April2013 Harvest Monday

 It has been just a few days since I returned and the garden has given many nice surprises. Mulberry trees that were just starting to fruit when I left them has provided sweet fruits which Rayyan really enjoyed as his snack while waiting for the parents to prepare lunch. I am relief to see that the butterfly pea plants keeps on providing pretty blooms everyday. Did not noticed a volunteer snake bean plant growing on one of the raised bed and suddenly found long tangling beans on the cage. Bird-eyed chillies and some juice from calamansi limes for our traditional 'sambal belacan' dipping, very nice pounded together with the fresh shrimp paste (belacan) that I brought back from my recent trip. So happy looking at our cucumber tree (tree sorrel) starting to bear fruits.

 Two of our veggie patch got invaded with volunteer Javanese ginseng plants also known as Surinam Spinach. So I pulled out most of the Javanese ginseng plants to grow other edibles. I won't be surprised if many volunteer Javanese ginseng seedlings sprouted in a couple of weeks. In a month, I will probably be pulling them out again. We harvested the roots from the Javanese Ginseng plants. The Javanese ginseng root is as potent as Korean/Chinese ginseng. Boiled Javanese Ginseng roots for my hubby almost everyday so he can work hard on the garden clearing up all the weeds to atone for his neglect.

 Like the bird-eye chillies that birds helped distributed the seeds in our garden, this pea size eggplants also grow wild in our garden. In the Malay language this eggplant is known as 'Terung pipit'. Terung in Malay is eggplant while pipit is sparrow. Therefore literal translation will be sparrow eggplant. This is due to birds that also helped distributed this eggplant. We have hundreds and hundreds of wild pea eggplant seedlings sprouting everywhere in the garden. One of the turmeric plant produce a bloom for us to enjoy in salad (chopped finely and mixed together other traditional herbs) dipping with sambal belacan. We also harvest a few lemons. Each time my mother returned she will bring back some lemons to where she reside now at Borneo Island.

 This week nam nam fruits is in season in our garden , this time is not just squirrels enjoying them but ants too. Nice Nam Nam fruit harvest week, many of the fruits were sweet. I wrote about nam nam plant life-cycle a couple weeks ago.

 A few passion fruits were also salvage under the mango tree. I did not realised a passion fruit plant is growing up on the bushy mango tree. I was very surprise when I saw many fruits under the mango tree and some were already chomped. We made passion fruit juice with this harvest.

Join in Daphne's Dandelions: Harvest Monday.

Kesimpulan tuaian bulan Mac ini

 For these past 2 weeks, we had lots of hot sunny days and not much rain. Thus some plants are balking and some welcome it. Happy plant is the okra bunch.  I have to check on the okra plants every 2 days because the fruits grows so long so fast in just 2 days for about at least 10 cm. The lemons are sulking, the hot weather causes them to ripe too fast and physically they don't look great. Lemon size significantly changes on the smaller side compared to wet season.

 Butterfly pea flower plants is a very cool plant. They don't mind the wet or hot weather. So our kids continue to enjoy their 'Smurf' drink. Everyday we spent at least 15 minutes harvesting the butterfly pea flower blooms.

We harvested some turmeric rhizomes and bandicoot some young ginger rhizomes as well this month.

 I almost missed out the beginning of our burgundy okra harvest since I ignored the place that they were growing for more than a week not expecting the plants will produce anytime soon. The Sweet Large Italian Basil plants are doing very well and I was surprised how big the basil leaves were comparing to other sweet basil I have planted before.

 I was not expecting to get any decent harvest of this variety heirloom sweet corn as the male started to flower in just over a month. From experience, when the male started to poke out too early it is always a sign they are under stress. Well I do know what was the main reason why was this sweet corn batch suffered stress because it was solely depending on rain water. Furthermore, our geese managed to chomp some part of the sweet corn plants as I forgot to close the nettings properly as they were able to poke in their head and tugged the plants. This variety of sweet corn produces a lot of ears, but I decided to harvest them as baby corns because the male pollen has finished up. Calamansi limes are also available but not many. So my aim this week is to prune the citrus family and feed them with some manure or compost. 

 Entering March we started to be blessed with bananas. As we are able to harvest a bunch of bananas from one plant each week. Our cheekie monkies is very happy each time we have them in the basket on the table when they are fully ripe. We have to keep an eye on them or ended with a huge mess of bananas in the kitchen.

 Malay wild eggplants which is a very tiny over 1 cm in length and birds-eye-chillies is wildly growing all over the place courtesy of the birds that like them too. Actually the birds and our part of the share is more than we can eat them. I am very happy the first time I tried growing Baby Blue Jade heirloom corn  and have very good results with it. Although the hen below scratched out the young corn seedlings caused it to uprooted and I have to plant it back feeling no hope for it. Despite that these corn batch did very well.

 But the hot weather brings many death to our egg-laying hens in this month of March. Every week at least 2~3 hens were found dead. Sadly, we now only have 2 hens left. I really need to get more chickens now. Does anyone knows any chick suppliers close to Sungai Buloh area? We really are interested to buy some chicks, please do contact us.

Join in Harvest Monday.

Shade for Turmeric in Hot Weather (Companion Planting)

Growing turmeric in temperate (Mediteranean) climate is not easy if you don't have a greenhouse like us. Turmeric needs 7~9months to grow in warm weather to produce good decent roots to harvest. Only one plant gave us a small harvest when it died last winter. I am trying again to grow turmeric this year by not repeating mistakes we did previous year in Adelaide. During warm season, turmeric prefer to grow in partial shade. Growth of turmeric will be stunted or the plants died after several days of receiving harsh light from the sun during Adelaide summer. Turmeric grows wild in the dense South-East Asia tropical forest under big trees which shows having a character of thriving in partial shade. Turmeric relies on other big plant to provide some shade.

Have you ever wonder when you have limited space what you can grow under the trellis? Many root crops like carrot, turnip or garlic need full sun to grow fat roots but turmeric is one of the exception. In our garden, under bittergourd and bean plants, turmeric managed to grow well during summer. I also found many turmeric that come out from compost which is growing under tomatoes and peppers. These turmeric plants grow very fast in the shadow of these two plants compared to turmeric plants that received full sun in summer. Turmeric is said to repel black ants. Black ants can host aphids which usually like to attack tomato, eggplants and pepper plants. Turmeric can be good companion for eggplants, peppers and tomatoes to reduce pest attack and these plants provide some shade for turmeric.

In winter, turmeric might need more sun for warmth. I will moved this container that have two turmeric plants near our house brick wall to reflect some heat during the night which recieved full morning sun. Last year, the last growing turmeric (dormant) survived until middle of winter in the open garden.

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

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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).

Harvesting turmeric

 

I had to harvest some of my turmeric plants yesterday. Most of them are so sad looking. Plant leaves turn all brown and began to rotten. Some plants still manage to survive the Adelaide winter.