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!

April2013 Harvest Monday

 It has been just a few days since I returned and the garden has given many nice surprises. Mulberry trees that were just starting to fruit when I left them has provided sweet fruits which Rayyan really enjoyed as his snack while waiting for the parents to prepare lunch. I am relief to see that the butterfly pea plants keeps on providing pretty blooms everyday. Did not noticed a volunteer snake bean plant growing on one of the raised bed and suddenly found long tangling beans on the cage. Bird-eyed chillies and some juice from calamansi limes for our traditional 'sambal belacan' dipping, very nice pounded together with the fresh shrimp paste (belacan) that I brought back from my recent trip. So happy looking at our cucumber tree (tree sorrel) starting to bear fruits.

 Two of our veggie patch got invaded with volunteer Javanese ginseng plants also known as Surinam Spinach. So I pulled out most of the Javanese ginseng plants to grow other edibles. I won't be surprised if many volunteer Javanese ginseng seedlings sprouted in a couple of weeks. In a month, I will probably be pulling them out again. We harvested the roots from the Javanese Ginseng plants. The Javanese ginseng root is as potent as Korean/Chinese ginseng. Boiled Javanese Ginseng roots for my hubby almost everyday so he can work hard on the garden clearing up all the weeds to atone for his neglect.

 Like the bird-eye chillies that birds helped distributed the seeds in our garden, this pea size eggplants also grow wild in our garden. In the Malay language this eggplant is known as 'Terung pipit'. Terung in Malay is eggplant while pipit is sparrow. Therefore literal translation will be sparrow eggplant. This is due to birds that also helped distributed this eggplant. We have hundreds and hundreds of wild pea eggplant seedlings sprouting everywhere in the garden. One of the turmeric plant produce a bloom for us to enjoy in salad (chopped finely and mixed together other traditional herbs) dipping with sambal belacan. We also harvest a few lemons. Each time my mother returned she will bring back some lemons to where she reside now at Borneo Island.

 This week nam nam fruits is in season in our garden , this time is not just squirrels enjoying them but ants too. Nice Nam Nam fruit harvest week, many of the fruits were sweet. I wrote about nam nam plant life-cycle a couple weeks ago.

 A few passion fruits were also salvage under the mango tree. I did not realised a passion fruit plant is growing up on the bushy mango tree. I was very surprise when I saw many fruits under the mango tree and some were already chomped. We made passion fruit juice with this harvest.

Join in Daphne's Dandelions: Harvest Monday.

Kitaran Hidup Pokok Katak Puru

 Before I went off to Borneo island, our Nam Nam tree fruit season has returned and this was the last edibles I harvested. At least, I got to satisfy my craving for nam nam fruit before my flight to Sabah. I hope the boys at home will continuously pick butterfly pea flowers so that the plants will not get old by producing seed pods. No one going to remember to harvest sponge luffa fruits, and I think I will find some old fruits when I returned. Nevermind, I can used them as sponge if the fruits did not get rotten with the frequent rain.

 Nam nam can be grown easily from fresh seeds. Nam nam seedlings just sprouted from seeds. Nam nam tree is native to Peninsular Malaysia. However, it is not a plant native to Borneo island. Not many people from Borneo island will recognise this fruit. On the other hand, Borneo island also have many native fruit plants which only distribution is on the island and not growing wild here in Peninsular Malaysia.

 Nam nam seedlings must be handle with care when transplanting, they have really long taproot. Even the older seedlings, have very strong long taproot and hardly any small tiny hairy hair attached to the main taproot. I fell back on my butt several times to pull out nam nam seedlings which grows like weed in our garden.

Nam nam flowers.

 For a tropical fruit tree, Nam nam tree is categorized as small. It is suitable for terrace house if you regular prune the tree. My grandfather which lives in a single storey terrace house grows Nam Nam tree outside of his front gate. Underneath this canopy...

 Nam nam tree fruits all year round. They don't seem to have a specific fruiting season. Although, usually it is eaten raw, I have cook Nam nam fruit in Curry, yellow curry and Assam Pedas dishes and my family likes it (gambar makanan lawat sini).

 Squirrels also like nam nam fruit and here is a fruit that has been munched by squirrel. Nam nam fruit does not have tiny seeds but one big seeds.

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.

Nam Nam (Cynometra cauliflora)

 A few weeks ago, I posted some pictures of passion fruit bloom and asked to take a guess what kind of fruits were in our yellow basket next to the passion fruits. So today I will give you the answer and it is nam nam fruit. Nam nam fruit is native to Malaysia and also locally known as 'katak puru' (sadly some kind of a toad) due to its shape. But instead of a toad to me it kind of resemble like a brain. The kidney shape nam nam fruit skin is rough and mature fruit is not that big just fit the palm of my hand. Green fruit is sour and ripe fruit is sweet sour. If you are a fan of green mango like me, you will definitely like nam nam fruit as well. Yummy addition in 'sambal' belacan or dip into 'rojak' sauce. I like to add the fruit into my 'masak lemak cili api' (Malaysia yellow curry), guarantee you have second serving. How to pick ripe nam nam fruit? Yellow colour and when you shake the fruit you can feel that the seed rattle or loose from the flesh inside and when you pluck the fruit it easily came off no resistant. The fruit has large seed and yellow flesh.

 Nam nam tree comparing with other native tropical fruit tree is relatively small. Surprisingly the plant can produce fruit even in shaded condition. I think this must be a useful adaptation since it is rather a small tree that will nestled under the canopy of big tall tree if growing wild in the virgin forest. As I remembered our nam nam plant has been fruiting since I was still in secondary school. Back then, I did not really appreciate the tree much due to the fruit appearance but I remembered my father tried to coax me to it eat when I went back during holiday while studying in Japan. One of my sisters like this fruit very much since small, she has very high tolerance for sour food.

Nam nam plant blossoms.

Even fruiting close to the base of the plant. The nam nam fruit just beginning to develop.

Amazing how the fruit attach on the tree bark/branch.

 I did not realised we had so many self-seeded nam nam seedlings until last week when we were mowing the lawn. Hopefully when I have time, will pot up these precious little babies. Although it is a native to us, it is not an easily plant to obtain due to lack popularity. Sadly this fruit has now become very rare, you won't see it readily selling at any market. Especially now not many my generation knew about this fruit. 

Fruits all year round. I am addicted to the fruit. I can harvest some fruits every fortnightly. 

How do you enjoy your nam nam?