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!

Vegetarian Eggplant Potato

Let me share with you this simple but yummy vegetarian eggplant potato from Kerja Dari Rumah. Very sorry that the video is in Malay. But don't worry, you can find the recipe below.  

What you need:

2 medium potatoes, boiled until tender(optional— this is my adjusted version),  cubed

1 medium eggplant, sliced

1 medium tomato, cubed

2-3 green chili, sliced

1 clove of garlic, minced

2 red onion, sliced

1 tsp cumin powder

1/4 tsp turmeric powder

1 Tbs brown sugar

salt

oil to stir fry

10 curry leaves(optional)

Serve with steamed rice. 

What's growing now

These are some of the vegetables growing in my gardern right now.

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.

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!

Herbs and Veggies

My goal for gardening is mostly to produce edibles, though along with it some roses, marigolds, and indoor plants are added into the list as companion plants or just to add more colors and varieties to attract beneficial insects.

I've always wanted a kitchen garden, where I can have fresh herbs and veggies available. Curry leaves and kaffir lime so far have been on the top of my list along with leeks, scallion, basil and oregano because I love to use them in my cooking.

Can anyone of you identify this plant? I bought the seeds from a local seed seller. It's supposed to be oregano, but I'm sceptical since the shape and fragrance are different from that of Italian oregano.