Ground Peanut and Anchovy with Chili Sauce

What did I do with the peanut I harvested? I turned it into this delicious side dish. 

Main Ingredients:
250 gr peanut
100 gr anchovy (Teri Medan)
cooking oil for frying
3-4 Tbs cooking oil 

Condiments for chili paste:
4 cloves of onions
1 clove of garlic
75 gr of red chili
1 medium tomato
1 Tbs sugar
1 Tbs Salt

How to:
1. Turn all the condiments into a chili paste using a blender(you may need to add a little water into the blender, but you can go without if using a food processor).

2. Fry the peanut and anchovy separately until they turn brown. Drained well.

3. Using 2-3 Tbs of cooking oil to cook the chili paste until it's slightly dry with medium fire. Make sure you continue to stir the chili paste to avoid it being burnt. You may add another Tbs of oil to avoid it being sticky to the skillet. Just make sure, that you cook the paste until the liquid is off in order to preserve the crispness of the peanut and anchovy.

4. After the chili paste is dry, rendering a fragrant flavor and turned into darker color, stir-in the fried peanut and anchovy and turn-off the fire. Mix well and let it to cool off.

5. Then store the side dish in an air-tight container or jar.

5. It' best to serve with steamed rice and vegetables.

Harvesting Ground Peanut

Yep, it's the peanut I planted last July! I finally harvested them last November, about 3 weeks ago.

From 1 big container and 1 4-gallon pot I only harvested about 500 grams of whole peanut(including the shell). In below picture, you can see some nutshell was covered with white fluffy wax, that's because the plants were attacked by mealybugs. I thought I had a late harvest because some of the peanuts have started to re-germinate. 

But ideally, it takes 4-5 months for peanut from planting to harvest. So, it shouldn't be too late to harvest them in November. I guessed some are rotten and germinated because it had been raining a lot. The other reason, or main reason, why I only harvested a little was because the plants overgrew the containers and many runners that developed the pegs, which supposed to become peanuts failed to enter the soil, thus many pegs were spoiled as the picture below.

It could be that I gave them too little space between plants. So when they overgrew, it's already too hard to fix the problem.

Learning from the process

Peanut is quite easy to plant, it's perfect to be directly planted in the ground as it will be spacious for the runners/pegs to reach the ground. It's also VERY possible to plant it in containers. But for a better harvest, just make sure you give each plant enough space to grow. See, how much we learn from our from the process! Experience is the best Teacher!

Rust Disease on Grape Plants

Rust disease infected my grape leaves. It's caused by rust fungus, as it has a powdery appearance on the lower leaves. We are having a lot of rain for these couple of months and this problem is probably triggered by a duration of water sitting on the leaves and soil, as well as the cool temperature.

Some experts suggested to give the plants a spray of sulfur fungicide. But I don't have sulfur at home. So I tried to spread rock ash on the soil. It has been sunny and hot these couple of days, hopefully the problem will go away. 

Determining the Sex of Papaya Tree

Two from 4 of my papaya seedlings I planted from seed have grown to about 2 meters high. They're about a year old or over. And for a couple of months, I have noticed that an elongated-shaped of blooms coming  out between the branches. Unfortunately, they usually fall before the blooms even have the chance to flourish. To my curiosity, I picked up one of it and decided to check it out. As I broke open the petals I discovered an ovary with a stigma. It's confirmed: they are both female!! My dream of harvesting papaya fruit is shattered...

For your information, papaya plants have three types of sex that you can identify from the flowers: female, male or hermaphrodite, which means the flowers contain 2 kinds of sex organs(an ovary and stamen/self-fertile). Other flowers than the hermaphrodite can't be pollinated without the presence of the opposite sex flowers, unless the wind or insects bring along the pollen from other places.

This gives me a headache since it takes about a year or so to be able to identify the plant's sex. I should plant a male tree if I want my tree to be pollinated or else I should bring pollen from other places and pollinate my tree. And that means I have to plant several trees. It's a dilemma for me since I am planting in containers and I have not much space on my rooftop. I don't want too many papaya plants growing in big pots in my rooftop since it will be a heavy burden to the rooftop. Still I have to find a solution to my problem!

Planting Bitter Gourd

My mother is a fan of bitter gourd. We will always have bitter gourd on the menu every week. It is mostly stir-fried with prawns and salted fermented soya. Some may not like the taste. If you don't know the trick of handling bitter gourd before cooking, it will render a very bitter taste and it would surely ruin your appetite.

So, that's how I started to collect the seed from a mature bitter gourd I bought from the wet market and started to germinate them. And voila! 8 of them made it! 

I re-potted them into 4-gallon containers. In a couple of weeks, they started to set flowers and then the fruit. I helped a little with hand pollination, but I think the nature mostly did the work. So far, I found around 5 bitter gourd growing. My mom suggested me to wrap them with plastic bags but I just let them that way. Can't wait to harvest them!

By the way, I have a simple how-to-reduce-its-bitterness trick before cooking. If you're stir-frying it, just sliced it thinly and sprinkle a lot of salt on it and mix well, then squeeze the sliced bitter gourd with your hand. Then, wash the salt out.  And drained the water by squeezing it again. Don't worry you won't turn them into a mush as it's quite firm. Then, boil a small pan of water and after it's seething, pour the sliced bitter gourd into the water and let it boil for a couple of minutes. Then drained the bitter gourd. Now you're ready to cook it! Trust me the bitterness has been reduced many fold!

New Addition to My Rooftop Container Garden 2015

Life has been hectic these couple of months. I am having several translation projects and ministries at church. My mind is crowded that it's hard for me to  just relax and let ideas to flow out, though I have some posts planned but not yet written down. Allow me to just briefly share some new addition to my rooftop container garden...

Chokanan Mango

Last month, I bought a small grafted Chokanan tree, a variety of Thai Mango(also found in Bangladesh, Pakistan & India). Earlier I have already had Nam Dok Mai(some call it 'Lok Mai') mango tree, that is fruiting now the third time this year. This new tree is only $1.20. I have re-potted it but still to a 4 gallon container and I planned to let it grow for a while, before re-potting it to its final container.

This is a green 'Honey' Bell fruit tree

At the same time I also bought this Honey Bell Fruit grafted tree. This one is less than US$ 1. This one is the green variety. It's a local cultivated variety.

Below are orange seedlings I planted by seed. These are of the Australian orange variety I bought from the supermarket. They need to be re-potted soon too, as orange trees usually have a ferocious appetite.

Remember the Nam Dok Mai seedling I planted from seed? Yes, this is how it looks now. And yes, I need to re-pot this one a.s.a.p too! And I also need to weed my plants, they have overgrown! Grrr...

My Elmo is A Hen!

Recently, I have been convinced that Elmo is a hen. I bought her when she was about 2 or 3 months old (as the shopkeeper claimed). He said that Elmo is a male lovebird, but I guessed he didn't really know it as determining the sex of a lovebird is not as easy as determining the sex of parakeets. Unless, we take a DNA test.

There are some tips given by experts like seeing the shape of the tip of their wings or by feeling the gap in their abdomen. But it's tricky and often inaccurate.
The one you can count on except for a DNA test is waiting until they are about a year old. That means until they have reached full maturity.

I bought Elmo around March this year. If she were 2-3 months old by that time, she would be a year old or over now. That means she's now a mature lovebird who is ready for mating. Yep, she is indeed. She has shown the sign of maturity for several months now. Some says that they are mature when they are around 6 months old and will lay their first egg when around 8-12 months old.

With Elmo(Bibi), I noticed that she likes to eat the cuttlefish bone that I put in the budgies' cage and sometimes she has a fight with them because of that (usually either Baby Blue or Goldie will peck her for eating their cuttlefish bone). She is also very fascinated with Goldie's nest. When I first introduced the nest to the budgies, they would struggle the hell out of them  every time I put them inside the nest. But, it's different with Elmo, she volunteered herself to take a peep inside the nest through the window hole, and many times she dared herself to ventured further into the nest and out.

She's also a keeper (I think it's her instinct as a hen), every time Goldie or Baby Blue fell down from their cage or the outer perch(sometimes they can't fly back to their cage because I have trimmed the tip of their flying feathers), Elmo would accompany them. She would often make noises so I knew that something had happened to them!

Then lately, she started to make a lot of clicking noise every time she's around me. She will repeatedly nod her head and make the sign of regurgitating(vomiting to feed her owner, which she considers as her mate) as an expression of love. She will also dance around, and every time I want to pat her she will bent her body, spread her wings and lift her tail! It's an invitation to a male lovebird to ascend her! And I am a male lovebird to her! LOL!

So far Elmo hasn't laid any eggs, because I didn't put a nest in her cage. People says placing a nest inside their cage can stimulate egg-laying even without the presence of a male lovebird. I also haven't wanted to give her a male lovebird as a mate since egg-laying will changed my-already-tamed lovebird into a complete stranger.

Don't Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch

I am so proud of Goldie, she finally laid her first eggs last October 10th! 

She had been busy preparing her nest a couple weeks earlier. She tidied her nest and threw bigger wood shavings out.

I could feel her bulging tummy, when I checked her.

Then one day, I knew she had laid her egg because she spent a lot of time inside her nest and... Baby Blue was inside too! 

I guess he was there to give support to laying Goldie, as Baby Blue is an amiable budgie. I love him so much.

 Then, two days after, she laid another egg, and so on ... in total she laid 4 eggs.

She started to sit on her eggs after she laid her first egg and only came out to dump and stretch her self out. She also drank a lot but ate a little since she spent only a little time outside her nest. Baby Blue had done his tasks as the male budgie very well, he always standby to feed and preen Goldie every time she popped her head out of the window hole. Often he accompanied her female inside the nest... don't know what he was exactly doing inside since I couldn't open the nest's door without disrupting them and their activities. I guess he did it as a form of protection.

Normally it takes 18-21 days for the first egg to hatch. But after about 1 month, I decided to removed the eggs out because none of the eggs hatched. I accidentally dropped one of the eggs and it's obvious to me that the egg was not fertilized. 
It took Goldie a couple days to finally realized it.
Though I was disappointed but I have guessed that, I think.

Oh well, I wish they would really mate and produce some squealers someday... <sighing> 

Red Globe Grape

Remember the Red Globe grape seeds I planted last April?(Click here for the old post)

Here's the updates. From 4 plants, only one survived the caterpillars. It's not without any challenge though, because it was once infested with scale bugs until I found that out and cleaned it by hands. Here is how it looks now...

Some other seeds never grew, then I decided to plant a mulberry cutting I got from a friend in that container. Sadly it didn't grow too, but the silver lining is a new growth has emerged! A new seedling of Red Globe Grape!! Aparently, another seed finally break down and grow! YAY!!! 

Anyway, I know that the journey is still a long way to go since it takes at least 3 years for Grape plants to bear fruit, if cultivated by seed. Still, I am celebrating the new growth and rejoicing in the process.

<Humming all the way while gardening... tra la la la....> 

Third round in this year...

This is the third round of my "Harum Manis" fruit production this year. We've been enjoying the fruit this couple of months and new shoots are now ready to grow.

By this time my "Nam Dok Mai" is flowering for the third round also, and some fruits have been formed. Maybe they can be harvested around late December or early next January. I can't be more grateful! 

Aglaonema Bloom

Fans of Aglaonema are familiar with this beautiful egg-shaped flower of Aglaonema.

Isn't it lovely? 

The Aglaonema can be a very prolific bloomer, the "flower" is really an inflorescence (a group of flowers on a stem), which is often mistaken for a distorted leaf.

The flowers looks very similar to Spathiphyllum but they usually carry a hood and a calcified looking spath coming out of it. 

One thing you should know about Aglaonema's flower is the fact that this flower production requires a lot of energy. Heavy blooming will pull nutrients or energy from the plant. 

And as the result the plant will produce smaller and sometimes distorted and pale leaves. And in some cases, leaving the flowers on the plant will exhaust the plant and cause it to wither. I think it's a bit similar with Coleus, in which producing flowers and seeds means its' tasks are finished and the plant will eventually wither. 

So, to prevent that to happen to your Aglaonema(and Coleus) plant you must remove the flowers as soon as they emerge.

This way, your Aglaonema plant will continue to grow healthily with stunning colors and even glossy leaves!

Happy Gardening!

What's Bloomin' in My Garden