over 1 metre tall. There is a vine creeper plant over the lemon plant need to take it off from lemon. This is the plants that produces lemons for the heart charity event that we participated last year. Grafted plants does not have a long life at our garden especially during wet season they will be a lot of rain and our area is prone to flood. So growing fruit plants from seeds is more a good investment but rather a tricky one because it might not be the same clone as its original parents. However, if you are lucky, you get much better original new fruits. For example, the seeds sowed by mother I have noticed at least 2 different kind shape of lemons and both are good bearing trees bearing good new fruits different from the original parent seeds.

 Here is the lemon plant base, the roots has spread to more than a metre at its growing location. Chicken and ducks love to sit under the lemon tree sometime and we don't have to weed as they like to scratch the soil while leaving their poo around.

 Sometime the lemon fruit is stung by that insect in the picture especially during hot weather which made me think how did the ones in the store can be perfectly unblemished. I don't really mind much as it only reduce the lemon storage time a little bit outside of the refrigerator compared to the ones that did not received kisses from them. But the ones that stung by them are actually more juicier, very intelligent insect.

 This is how the plant look last month, not much leaves compared last year. This lemon plant has spent most of its energy producing fruits in expense of leaves. Last week, my other half has helped pruned all the branches into half for the plant to be able to rest for a while. This lemon plant were given goat manure after being pruned. At the moment, we still have more than 3 lemon plants fruiting so this one was given a chance to rest and refreshed itself. After cajoling mama for the tour at the back, I was surprised we have actually many lemon plants all over the garden, perhaps more than 20 plants in various sizes. One of the main reason, the naughty butterfly pea plants and winged bean plants hide those plants and make them their trellis. Of course the Head gardener was not happy to see her lemon plants being swallowed up by that naughty naughty plants. Since the lemon trees are more precious, when I fill fit again all those naughty plants will be cleared and off into the compost bean. The head gardener is still planning to plant more lemon along the wall. Probably the thorns will put off people from trespassing. 

 Another citrus that we were able to harvest last week was a mini pamelo. Also some basil leaves, okras, bananas, soursop, calamansi limes, butterfly pea blooms, surinam spinach and a soursop.

A small papaya before the birds got to them and some green mangoes.

Harvest Monday.

Kesimpulan tuaian bulan Mac ini

 For these past 2 weeks, we had lots of hot sunny days and not much rain. Thus some plants are balking and some welcome it. Happy plant is the okra bunch.  I have to check on the okra plants every 2 days because the fruits grows so long so fast in just 2 days for about at least 10 cm. The lemons are sulking, the hot weather causes them to ripe too fast and physically they don't look great. Lemon size significantly changes on the smaller side compared to wet season.

 Butterfly pea flower plants is a very cool plant. They don't mind the wet or hot weather. So our kids continue to enjoy their 'Smurf' drink. Everyday we spent at least 15 minutes harvesting the butterfly pea flower blooms.

We harvested some turmeric rhizomes and bandicoot some young ginger rhizomes as well this month.

 I almost missed out the beginning of our burgundy okra harvest since I ignored the place that they were growing for more than a week not expecting the plants will produce anytime soon. The Sweet Large Italian Basil plants are doing very well and I was surprised how big the basil leaves were comparing to other sweet basil I have planted before.

 I was not expecting to get any decent harvest of this variety heirloom sweet corn as the male started to flower in just over a month. From experience, when the male started to poke out too early it is always a sign they are under stress. Well I do know what was the main reason why was this sweet corn batch suffered stress because it was solely depending on rain water. Furthermore, our geese managed to chomp some part of the sweet corn plants as I forgot to close the nettings properly as they were able to poke in their head and tugged the plants. This variety of sweet corn produces a lot of ears, but I decided to harvest them as baby corns because the male pollen has finished up. Calamansi limes are also available but not many. So my aim this week is to prune the citrus family and feed them with some manure or compost. 

 Entering March we started to be blessed with bananas. As we are able to harvest a bunch of bananas from one plant each week. Our cheekie monkies is very happy each time we have them in the basket on the table when they are fully ripe. We have to keep an eye on them or ended with a huge mess of bananas in the kitchen.

 Malay wild eggplants which is a very tiny over 1 cm in length and birds-eye-chillies is wildly growing all over the place courtesy of the birds that like them too. Actually the birds and our part of the share is more than we can eat them. I am very happy the first time I tried growing Baby Blue Jade heirloom corn  and have very good results with it. Although the hen below scratched out the young corn seedlings caused it to uprooted and I have to plant it back feeling no hope for it. Despite that these corn batch did very well.

 But the hot weather brings many death to our egg-laying hens in this month of March. Every week at least 2~3 hens were found dead. Sadly, we now only have 2 hens left. I really need to get more chickens now. Does anyone knows any chick suppliers close to Sungai Buloh area? We really are interested to buy some chicks, please do contact us.

Join in 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.

Water Snake Year Harvest Kick Off

 I hope its not too late to wish Happy Chinese New Year. Here is a summary of what we have been harvesting since the Water Snake Year has started according to Chinese calendar. I have not had much opportunity to snap photos of what we have been harvesting as keeping busy with the kids. So here a few of the ones shown in pictures as a memory. We have been harvesting Butterfly Pea flowers daily to make blue syrup drinks for the kids. The butterfly pea flowers only bloom for one day, so the more you pick them the more they bloom for you. Average daily we make about 3 big bottle mineral water size for the kids. So about 5 litres a day at least. The kids play a lot outside so they have some cold water to drink. Since we came back, I am happy to report that we also been harvesting edibles from the ones we grown ourselves finally. Our first okra batch has finally bears fruits. Radishes also beginning to grow edible roots to enjoy. Assam Jawa or known as tamarind been falling from the trees to collect. Nam nam fruits also has been bearing fruit quite well. I tried cooking nam nam fruit with our traditional dish 'Asam Pedas' with stingray and it was really delicious. Ahem...had second servings.

 Ilhan and Rayyan has been helping to pick bird-eyes chillies. We never sow them, self-seeded easily in the garden everywhere like weeds, courtesy of birds.

Winged beans also added into our harvest basket this month. We also had a few alpine strawberries for Ilhan and Rayyan to enjoy. Not easy to add into the harvest basket as the berries usually goes straight into the small hand and pop into their little mouth in a blink of an eye.

 Finally we have some Asian greens to harvest like choy sum and red giant mustards. These are from the seeds we harvested from our old garden and I am very happy that they grow really well here. In fact they grow so much faster here. We also harvested some sweet leaves which is known as 'Asin-asin' or cekur manis here. Several calamansi limes for my favourite 'Sambal Belacan'. The kids going bananas over the banana harvest. We managed to harvest 2 small pamelos. 

We had rose apple and pink guava too. The kids enjoyed their first fresh pink guava juice. 

Amaranth or Chinese spinach self-seeded everywhere in the garden. We have a few sapodilla and velvet apple also know as mabolo in Phillipine are also harvested since the water snake year begun. Frangipanis have been blooming so nicely this month and I love to pluck a few bloom to enjoy the fragrance.

 So happy since December, we collect our own eggs now. The boys love to help collecting the eggs. I think they enjoyed it a bit too much. Because right after the hens lay egg, the boys go pick the egg still very warm to touch.

 Visit Daphne's Dandelions Harvest Monday to see other gardeners all around the globe share their harvest stories.