Watermelon Radish Life-Cycle

 Watermelon Radish looks like a fruit when you cut it into half as the bright reddish colour under the skin show itself. I would like to express my gratitude to Mr. H at Subsistence Pattern for introducing us to this gorgeous radish and the precious seeds we received. I miss Subsistence Pattern posting as their passion of growing their own food and saving seeds is always so inspiring. Surprisingly, this radish variety does not have the pungent radish smell like the other varieties in the radish group. Watermelon radish resemble turnip at a glance. But it can grow much bigger at the size of  my palm remaining juicy without becoming woody. Compared with other radish variety that we have grown in our garden, watermelon radish root growth is rather slow. However, we are very fond of this radish flavour compare with other radish. This is one of our favourite radish to grow in the garden list after the heat waves has gone and the weather turns milder.

 But in our climate, sowing watermelon radish in spring just make the plants bolt early without producing much root. This is similar case with daikon (Japanese radish) and some other varieties as well. I am not sure the reason why but I was thinking that some radish varieties might be sensitive to the longer-daylight hours.  The best season in our garden for sowing watermelon radish or daikon will be end of summer or early fall for producing nice size of roots. We also extend the sowing season up till June/July (early~mid winter) for succession sowing just to replace other veggies that have been harvested.

 Watermelon radish can be grown well in container. Just make sure the soil does not dry out, keep moist. If the part top of the root or shoulder is well-exposed to the sunlight, this part will turn green but still edible. I frequently make mistake with the watermelon radish spacing and sowed to closely with each other. I forgot that watermelon radish does seems to have larger size of leaves compared with the other radish that we grow. So more space in between is required to harvest bigger roots. 

Unintentionally, some watermelon radish starts to flower and it was nice timing at that time since no other brassica veggies were producing flower so it was a chance to collect seeds. I never can catch up in each spring with harvesting before the plants starts to flower. Letting one plant flower for collecting seeds is more than enough supply for a few years. The watermelon radish flower resembles daikon and kailan (chinese broccoli) closely. The watermelon radish seed pod is roundish at the bottom and with a long pointy end. Last end summer, we sowed some of this fresh seeds just to confirm whether the seeds is pure or not. We were happy that no cross-pollination occurred and we managed to harvest pure seeds.

Sorry, I have not been a good blogger friend this few months.

Since last Sunday Rayyan has not feeling well maybe caught some bug.

He transferred it to me, so I started not feeling well today.

Getting rounder and 37 weeks pregnant already, waiting for baby to decide her date of birth.

Its getting harder to fall asleep, feel like a zombie.

Hope to catch up.

Sesiapa yang berminat untuk cuba tanam watermelon radish lawatilah laman ini (klik ayat ini).

Da Cheong Chae Harvest Week

Most of the harvest last week were from our backyard container garden.

Last week, we harvested our last batch of parsnip harvest for this year after growing them for almost 10 months with the leeks. Not much parsnip this year due to heat wave earlier this year the ones growing on the soil all perished and had to be harvested earlier. Only the ones growing in container survive, although some of the leaves got burned. However, it revived. The first purple vienna kohlrabi harvest for this year for us.

Main harvest of this weeks which is almost on every harvest photos is Asian greens Da Cheong Chae from only one small polystyrene container. Da Cheong Chae has very dark green and big leaves. Since only 3 of us now, harvesting 3 da cheong chae plants each time is more than enough for one meal.

 Afghanistan carrots that were harvested this week were from our home-saved seeds collection.

Parsnip and sweet potatoes.

Parsnip for the chicken korma.

Sweet potato fritters for Sunday breakfast.

Both dishes prepared by dear hubby.

Some chillies and Italian Sprouting broccoli sprouts for fish curry. Hubby the temporary chef (I am on leave from the kitchen until not sure when) asked for eggplants or okra which not going to fruit in this cold winter. So broccoli were use as substitute for his fish curry menu. We eat what is in season and learn how to improvise. We harvested some baby kailan (chinese broccoli) because we need to thin them as they were sowed really closely to each other. Finally, for 2 years now we don't have the need to buy kailan seeds anymore as kailan seeds collected from our own garden has been sufficient enough up till now. Germination rate of these seeds is also very good so I am very happy with it. The benefit of growing non-hybrid plants. So, I can allocate my seeds shopping budget for new plants each year.

This is the dish my husband cook for us last Saturday, fresh from our garden.

This is his version of Stir-fry kailan with salted mackeral fish.

Visit Daphne's Dandelions Harvest Monday!

I have to show my appreciation to my husband since I rarely cook these days (I only cook once a week due to my health state at the moment)...hehehe...Last week went for an ultrasound because I was a bit anxious wanting to confirm again our baby I am carrying is in good health. I am 34 weeks pregnant and baby doing good about 2.1kg now. Rayyan was born at 37 weeks with 2.3kg which was more than a kilogram lighter than Ilhan was. To be honest, I am a little bit scared and alone without other family to lean on except hubby. Hubby really happy at the moment as we might have a girl this time and I am getting more extra pampering. Baby birth estimation date is the same day as my PhD completion date (18th August 2012) in total of 4 years. Very ironic and unlucky with date I am. However, realistically I don't think I can finish before that date. In actual, I have taken more than 3 months of  leave of absence due to Rayyan medical reason. So, I should get another 3 months extra for it to be 4 years. Sigh...worry...but see how much I can do this month. Don't want to dwell too much on it yet of the uncertain things.

Welcome Back Home Harvest

It has been almost a week since we have been back from Melbourne. The recently discharged patient is recovering well. He starts to climb and making mischief which shows he is feeling better and is his usual self again. I am breathless to catch up with him. We were surprised when we reached home how much growth the plants in the garden had. The next day after back from home, me and Rayyan spent time in the morning in the garden harvesting while dear papa cleaned the house and let the air in after a long time away from home.

Our more than one year old an Italian sprouting broccoli plant made Rayyan happy with so many sprouts to pick. He is spoil rotten, he does not want to eat any broccoli or any other veggies in the hospital or Japanese bento take out, although it looks prettier than the one we pick in our garden. He prefers home-grown vegetables so mama has to make sure there is a supply of veggies for him. His older brother Ilhan who is now living in Malaysia at the moment has been reported to be very fussy and refusing to eat vegetables as well since its not mama veggies maybe. I have pampered my children with organic goodies, lucky boys. Rayyan was happy with the broccoli harvest as he keep asking for more in his meal.

We had one small snowball cauliflower and green dragon broccoli harvested.

Some alpine strawberry fruits treat for Rayyan.

Cut some Rainbow chard stems and some Pak choi for our kind neighbours looking after our home and keeping our mails.

We had some capsicums and chillies ready to be harvested. Carrots that was left after Rayyan kept on shouting in my ears he wanted some carrots to munch while following me around the garden. I think he ate at least 5 medium size carrots freshly harvested in the garden.

Red Choi needed to be pick quickly before it flowers.

Pak choi, tatsoi and lettuce.

I did not realised that some pink radish was ready to be pick in one of the containers as it was covered with weeds. Some turn woody or split.

Daphne's Dandelions Harvest Monday.

I have not been a good blogger friend these past few weeks, hopefully I will be able to catch up soon. Thank you so much for all your support and good wishes.

Arum Green Goddess (Zantedeschia aethiopica)

I have been growing this plant nearly 2 years and did not know that I have Arum Green Goddess plants growing in my garden until this week when I was browsing through gardening winter catalog. This was plants received from a friend who went back to Malaysia. Two years ago, I was only interested with growing edibles for the family. But it was hard not to accept some homeless ornamental-looking plant in pots. Originally the plant was in a pot and we divided the rhizomes since the original plant look cramp in the pot. I did not have any knowledge about this plant and I was not sure either whether it produces flowers or not so I just followed my instinct.  The foliage look like some plant which will appreciated some shade from hot sun.    So I located the divisions to places that have dappled light. After a bit of researching regarding this plant today, it does well in dappled light with hot summers and it is a loving moisture plant, like damp places. I think I failed in the 'moisture' aspect because the plants foliage dries to the ground in our summer garden. However, this plant is very hardy, it comes back again in autumn and start to be lush again. This plant is good to grow near ponds. It is supposed to be summer flowering plant but ours strangely bloom in winter. I think because we have more rain and moisture now which made the plants more happy in winter perhaps.

This is one of the corners near our shed that previously have nothing growing on here and look depressing because it does not receive much light. So we thought, we located 2 Arum Green Goddess plants here and add in other free plants too in spring year 2010. As you can see the plants here are very slow-growing and the photo was taken last winter June 2011. Finally after almost 2 years of growing them, finally we have some Arum Green Goddess bloom in the garden and help me identify what kind of plant this is.

This is Arum Green Goddess plants growing in pots beside our bedroom window. The flowers are a bit smaller in size compare with the ones growing on the ground.

Now, plants at this dark corner in our shed has grown bigger and starts to fill in the space and look much better and cheerful. An almost 2 years project! One Arum Green Goddess is missing because when the dormant rhizome just newly shoot up, I dig out the plant and shipped it to my parent garden in Malaysia to see how it goes last autumn. This remind me that I have to check with them in which location they are growing it and perhaps ask them to transfer the plant near to the pond.

Have a lovely weekend!

Cherrytime Capsicum Life-Cycle

The cherrytime capsicum has been the most reliable and prolific capsicum this year together with banana capsicum compare to the other varieties we planted last warm season. The cherrytime capsicum produces small size capsicum fruit with average of 5cm. The ripen fruits is sweet and have a roundish shape with a pointed end which looks like a cute heart-shape sometime. This capsicum become more sweeter when grill or roasted which I found out this year experimenting in the kitchen. It goes nicely with grill yakitori/kebab alternating between meat and cherrytime capsicum which our family enjoy.

The cherrytime capsicum can be left over winter (frost-free area) in the patch. The photo below are 2 plants of cherrytime capsicum which still have some unripen fruit left living through last winter (photo taken early winter last year 2011). Snails or Slugs sometime munch on the capsicum leaves during winter.  As you can see, no protection is provided for this cherrytime capsicum plants during winter.

This is one of the same plants above with some fruits ripening earlier this month of June (early winter). This plant is going through its 2nd winter now.

When I tried growing this cherrytime capsicum the first time with the seeds I bought from Eden Seeds company I have trouble germinating the seeds. The germination rate was really poor about 20%. However, we saved some seeds last year.

Last warm season I sowed the left-over seeds I bought from Eden seeds and our own home-saved cherrytime capsicum at the same week. The left-over seeds only give me one plant. Amazingly, the seeds that we saved, germination was very good. Since we had many seeds, I simply sprinkled home-saved cherrytime capsicum seeds in one straight line about 40 cm long. I was not expecting a good germination rate that time because it was just the first generation of seeds we saved. But suddenly in a few days I have so many seedlings sprouted closely together with hardly any gap. I guess that the home-saved seeds has adapt ed well with our garden micro-climate here. This is one of the main reason saving seeds is fun and give a sense of a small achivement from the garden.

The cherrytime capsicum grows well in container too. In this cold weather, this cherry capsicum plant is growing along with carrots in the same container saving space and makes it productive. In summer, the cherry capsicum plant was growing along with a different plant but I can't remember which at the moment (I think it was watermelon plants).

Now, we are in Royal Children Hospital in Melbourne since last week Wednesday because Rayyan needed his 3rd cardiac surgery. He had his surgery last Friday and he is really recovering well. He had an open heart surgery but this is the first time the medical staff did not stop the heart while they did the surgery. Amazingly from experience this time he does recovery very fast and will soon be a troublemaker again. He made the nurses busy by pulling out his wires and putting it on his teddy which makes his heart monitor alarms beeping continuously. Many of the nurses and medical staffs remember Rayyan from his previous cardiac surgeries and was surprised Rayyan a boy now and not a baby like before. I have limited access with internet as I am using the hospital resource centre computer at the moment. Hopefully next week, we will back home.