Saturday, November 1, 2014

Kale


 This is called Kale, if I'm not mistaken this one is Blue Russian. There are many kinds of Kale but the common one we have in Indonesia is the Chinese Kale called "Kailan". This variety is more tender than the others and are best for salad and light cooking. Kale is an excellent producer in cooler seasons since high temperature will cause the leaves to wilt and sunscorched.


It is relatively easy to plant, and will keep growing leaves after each time of harvest.


Kaffir Lime


I bought this small Kaffir Lime plant from a nursery. It was grafted but a very tiny plant. I guess, I should have been focusing on strengthening the roots and plant for a couple of years before letting it to bloom and set fruit, but the cuteness of the blooms and small bumps of the fruit melted my heart and I gave in to it.  And here's the first fruit! :-)





Baby Cuke


Last spring, I planted this variety of cuke, it says baby cuke, but the size is smaller than my expectation. It's really cute though. I bet you'd agree with it.












Green Beans


If you pay attention, you will see two types of bean plants in the above picture. On the left I have borlotti beans and on the right green beans. Yet only the green beans producing. I've never succeeded with either Borlotti or Tongue of Fire beans so far.... I've been experimenting but it never has worked. I blamed it to soggy soil and the tropical heat.


Last planting season, I tried to plant green beans from the seeds I bought from a local seed seller. It grew lusciously green and produced a lot of blooms, but failed to fruit due to lack of pollen as the result of the heat. I was quite discouraged, thinking that I would never have luck in planting beans,
 but once the temperature gets colder and rainfall is high, it starts to fruit ‒ in abundance!  And it keeps blooming, fruiting, blooming, fruiting.... on and on.... I keep harvesting along the way. And believe it or not it's all but through 2 healthy plants in a 3 gallon pot. Bravo!







Loofah


Beautiful isn't it? This is my first loofah plant. I got the seeds from a friend who ran an organic gardening training center. At first I thought it was the common ridge gourd we have here. Honestly, I thought I got wrong seeds, when it set fruit, I once doubt if it was edible at all like the common gourd, but to my surprise it's delicious!

This I believe is self-fertile too though it also has male blooms. And though I also helped with hand pollination, but I believe it is not required since in some occasion it set fruit with less help from me.














I simply stir-fried it with some garlic and onion and on top of it I put some sliced scramble eggs. It' very tender and yummy!











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