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.

Harvest during Christmas week till before New Year

I had to decide to harvest many of our vegetables the day before we have extreme weather so that it won't be much a waste especially the leafy green ones. Well the fruits can be affected as well if left hanging on the plants. For example, it does not surprise me to see burn tomatoes or dehydrated wrinkled chillies on the plant. Sadly many of our tomatoes has been dropping from the stem before it turns red in this hot weather. Even the carrot root top that is exposed are all wrinkly and dehydrated. Not as juicy as the ones we grow in our cool season. Our Lebanese zucchini has started to produce male and female flower nicely but with this hot weather it won't set fruit well. Fortunately, the bonica eggplant that we grow in partial shade has managed to produce some fruit. We harvested our first medium size Challenger tomato before Christmas, although some were effected by the scorching sun. We also harvested several varieties of cherry tomatoes these past week.

Harvested all of our hon tsai tai greens.

Had to harvest some of the leek which is still 'baby' cause they are showing the tell-tale sign of forming the flower stalk. The environment stress has probably cause those leeks to produce flower quickly to reproduce. After the extreme weather passed, we probably have to pull out many baby leek. At the moment, I am keeping cool in the house and will access the damage after the weather cools down a bit. I am being pampered at the moment cause dear hubby waters the plants in the evening.

There were several potato plants that had dried long time, so harvested some potatoes.

I just remembered that I planted some 'Ruby Lou' or was it called 'Ruby Red' potatoes a few months ago after I dug out those potatoes.

Surprisingly, our last Italian Sprouting Broccoli  plant still produce some broccoli shoots to harvest in warm weather. Pick the largest Pak choi to harvest before their leaves were burned. The younger Pak Choi leaves growing in the garden has been burned now. Don't know whether pruning them later is worth the try but there are always hope.

On Christmas day, we went fishing at Moonta and the weather was very windy. Not a very calm day, we left early but hubby caught some crabs to bring back.

I wonder whether we have anything to harvest this week after extreme hot weather. 

Visit Daphne's Dandelions for Harvest Monday.

Want More Polystyrene Containers?

If you are living in Adelaide, you can obtain polystyrene containers easily at Torrens Island Market site. The Torrens Island Market is every Sunday and ends around noon. You can come collect polystyrene containers at the garbage late in the afternoon. Not many people around during that time so no need to be embarrass. Only a few people that come fishing is around. If you are lucky you can even watch a pink sunset or dolphins.

A budding fisherman practising his skill.

Rayyan even surprised us on trying to assemble the hook line on the fishing rod by himself while others were fishing which is still too dangerous for his age. Because he wanted one all by himself. He insist on holding the fishing rod by himself.

It always shock me on how many vegetables thrown in the garbage. Some of the vegetables and fruits that were thrown were just a little black or bruise because it does not look fresh and pretty anymore. But those vegetables are still edible. If I have a pet like bunny or chooks, I would have taken some back for them. Because I remembered when my brother had bunnies for his pet, my parents usually bought old vegetables from supermarkets like Giant in Malaysia that has been reduced it price sometime RM1 perbag for his dear pet. So much food waste and people dying of hunger in other part of this world. Polystyrene containers in the photo were full of beans!

Heaps of polystyrene containers on our collection day.

No more space to grow on your veggie patch?

Grow some veggies in polystyrene containers.

Economical and good insulators against those summer heat.

Local Edible Produce Swap and Lemon Poppy Seed Cake

Our local community organise fruit and vegetable swap on the first Saturday of the month during winter and spring season. You don't have to live in our community to join in. If you want to know when the next swap will be held, the organiser will send you an email or I can email you the address. Yesterday, we participated and brought some of our excess fruit, herb and vegetable seedlings. The only fresh produce that we managed to pick early in the morning to share was yellow cherry tomatoes, chilies, snow peas and lemon grass.

We came back with a nice basket full of produce ~ Pumpkin, lemons, eggplant, persimmon and quince jelly. Our fisherman brought back 3 salmon trouts. Since winter season has begun, it is salmon trout and bream season. There will be many salmon trout to fish in St. Kilda and Mr. Fisherman will have frequent trip there  early Saturday morning during winter. So with fresh fish and eggplant, we made ikan masak assam pedas for lunch. I have not bake a cake since I gave birth to our first child Ilhan, and when I visited A Nyonya's Kitchen ...for all season blog, the lemon poppy seed cake look so delicious I decided to have a go making it. Thanks to Catmint, we have some poppy seeds and lemons from the local swap to bake this cake.

Lemon Poppy Seed Cake  (recipe from A Nyonya's Kitchen...for all season, terima kasih)

Ingredients:

10g poppy seeds (actual was 40gram)

125ml milk

250g butter, softened

1 tbsp finely grated lemon rind

275g caster sugar

4 eggs

335g self-raising flour

110g plain flour

240g sour cream

Method:

1. Combine poppy seeds and milk, soak for 10 minutes.
2. Beat butter, rind and sugar with electric mixer till light and fluffy.
3. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until combined.
4. Stir in sifted flours, cream and poppy seeds into mixture, in two batches.
5. Spread mixture into pan, bake for about 1 hour at 160 deg C.

Lenay was excited making this cake, she was really worried that the cake will be over-baked and keep a close eye on it while the cake is in the oven. Where was the cook while the cake is in the oven? She was already near the veggie patch, absorb on planting shallots and other vegetables. Lenay had to call the cook many times to take a look on the cake. We were supposed to wait for an hour but Lenay poke it with toothpick about 45 minutes and it came out clear. So when the cook returned to the kitchen one hour later, she was surprised the cake was out from the oven. Leaving it baking one hour should be fine as when we cut the cake there are still some moist spot. The cake was very delicious. We will enjoy making this cake again in the future. Since we only have one baking pan, the extra batch we use the muffin baking pan. I hope Mr. Fisherman will let me buy some baking pan. 

Joining in Wendy's Garden To Table Challenge.

Me?Volunteer melons

I should feel grateful to all my volunteer warm season plants, they always provide the first fruit before the ones that we sow start to produce. Self-seeded tomato plants that we transplanted end winter provide us with so many fruits from early summer. Self-sowed melons also gave us some fruit when I almost gave up with our other melon which does not grow very well this year. We were not sure at first if these self-sowed melon were honeydews or rockmelon. As the fruit matures, netting on the skin without no doubt it is ROCKmelon. We were not sure when to harvest them but saw something was hoping to get the first taste of our rockmelon so we guess it must be ready for plucking. The first rockmelon had a hole on it from pecking or drilling?Not sure. Second melon when I turned the rockmelon which face the soil saw many creatures were gathering on it and started to chew on the skin. Oh no you don't, its mine! Both of the rockmelon won't made it into beauty contest and were just the size of my palm.But they sure tastes very sweet and juicy. BLISS.

Okra plants are producing nicely at the moment. I was clearing up a patch that were growing celery, leek and carrot. Vegetable on that patch has not produce the desirable mature size yet but cool season are knocking. What to do with this harvest? Okra into the freezer. Made some ACAR using cucumber, red chilies, carrots, red onion and pineapple (the only ingredient which is not home-grown, we have 2 pineapples which we have grown for 2 years but you probably laugh if I show you how they look like ;-)),Celery and baby leeks goes into chili crab dish together ( Found some crabs we caught last December in Wallaroo almost forgotten).

Harvested some eggplants last week and made Chili Fried Eggplant dish. A big button squash went into the wok for stir-fried vegetables. Our next eggplant harvest, I am planning to try cooking P.F.Chang's Stir-Fried Spicy Eggplant dish which I saw in Kitchen Flavours.

From my husband fishing trip, a fish and squids. Squids were fried coated with Kentucky fluor mix with Lemon Basil leaves and pepper (Our pantry breadcrumbs and tempura were out of stock).

More okras, bitter gourd, cucumbers, angle luffa and capsicum harvest.

Visit Daphe's Dandelion for Harvest Monday!

What is your eggplant favourite dish?

2nd Half of February Harvest

Yellow cherry tomatoes have been the main produce for the month of February. Cucumbers have bounce back from the 40+degree Celcius heat-stress we had some weeks ago.We feel lucky that we can at least harvest one cucumber almost everyday. Some of the most exciting things about harvesting this month were many selection to choose from and different variety of vegetable to harvest. Furthermore, some summer vegetables that we were waiting for it to produce has also rewarded us it goodies like~ angled luffa, snake bean and cucumber white spine. We had rain in mid-summer! This has made kangkung (water spinach) very happy and grow new leaves very fast after we cut them. This time from my husband fishing trip we got some fish.

We grow 3 different eggplant variety ; Early long purple, Lebanese and Bonica and managed to harvest all 3 of them at the same day. Okra has start to flower again but will struggle again when the weather is cold at night. Capsicum this year are smallish compare with last year. Purple bell capsicum looks like eggplant when they are in the same container.

Our zucchini and pattypan squash are starting to loose its shyness, male and female start to bloom almost synchronously and we were able to harvest some decent size of produce. With the rain and cooler weather we managed to get an average sweet corn. Chives are abundant and I even take some division to grow on another veggie patch instead of keeping them just in pots. Spring onion that were grown probably 10 months ago with a very fat bulb look like white onion. We still have some leeks growing in the polystyrene container to harvest.

So so so happy that our angle luffa plant gifted us with one very sweet fruit for the first time. It is our first time growing them in Adelaide and I am glad that this warm loving vegetable are suitable to grow here. It has been years since I ate angle luffa, never buy angle luffa here even though we can find it is Asian grocery shops.

Some Australia brown onion grown from seeds were also harvested because they were completely dried.

We harvested our first cucumber white spine and okra burgundy for the first time this summer. Cucumber white spine takes a long time to produce compare with the other two cucumber that we currently have in the garden; Green Gem and Apple cucumber. I like cucumber white spine (heirloom)very much and the seeds are not found in any of the Australia seed company catalog anymore. This is my second year growing this cucumber, I hope I can managed to save some of cucumber white spine seeds this year. Although I have harvested some sweet corn, I have not even have a bite on it as it is reserved for Ilhan and Rayyan. Ilhan will eat it raw fresh straight away after harvest.

All the variety of beans that we are growing is producing prolificcally. We are keeping harvested beans in the freezer except for snake bean.

What have you been harvesting this month?

Visit Daphne's Dandelions for Harvest Monday.

1st half of February harvest

Main fruit or vegetables that were harvested in the first half of month February has been the yellow pear cherry and yellow tiny cherry tomatoes. Other tomato varieties and cucurbit produce has been decreasing since we had extreme hot weather. But last week the weather has cool down a little bit, all the effected or burned leaves has been pruned and new shoots has started to grow. The first week of February harvest there were many of tomatoes top that has been burned in the harvest photos. Bitter gourd unintentionally were harvested a bit mature with the sign of yellowish bottom. Australian Brown Onion grown from seeds had to be harvested even smallish size due to extreme hot weather that cause the plants to wilt.

Harvested 3 sweet corns but only Ilhan ate them all. Ilhan really like sweet corn and always wanted us to harvest the one still developing on the plants like to eat them fresh.

Harvested earliball small hybrid cabbage variety, Chinese broccoli, apple cucumber (had to harvest them early as the weather was so hot it ripen to quick turn yellowish) and some leeks (clearing the pot to sow another batch of Chinese broccoli).

I harvested some carrot that were growing in very heavy clay soil and was surprised to see that the roots can grow longer than I expected. Carrots that were grown in clay soil is so much paler than the ones grown in containers. We managed to hand-pollinated some zucchinies this month. I observed that leaf amaranth bolt very fast during extreme hot weather so have to harvest them frequently before it bolts.

There are some vegetable that were grown over winter that we can harvest this month such as leek, Chinese Celery and spring onion (the bulb has grown looking like white onion).

We are thankful with the opportunity of harvesting different variety of cucurbits this month such as button squash, zucchini and apple cucumber.

The ever reliable cut and come again KangKung (water spinach) that we grown in polystyrene containers. We have 4 polystyrene container that we used to grow KangKung to supply our kitchen. I would love to collect KangKung seeds this autumn but I wonder if it will ever flower here.

From ocean to our kitchen last Saturday are 9 squids that were caught by my hubby. We have better luck this year catching squids. I deep fried them with lemon basil for lunch.

What is your main harvest this 1st half of February?

Visit Daphne Dandelions for Harvest Monday.

Hasil sayur kebun kami minggu lepas

The main harvest for this week is mainly tomatoes and Asian greens.  When I am hungry while gardening, I just pick a tomato straight from the plant and eat it. How did I long to do this since we started gardening here and now my wish has been granted. The day after my cousin returned and stay with us, she told me she ate 28 tomatoes in a day!

05/01/2011~We got to harvest our first yellow cherry tomatoes which we really like the taste.  I think the variety named is ‘ Yellow Pear Cherry’ tomato.

07/01/2011 ~ Carrots, Green Gem cucumbers, squash, Chinese celery. Red Welsh onions, spring onion, Purple King and Redland Pioneer beans.

08/01/2011~ My husband went fishing in the morning. No luck with fish but he did caught some Blue Swimmer crabs. Harvest a bowl of different variety of Asian greens ~ Red Choi, Da Cheong Chae, Amaranth and Mei Qing Choi F1.

09/01/2010 ~ We got to harvest our first red onions and brown onions grown from supermarket onions that has sprouted leaves. Now we hang them under the shed for curing.  The cut and come again kang kong (water spinach) grows really fast. I think I just cut them about a week ago. I left the spring onions grew until it forms a big bulb at the base. Other harvested veggies were Green gem cucumber, 2 cobs of Early Gem sweet corns and beans.

Kingscote district

Kingscote is the main town in Kangaroo island. There are several things you can do there but if you are not having a long visit in Kangaroo island, I think you can visit the main attraction there and complete in half-day.  If you are from Penneshaw you can drop a visit first at Emu Ridge Eucalyptus Distillery to see how this eucalyptus oil is process or how the operation of eucalyptus distilling been done. They sell cute puppets of emu and you can see an emu from close range.

If you are a honey lover, drop a visit to Island Beehive and you can sample different  organic honey for free.  It taste like what in Malaysia categorise as 'Madu Hutan' (Jungle honey). Honestly, I don't really like honey but the one sold here was really nice. I certainly recommand to eat their home-made honeycomb ice-cream it taste really good ( a bit expensive though for a small portion of it). If you need a nice break and let the kids entertaint themselves, there is a cafe and a secure play area where you can keep an eye on the kids.

If you are famish and like to eat fresh seafood drop by at Kangaroo Island Fresh Seafood & Takeaway, a family restaurant that sell fresh seafood as well to bring back to your accomadation. We ordered for 4 person meal but with 5 adults and 2 kids we cannot even finished it all. The King George Whiting Fillet was almost double the size sold in Adelaide and the yabbies was half the price perkilogram compared to Adelaide price as well. Kangaroo Island is a heavan for seafood lover and fishing enthusiast. This family restaurant is very near to Kingscote jetty. Since we have time to kill waiting for the ferry back to Adelaide, my husband did some squid fishing. We caught 2 squids in 20 minutes (5 minutes each in sequence, actual 4 squids but 2 managed to escape). I saw squid swimming in the clear water and we are very sure it easy to catch squid there with lots of squid black ink on the jetty walkway.

If you are not fishing you can feed the pelicans near the jetty.

Along the beach there are many fairy penguin cubby house. In the day the penguin parents went out fishing for food for their babies hiding in the cubby house and return when dusk. So the guided tour start at night, the first tour start at 8:45PM. You can watch the penguin siblings squabbling over food when the parents come home and how harrass the parents look like. Sometime the tired parents rest for one hour on the beach before feeding their babies.

The lambs in Kangaroo island is lucky it has a wide place to roam. It has been said that lamb meat from kangaroo island taste much better because they are stress free. This view is very common in Kingscote district.

This is how the lamb from Kangaroo island is shipped to mainland. You can smell the lamb at least 20 metre away.

Happy New Year 2011!

May this year bring more blooms and greens in your garden.