Late Warm Harvest Continues

Our warm season vegetable/fruit harvest were late this year for picking.

For example, we usually don't harvest any cucumbers in May.

But our white spine cucumber and lemon cucumber has just started to supply our kitchen.

I don't have much luck with lemon cucumber.

The lemon cucumber in our garden is not very prolific.

I am hoping I have success collecting white spine cucumber seeds this year.

Eggplants harvest still continues here in May.

Cherrytime capsicum is the most prolific in our garden this year grown from our home-saved seeds.

We harvested several Turkish Leopard Melons.

I think this melon is very heat-tolerant as they survive with neglect and little watering.

The white flowers are weeds growing between the melon plant.

Show how lazy I have become and not caring much about the plant.

Da Cheong Chae thinnings.

Earlier this month, I was a bit impatient and I harvested chocalate capsicum while they were still green or not fully ripen but left some to ripe. Last weekend some has ripen for picking. 

Big surprise from the garden is that we got a cauliflower harvest from a one year old plant left growing at the back of our backyard fence. The plant had survived our extreme summer heat without much watering. Amazingly the cauliflower was one of the tastiest home-grown cauliflower I have ever tasted so creamy and sweet, pack full of flavour. I thought it was going to be bitter as the cauliflower curd form in warm weather. Other harvest last week was summer grown carrots, beetroots and eggplants. Finally some of our long chilli has also ripen was so spicy.

We also have some fresh salmon trouts last weekend.

Our house fisherman learn a few trick from his friend and found a new good spot for fishing.

I probably be left alone with Rayyan each Saturday morning now this month.

Visit Daphne's Dandelions for Harvest Monday!

Mid-Autumn pickings

This month harvest is all rather quick process of picking what I needed while cooking so did not taken many photos of our harvest this month. This month available harvest in our kebun (garden) are mainly consist of...

Some of our banana capsicum is ripening at the moment. Banana capsicum is not a hot but sweet variety type so Rayyan can enjoy it as well. He won't eat spicy food yet. Brought in our last batch of home-grown onion that were hanging out at the shed. Cut some Chinese celery stalk. It was growing under the canopy of our tree dahlia plants that I almost forget I have them in the garden. It does not received much direct sunlight at the moment. Harvested our first 'bari' cucumber. Its actually a melon and very mini size type. I did not realised that it is actually a 'heirloom' cucumber that is not available in catalogues. I got it from our local seed-saver group. 

With the warm mild weather, the garden is producing eggplants, cucumbers and okras. I tried to grow several variety of beans in the shade during summer as they still get indirect light. We did get some produce though not as prolific as the ones that are growing in sunny position during spring/autumn. In the basket, bean harvest from shade position.

Pull out some of our summer growing parsnips to see how they are growing under the soil, glad that they are roots to enjoy. But I will leave some for winter harvest. 'Cherokee Wax' and 'Redland Pioneer' bush bean has been the main bean that we harvested this month. I am excited with the 'Redland Pioneer' harvest because it was my first time growing home saved-seeds of this bean. The bush bean 'Redland Pioneer' produces the first batch of bean to harvest the same as the fast growth of Pak chois for fast crop. Everyweek we have some kangkung to harvest.

What amazed me is how tolerant the savoy cabbage and Italian sprouting broccoli withstand our extreme summer weather. I have one neglected happy Italian sprouting broccoli plant and still producing shoots for us at the back of our backyard fence. It only gets water 3-4 times a week during the warm season. It is already a year old.

We caught many bream fish but there are still small (mostly almost 20cm) not legal size. So have to be released back into the water. The only legal size catch that we had is whiting.

See harvest all around the world at Daphne's Dandelions Harvest Monday.

Daikon thinnings

I was a bit worried during the second half of April whether the garden will have any fresh vegetables for the kitchen. Fortunately, daikon seeds that were sowed around middle of March were growing really fast. Daikon seeds were sowed very closely, I have been putting root vegetables seedlings thinning task at the bottom of list to do in the veggie patch. As daikon grows really big root compared with other radish, our daikon thinnings were already the same size as white icicle variety radish. Daikon thinnings have been the main fresh harvest in the kitchen together with chilies. Okra is loving the warm weather we had last week and we spied many promising pods that can be harvested this week. Once again, I forgot to harvest bittergourd growing in the front yard, some fruits have over ripen.

Glad I did not gave up on the white spine cucumber plants that have been growing since spring but were only producing male flowers. As the day is becoming shorter, it starts to produce female flower. Now, it is the main cucumber variety that is producing for us in fall. After second year of growing this cucumber variety, I now understand that this is a very sensitive day-light hours cucumber plant. Some cucumber variety don't produce female when the days are getting longer but the shortening of day-lights will trigger the female fruits to form. Some carrots that were growing in containers sowed in January were harvested.

I was clearing some veggie patches and harvested leeks that were planted in spring. Using some of this harvest (leeks, cucumbers, capsicum, chinese celery cut in bite sizes), prepared Sweet and Sour Tempura coated Salmon dish.

Different variety of capsicum plants are producing in our garden. However, it makes us wait a long time for it to ripe. I am so tempted to harvest these capsicum when there are green several times. Results of waiting until last weekend got to harvest 2 purple bell and banana capsicum. Spied some banana and golden bell capsicums which is ripening and might be ready for picking this week. Lenay fried the eggplants with tempura. Probably this was our final chance harvested 3 varieties of cucumbers (apple, green gem, white spine) in one day this fall.

We don't have much luck with melon family this year compared last year. Last year we have many big honeydew melons and watermelon to harvest. This year we only had some small melon harvest. The biggest melon this year did not even matured to the size of smallest melon harvested last year. Honeydew, Rockmelon and Turkish Leopard melon plants were fruiting but I discovered too late last week that cucumber beetles have make a grand nest on one of the veggie patch. The plants died when the fruit were half-way developing . Although the ripe melons were small this year, it tastes much sweeter than the big ones.

What is your most favourite melon?

Visit Daphne's Dandelions for Harvest Monday.

Carrot and Cucurbit

We never grow enough carrots. Rayyan eat most of our carrot harvest. Making sure that we have some carrot for Rayyan every week, I have to try to sow carrot seeds every month. Growing carrot during summer here in Adelaide is a bit challenging as the temperature is high and good germination will be a problem. Furthermore, the harsh burning rays of Adelaide summer sun can burn the leaves to crisp. I found that 'New Red Kuroda' carrot variety can tolerate heat (good and fast germination) which is reliable for growing carrot in summer. Carrot takes a long time to grow and space is very precious in our garden so I have to think of  a way I can give some shade to protect carrot from getting itself cooked in the soil and of course space vacancy. While we tested growing cucumber in container, there were a lot of empty spaces so we decided to sow some carrot seeds and see whether carrot and cucumber can grow happily together or not. YES they do!

Cucumber yied were good and carrot size were not too bad either.

Carrot thinnings.

Rarely have the chance to take photo of our carrots because it goes directly to the cooking pot for Rayyan meal.

This is what happened to the carrots growing together with bitter gourd after several days of 40+ degree Celsius. Bitter gourd foliage gave some shade protection for the carrots. Imagine if carrot were totally at the mercy of the sun, surely they will die.

Carrot which we sowed in the middle of last summer, growing together with watermelon.

I think carrot might give some contribution to this companionship too, help break the soil for cucumber shallow root system? To an oberver like me, a win-win situation.

What is "Companion Week" and Seed Give-Away visit this post for more information.

Pasar Tani di Kebun KMG

I cried a bucket of tears a few days ago but I got a basket full of harvest on Sunday. Our kebun (vegetable garden) gifted us with chilies, leeks, okras, white spine cucumbers, angled luffa, Purple King and snake beans. We also had a bowl of Da Cheong Chae babies that have already grown about 10cm tall from thinnings.

Any idea what dish did I decide to make with serai (lemon grass), daun kesum (laksa leaf/vietnamese mint and these ingredient? This is actually the first time, we tasted our home-grown Okra Burgundy. We have been freezing okra harvest since the first pod.

"Snapper masak Assam Pedas" which literally translate as Snapper cook in spicy sour soup? This is a very popular dish in south of Malaysia peninsular. It is sour due to one of the base ingredient which is tamarind juice. The most common type of fish that is used for this dish is actually sting-ray. I remember there was a time when we were travelling south and mom got hooked with this dish. Those eggplant were overcooked by me but they still taste good. Boosted my appetite, ate with very warm rice.

Stir-fried angled luffa with anchovies which Lenay cooked for dinner today as I stayed late at school. It was delicious so sweet and soft to eat.

Visit Daphne for Harvest Monday!

Cucumber Recovery Power (review)

This warm season, we grow three cucumber varieties; Apple (Phoenix seeds), Green Gem (Eden Seeds) and White Spine (Greenpatch Organic Seeds). Last warm season was not a good cucumber season for us and we only grown White Spine cucumber. This year cucumber has been one of our main harvest so I am making notes on each variety that we grow this season.Although they share the same general name “cucumber”, they have different characteristic like each siblings in one family. Furthermore, we like to make notes on how each variety cope with heat waves and their recovery after that,

Apple Cucumber

Mid-bearing and I think it is high-yielding variety since there were many female fruits. However, heat waves came when it just started early-phase of fruit production and left them in no good shape anymore. Not resistant to disease and takes a very long time to produce fruit again after heatwaves. It is almost 2 months now since heat waves and just started to produce again. Some seedlings dislike transplanting and some don’t mind. If the fruit is expose too much strong sun, it will ripen too quickly when the size of fruit is still very small that you have to harvest them quickly before it turns really yellowish.

Green Gem Cucumber

Prolific producer,early-bearing and have a long harvest season. Suitable to grow in container and does not mind to be transplanted. Grow well in hard clay soil too.Sometimes has a bit more of bitter taste compared with the other two varieties. More success in getting straight form,bigger and longer fruit by wrapping the fruit with paper after manually pollinated.  Disease resistant~prune off the sick-leaves immediately and plants will be healthy again. Bounce back quickly and produce cucumber after heat waves and roots disturbed. Caution: If growing cucumber in pots, don’t move them around. This is because the roots actually grow through the drainage hole and take root under the pots to the soil. I moved polystyrene container with cucumber plants in it and heard ripping sounds. The next few days, cucumber leaves were flopping. Although container dry up easily, cucumbers have their own plan B. They were sipping water not only from container but from the ground as well. The good thing is that excess water from watering the pots were actually save in the ground and from evaporation. This answered my question about how did my cucumber plant in containers survived without 4 days of watering while we were away.

White Spine Cucumber

Very very late producer and does not bear many fruit. So far I got lucky with 2 cucumbers per-plant only. Always have so many male flowers and females are very rare.Can be grown in containers and hard-clay soil. Heat-tolerant. Quick-maturing fruit. Very cool cucumber to eat in room temperature compare with the other two. This is my second season growing them and not much improvement compared with the first season on getting more fruit from this heirloom cucumber. But I like the taste. I think this cucumber might not be suitable to grow in our weather and environment here, considering the other variety don’t have much of a problem. Two cucumber plants growing in polystyrene container together is under attack from aphids. I am letting the fruit on this plants to mature so I can harvest some seeds. Hopefully home-saved seeds will be more adapted with the environment here in Adelaide.

What is your favourite cucumber?