Am I in the tropics now?

The last 2 days the weather were so warm many of our plants had "sunburn".  It was close to 40 degree Celcius. The plants must have quite a shock from the sudden increased of the temperature. Some of our potato plant got cooked with the sun, they wilted and died. However today it was raining heavily (well according to Adelaide standard, one of the most driest city in Australia). So hopefully it refreshes the plant and help to recover from the heat shock. But in the heat came sweet surprises, the turmeric rhizome we planted more than 2 months ago has sprouted and in my eyes develop beautiful leaf in just a few days. Turmeric plant surrounded by melon seedlings, well I thought you never going to sprout so I sow in other seeds.

Galangal don't want to be left behind as well and have grown a leaf.

The self-sowned curry plant that a friend dig out for me under the curry tree from our fruits & vegetables swap event host garden is growing so fast. It was only 3 young leave shoots back then. But I don't know why instead of stannding tall, our curry plant is sprawling.

Bitter gourd (Malay language-peria, Japanese~goya) is one of the most hardy cucurbit in our garden to withstand these few days heat where other cucurbit family leaves are wilting, bitter gourd still hold it stand.

Looking on this plant make it feel closer back at home. In South East Asia this plants are 'almost a must' for gardener or cook to have in the house backyard (or frontyand).

Warming up

Night are still cold here even though during the day we have above 20 degree Celsius. Our summer vegetable seeds germination are not good as last year for some vegetable seeds. Last year, chili seeds germinated in September. But this year until now it won’t germinate for us. Cucurbit too has lower germination in this month compared to last year. On the other hand, okra, bitter gourd and snake bean seeds pop up this month which is 2 weeks earlier than last year. Last year were bought seeds but this time okra, bitter gourd and snake bean seeds are home-saved seeds.

Luckily, we have several chili plants that survive through winter grown from last summer. I almost pull it out from the soil because it look dead. I pruned this plants and now new young leaves has already grown. This mean I don’t have to long for it to fruit.

A few chili plants has also produced flowers.

White coloured sweet potato grown from tuber already producing shoots.

Galangal has develop new bud for leaf shoot.

Bush bean (Redland pioneer) has start to produce.  Last summer survived Lebanese eggplant has start to flower.

Early long eggplant also does not want to be left out producing flowers. This eggplant plants produces so many fruit until May and managed to live through winter. I hope it will provide plenty harvest this summer too.

Nice surprise from papaya seeds from the fruit that we ate.

Counting the days for munching freshly pick tomatoes from our own garden.

No direct sunlight for me

This veggie patch does not received any direct sunlight (very shady area) but I want to make it useful for growing food for our kitchen or make it pretty than leaving it bare.  Previously I had success growing celery, Chinese celery, parsley and believe or not honeydew melon (growing vertically) in this area in summer. In the picture there is the sad looking galangal that has been dormant through the cold weather. Hopefully it pick up growth again when it gets warmer here. Chinese celery and a year old parsley look well there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ahem…so with limited choice of seedlings in my stock for spring planting, I decided to grow coriander, viola, Chinese celery and komatsuna in this shade area. Hopefully they will like their new place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This Chinese celery seedlings should had been transplanted at least 2 months ago because I sow them last May but I did not have any space to transplant them. Now it is full of roots. They had to compete each other for water I think. I had trouble separating them to keep the root as intact as possible. While I am completing my task here , Mik and Ilhan were making trellis? tall fence? for cucurbit to grow vertically to utilise space.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the picture background, the peas are producing many flowers now and the trellis is not visible anymore. Ilhan favourite at the moment eating peas straight from the garden.

Happy gardening in the weekend!

Galangal and the kids

 

Its a fine sunny weather in Adelaide today. We spent the whole morning outside doing different kind of activities. The galangal rhizome sets that I bought from Green Harvest needed to be planted immediately. According to the leaflet they provide to us is that for short term storage- fridge in the crisper (not applicable to us we have a long time to go through until warm weather comes) or heel in (what I did today).

Heeling-in Dormant plants>

Heeling-in is a method for temporary storage of plants, Some plants prefer to be heeled-in if you cannot plant them out immediately. Choose a shaded position in the garden and either plant directly into the soil or use a styrofoam box as a temporary planting container and cover the plants with either potting mix or coco peat. Keep the plant moist but not saturated, When you are ready to plant the heeled-in plants in thein final position, be careful to not disturb any roots that may have grown. In frost prone areas always wait until after the last frost before planting out.

Plant Description>

Galangal’s native habitat is the Malay Peninsula. The name ‘galangal’ is derived from the Arabic Khalanjan, perhaps a perversion of a chinese word meaning “mild ginger’. It is perennial herb, between one and two metres in height, depending on variety. The leaves are 25-35 cm long, rather narrow blades. The flowers are borne at the top of the plant and are small, white and streaked with a deep-red veining. The rhizome resembles ginger in shape and has a distinctive reddish colouring. The rhizomes are tough and difficult to break. It prefers rich, moist soil in a protected, shady position- such as under trees-and is drought and frost tender. In permaculture system it is a useful understorey plant. suitable for warm temperate to tropical areas.

When you divide the galangal rhizomes for planting make sure they are one or two buds on every rhizome sets (refer above picture if you are not sure). I can only divide 4 sets with the purchased galangal. Last year I planted four galangal sets as well.It still growing well expose to Adelaide winter now. It does not grow as fast or big like galangal planted in the tropics. My mother galangal plant is taller than 2metre back home in Malaysia. Galangal that I planted in Adelaide the tallest growing now is just my knee high (I am only 157cm). However in my experience growing galangal, ginger and turmeric in Adelaide, among these three tropical roots herbs- galangal is the most hardy growing in Adelaide compare with the other two.

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This is one of the galangal I grown last summer. I was constantly worried that the honeydew that I grown vertically won’t fall on top of my galangal plant. I still have not harvested any of the galangal plants that were planted last spring.

It is a pity in Malaysia many young generation cannot recognise our root herb plant on site such as turmeric, galangal and ginger. My siblings too won’t get some of it right. When mama asked them to harvest some from her garden sometimes they bring back different thing…hahaha…But I myself don’t like to go fishing around galangal root when my mama give that task to me. The galangal root is so hard to cut through.

I noticed some of our carrots plant roots are pushed out from the soil because they grow to close from each other . Carrot seeds are small and not easy to sow them.I don’t thin them when the carrot top are small. I let them grow until we could get small baby carrots.  Ilhan helped thinning the carrots. Ilhan got his hand dirty from finger painting in front of me while I planted those galangal sets. 

Rayyan is practicing his weeding skill. May be in the future he help mow the lawn.

My partner went fishing early in the morning and brought back 12 salmon trouts.