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?

Angled Luffa Life Cycle

Angled luffa is also known as Chinese Okra but in my native tongue it is known as petola or ketola segi. When I did some googling in Japan its name is hechima. But I never saw one in any Niigata prefecture market or maybe did not notice it. I enjoyed growing angled luffa very much last summer because I don’t have to look after it and it thrive in Adelaide summer. Contrary to belief in temperate region, angled luffa grows really fast and produce within 8~10weeks. Angled luffa also grows very well in container. Angled Luffa likes mild weather. To my surprise, our angled lufffa managed to produce until end of May (end fall). The last angled luffa fruit produce when the weather day average temperature was 18 degree Celsius. Newly sprouted angled luffa seeds. Similar looking with cucumber seedling because they belong to the same cucurbit group.

Angled luffa first set of true leaves. I have a habit of planting seeds and forget to label them. So this is for future reference so I can differentiate it with cucumber.When I do label them but my sons like to collect the label like sticks.

More growth. Although angled luffa is said to be heat-loving vegetable. They will prefer a little bit of shade if you have really hot summer or grow them which receive only morning sun.

We put on clothes for our angled luffa fruit during very hot weather. They grow much better. This also help predator to hide on the look out for their favourite snack (pest).

Angle luffa flesh is like sponge. When you cook it in stir-fry or soup, angled luffa absorb the flavour easily.  Although when you touch the skin it is hard, the flesh inside is very soft.

I have also noticed that unlike cucumber, summer and winter squash that we were growing, angled luffa is not easily susceptible to powdery mildew when we had damp weather. Our little inspector inspecting weather this angled luffa is ready to be harvested for its seeds.

When the seeds are ready to be collected, you could hear rattling sound when you shake the dried fruit.

Okra has five chambers when you slice it. But angled luffa looks like it has 3 chambers. Have to cut more to make sure whether this is true or not next time.

73 seeds were inside this dried angled luffa pod. More than enough for next planting. Angled luffa fibre is really coarse and tough in dried state. No wonder it was use to make soles for beach sandals. Will test it as a sponge for washing the dish.

Container Gardening (五月)

Nothing much going on at our garden containers section at the backyard. Not having the time to clear up some of the containers to grow cool season vegetables at the moment and organising the container layout. This is a new vegetables that we introduced in our garden this year parsnip and beetroots. We had our first taste of stir-fry beetroot thinnings this week and we like it.

Beetroots, dragon carrots interplanting with leek seedlings. Two containers need to be clear up which content end season bush bean and some spring grown leeks.

We are waiting for one angled luffa fruit to dry to collect the seeds. Last week we were surprised with several new female flowers of angled luffa form in this cold weather. Not sure whether it will actually grow, observing at the moment. Okra burgundy seems to tolerate cooler condition more than clemson spineless variety. Can that be our last okra burgundy pod? Leaf amaranth (chinese spinach) growing under burgundy okra plant. Lenay has nipped the shoot several times to prevent it from bolting for Rayyan's meal. Self-seeded nasturtium growing together in the same container with jicama (sengkuang). I wonder if we can possibly get some tuber from this jicama plants.

At this corner, potato, golden calwonder capsicum and red chard plant. In the background, lemon grass plants with rainbow chard seedling which is hard to see from this photo.

Yellow and purple bell capsicum taking such a long time to mature, it has been more than 2 months. We are growing flower bulbs for the first time this year and happy to see that ranunculus has sprouted some leaves. I think I spied some new shoot of jonquail or daffodils on one of the pot the other day. I felt relief that I managed to plant them properly.

Have a nice weekend!

Growing Angled Luffa in Container

Don't believe everything that is written on the seed packets. If I have believe it, I won't try growing angled luffa last warm season. When I was browsing online seed catalogues, the sentence "need a very long warm season to grow at least 16weeks" always put me off buying the seeds that I wanted. Moreover the quantity of 12 seeds for about $3.20perpacket will make me consider it not twice but several times especially when you don't know whether it is suitable to grow or not here in Adelaide. I have already have one growing slowly in the veggie patch which was growing but not yet flowering for about 7weeks at that moment. But Bangchik post about angled luffa in his garden produce within 2 months in December 2010 gave me an idea. I actually don't have to start sowing angled luffa earlier to make sure that they have long growing season. But if we would have at least 23 ~30 degree celcius for several weeks, the plants will grow very fast without any setbacks. End of December (early summer), I have a few of angled luffa seeds left and an empty polystyrene container. So with the help of my youngest sister Tatiyana, we did direct sowing of angled luffa seeds in polystyrene container. I am giving credit to Tatiyana because she was in charge of watering the plants at our backyard when she was staying with me.

After 10weeks from sowing, it gave us our first angled luffa fruit harvest!

It is difficult to imagine a big fruit like angled luffa can be grown in container, but it is possible. One plant angled luffa if growing in tropic and on the ground can usually climb all over up to 5 metre. You just need a deep pot for them like cucumber growing in pots.I think angled luffa can be grown in small garden or even in balcony because the plant won't grow like the one on the ground (well I let the photo convince you) . Two plants will give you many harvest. The foliage is pretty too. The container that we were using were not deep enough (~20cm) but surprisingly it did grow and produce a decent number of fruits up until now. But deeper container is much more better.

Angled luffa female flower.

Cucumber green gem and angled luffa sharing trelis together.

If you want to keep angled luffa seeds just make sure, you are not growing sponge luffa at the same time as it will cross-pollinate.

The right size to harvest. I usually harvest angled luffa when they have reached about 30cm long.

I have never used luffa for sponge.

But I am curious hope one day we have so many luffa that I can let some dry for sponge.

But not this year;-).