Summer Veggies Continue...

Oppss...who was lazy leaving the eggplant at the partial shade corner not stake?

I did.

So when I finally attempt to stake the branches that were on the ground last weekend, I found 2 bonica eggplants hiding beneath foxglove foliage. One of the eggplants were bigger than my palm and very heavy for an eggplant. We had very warm days a few days ago which causes our eggplants that were growing in sunny position has wrinkle skin and not growing much. So I have to harvest them when the fruits are tiny or they stop production/flowering. Lebanese and early long eggplants are not usually bitter but due to the weather causes them to be bitter. There were many angled luffa female flower last week but not a single male around for successful fruit.

Some alpine strawberry fruits ripening in the garden this month.

The only photo taken.

They are fresh snack in the garden so photos of them are very rare.

Our first soy bean harvest from a plant.

This is my second year attempt trying to grow them.

Not easy to grow here because of dry hot weather in summer.

Soy bean like heat and humidity I think.

I tried growing them in different season and location in the garden with not much success.

How did I get them to produce this time?

I sowed soy bean seeds in the container which I prepared for a sweet potato plant.

I think the sweet potato plant crawling veins help keep the soil moist and act as a natural mulch.

Boiled the beans in salted water for snacking.

Sweet potato shoots.

Cleared up sweet potato plants that were growing in one corner in our garden.

It has been mice sanctuary.

Most of the sweet potatoes were eaten not much left for us.

We harvested spaghetti squashes before the rain comes. Left them curing naturally outside for a long time until the whole plant has actually dried off. A very tiny watermelon and cucumber were also harvested last weekend.

Cleared up the neglected patches along our driveway shared with neighbours, got some spring onions. Some capsicum were also harvested last weekend.

Visit Daphne's Dandelions to see different kind of harvest came from different parts of garden all  around the world.

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?

Cucurbits Catching Up

The cucurbit in our garden~cucumber, squash, melon, bitter gourd and angled luffa could not produce proper fruit during summer as it was too hot for the flower to set fruit properly and lack of pollinators. Did my best to hand-pollinate them. But the fruit just shrivel under the hot hot hot sun. The plants growth were also stunted, they were struggling as best as they could to just survive until the milder weather comes. Now came March and some rain, we see that the cucurbit are now promising us some reward. 

The green gem cucumber plants starting to bear some fruits.

Hoping for our first watermelon harvest this year.

Hope the temperature and sun is enough until it is ready to be harvested.

About a hand size now.

Other cucumber varieties that are still growing in the garden and waiting for them to produce are lemon cucumber, white spine cucumber and bavi cucumber (pic below). Last week, I sowed some lemon cucumber and suyo long cucumber, and the seeds has geminated this week. It is trial to see whether it will grow quickly and make it up to harvest stage before the weather is too cold for them. Since many of our cucumbers died in summer.

Our second year of growing banana rockmelon. Last year was a failure, it was cooler last year and maybe the location I chose for them to grow was not suitable. Now we grow them at the spot where we had big success with honeydew melon 2 years ago. Three plants are growing in partial shade. Some fruits are growing and already more than 10cm long. Inter-planting them with pepper plants. The banana rockmelon foliage that sprawled on the ground help to prevent the loss of water from the soil which benefits the rockmelon and pepper.

In January I tried direct-sowing for spaggetthi squash and watermelon to replace the plants that died due to the extreme heat we had. Lucky that they grow well in containers and this week I have spied some female flowers on the plants. Hopefully next week, we have our first 2012 official angled luffa and bitter gourd harvest. Hoping that this month, we finally have some cucurbit harvest. We only had a few odd-looking cucumber shape harvested in summer.

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.

Collecting Yellow Ruffles

The first time ever we eaten our first pattypan squash was last year and it was our own home-grown. I rarely found anyone which said that they like to eat pattypan squash. I heard complain about this vegetable a lot though. So to make sure that we know what true pattypan squash taste like, we decided to grow this vegetable last spring. Well, the cute photo of pattypan squash and it bright colours on the punnet seedlings tag were one of the main factor that made me bought it and grow the seedlings in our garden last spring. It was not in my wish lish and plan for warm season planting. I just came to know about this vegetable when we live in Australia, not a really popular vegetable I reckon since we hardly see them in market shelves unless it is in season. FYI, I don't hear any complain about pattypan squash in our house.

Pattypan squash was very prolific. It was one of the first vegetables that give us summer harvest. The blooming flowers are so big compared to the fruit waiting to be fertilised behind it. At the end of the season, we left one fruit to mature to collect seeds. When you left one gets very big and go to the stage of producing seeds, the plants will stop bearing other fruits.

We left one pattypan squash to grow on the plant for weeks until the plant died to collect seeds. We finally harvest this last pattypan squash together with other summer vegetables. Visit Daphne's Dandellion Harvest Monday to see what other gardeners all over the world is harvesting this week.

It was not easy to cut through the pattypan squash to collect the seeds as the skin has become very hard. We were happy to see many seeds to collect that we can sow for next spring. 

It will be a waste not to eat this mature pattypan squash, although usually it is collected for the kitchen used when it is young and tender to eat. CikManggis gave me an idea when I was looking at her angled luffa recipe. So I adapted her recipe, to make this pattypan squash dish and join in Wendy's Garden to Table Challenge (GTTC).

Ingredients:
One mature pattypan squash cut like an apple 1 inch thick.
4 mashed garlic cloves,
1/2 teaspoon of pepper (coarsely grind)
1 egg lightly beaten
salt
water
vegetable oil for saute
Optional: prawn, tofu, rice vercimelli or dried bean curd (pre-soak with water).

Heat oil and saute garlic. Add in water and pepper. Let it boil. Add in pattypan squash. When pattypan squash is almost tender add in egg and mix well. Then add in prawns, tofu, rice vercimelli or dried bean curd. Add salt.Cook until pattypan squash is tender. You may need to add in some water after you add rice vercimelli or dried bean curd because it soak a lot of water.


What did that pattypan squash tasted like? A bit nutty. Our 20months old family member seems to like this dish as he keep asking for more.

With the other summer vegetables that we harvested, I mix them with spicy sour dried salted fish with mango.

Any ideas how to prepare pattypan squash dish?

Happy Mellow Yellow Monday!

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;-).

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!

Over ripe Bitter Gourd / Melon

Bye-bye Ilhan and Rayyan! Mama going to school...Alamak, wait a second, why is that bitter gourd have a hole at the bottom.

I forgot all about bitter gourd plants in the front of the house because they just started to produce end March unlike the ones growing at the backyard. My plants don't like growing at the front yard because the soil are unbearably hot and they receive afternoon sun.

 This bitter gourd fruit is over-ripening. The next day much more bigger hole at the bottom and you can see red flesh covering bitter gourd seeds. If you leave it longer on the plant, the seeds will drop to the ground. Ants sometime help to clean up the red flesh and leave clean seeds for you.

A closer look...

Inside...

Lenay had a bite and she said it does not taste bitter anymore. I take her word this time around.

This is what bitter gourd inside look when I harvest them for cooking. If you see some reddish skin inside it means that it is starting to ripe. Bitter gourd brownish colour seeds at this stage can be kept for next-planting.