Harvesting Watermelon

When my watermelons were half-way growing, the trees were attacked by aphids. Soon, they were overcome by it and succumbed as you can see from below image. The leaves were dried up as the result and I had to salvage the fruits. I was hoping that they're mature enough to be picked.

When I was about to picked the watermelons, I stumbled upon this rotting fruit. The culprit must be the aphids since I saw some of them near the openings.

I was relieved to find 4 watermelons were still in good condition. They are not very big in size, only around half kg each.

 But I was very pleased to find that 3 of them were mature and sweet! I was a bit surprised that I had two varieties here, the yellow and orange flesh. I saved the seeds for future planting.

Updates From My Rooftop Container Garden, June 2015

I'm planning to be more focused on planting vegetables next seasons in the effort to harvest more for daily needs. I've been too focused on planting fruit trees like citrus, pineapple, soursop and grapes, and some ornamental plants, thus, have quite neglected vegetable plants. It's good to plant shrubs and ornamental plants in your garden as they give some aesthetic touch to it but you need to once in a while retreated back to your goals and do some evaluation. You need to trace how you have been doing and what needs to be done in order to achieve your goals. Like in my case, my main goal is to have a kitchen garden and a container orchard.

 So far, I have 2 varieties of mango trees, 1 longan, 3 lemons, 5 limes, 4 kumquats, 1 kaffir lime, 3 soursops, 2 papayas and about 18 new pineapple trees I planted from the crowns, ratoons and suckers of my 3 previous trees. As for herbs and medicinal plants, I have lemongrass, white and red ginger, galangal, sweet and red basil, oregano, parsley, pandan leaves, curry leaves trees, red and yellow betel, and I also plant onion and garlic seasonally. Except for that I have some roses, jasmine, false lavender, ice plant, cactus, moringa, and some other ornamental plants like aglaonema, coleous, mother in law tongue, aloe vera, palm trees and a few more. These ornamental plants have grown so much that I keep re-potting and all these have taken away my attention for a while. 

The bean plant I planted last season have gone through their prime.  From 4 plants, only 1 remained. It still bears fruit but very little since the weather has grown hotter in the summer and rainfall is low. I'll soon discard it and rotate it with another plant. 

Oregano

Kaempferia Galanga

For 2-3 planting seasons I haven't planted any tomato plants. This spring, I germinated Marizold and Tobolks tomatoes but they failed to grow, and a couple of new seedlings of Marizold Tomatoes that remained were eaten by either birds or insects. So, no tomatoes for this season. 

After harvesting some swiss chard leaves, the plant died. At the moment I have 6 Kale plants producing and 3 plants of swiss chard. I decided to try planting okras this season. 3 from 4 seedlings I re-potted have died, 1 that remains are blooming and fruiting. I have harvested a batch and it's now still growing new bulbs.

       

Watermelon is one of my favorite fruit. I eat a lot of them in Summer. Last year I planted sugar baby from the seeds I bought from America, but this season I planted yellow-flesh watermelon from the seeds I saved myself from the market-bought watermelon, and it grows well and bears fruits. Only, recently the leaves are heavily infested by aphids and many leaves dried up. I am a little worried since there are some watermelons growing and not fully ripe yet. Hope the new leaves will come out again to uphold these fruits.

What about you? What are you planting last and this season?

How To Plant Mango From Seed

Most people nowadays prefer grafted fruit trees as it saves them from a lot of troubles and heartache, and takes less time to start 

yielding fruit. That makes sense since some fruit seeds call for a special pre-planting process, such as stratification process on berries or grapes, and they can take as long as 3-15 years before it sets fruit.

However, if you are a-curious-type of person, you may want to experiment with planting fruit by seeds. You may also do it just for the sake of gaining knowledge or just for fun. 

So, go ahead and check out the steps below! This may be a good school experiment for children too.

Steps to plant mango from seed:

1. First of all choose a mature mango fruit of any kind. After you eat the flesh, Clean the seed from the flesh adhering to the seed, wash it with running water and dry it with a napkin. Let the seed sits near the windowsill or a warm area of the house to dry for around 
2 weeks.

2. After the seed is dry, crack open the seed carefully 

to make a big enough crevice or opening. 

3. Then, soak the seed along with the outer skin that 

you have cracked open or you may release the kernel 

from the outer skin and soak it overnight.

4. You may plant the seed that you've soaked overnight in a soil mix directly or you may release the kernel from the outer skin first before you plant the kernel.

5. And within a week or two, the seedling may come out.

6. After it has set several leaves or as high as 15-20 cm, you can transplant it to it's permanent home. 

Mango Pickles

Hey, I remember my promise to share my recipe of mango pickle. 

As I have shared in my previous post, I had more than 12 Nam Dok Mai mangoes, dropped due to over-stimulation from liquid fertilizer I applied after fruiting. The application of the liquid fertilizer stimulated new growth of branches and and flowers, and caused the pollinated fruits to compete for food and had to finally succumb. Only 4 remain in tact and still growing.

Most of the dropped mangoes is this size or around 8 cm long. In case you have immature fruit drop like these, don't toss them away to your compost pile, instead, recycle them into a delicious simple pickle!

All you have to do is :

1. Wash and peel the rinds.

2. Slice thinly like the picture below. 

3. After that, rub the mango slices with 1-2 Tbs salt. Refrigerate for 30 minutes until the fluid drains and the mango flesh shrink in size. Then, wash the salt away. 

 4. Now you are ready to season it with 2-3 Tbs vinegar/apple cider vinegar, 3-4 Tbs sugar, 3 red chili (sliced). Mix it well. Refrigerate it half to one day before serving. It's yummy and crunchy! 

Arsik—A Traditional Batak Dish

I'd like to share with you a recipe from ethnic Batak—the largest ethnic group in Sumatra Island. I have grown to fond of this special traditional dish and even enjoy making it myself for years.

But first of of let me introduce to you the two special spices compulsory for this recipe as they create a distinct flavor to the dish . Two of these most important spices are Andaliman (a kind of Sichuan Pepper) and Asam Cekala (the seed pod of Torch Ginger)
(you can click the italics to go to the specific article about 
these spices.

Andaliman is used for it's distinct citrus flavor and the tongue-tingling sensation it creates and Asam Cekala is also used for its distinct and acidic flavor. 

The halves bud below are also part of the Etlingera Elatior plant which is often used in South East Asian dishes. It's famous in Thai and Indonesian cuisine.

So, today I will teach you how to make Fish Arsik.

The ingredients you need :
2 medium size of Gold fish/Tilapia/Carp/Snapper (slice the bodies into 4 pieces each and halve the heads)
5 cloves of red onion
3 cloves of garlic
50 gram of red chili
10 whole chili paddy (optional)
1 small piece of galangal (crushed)
1 stalk of lemongrass (take only 10 cm long from the head, crushed)
a knuckle of turmeric (about 2 cm)
3 candle nuts
1 tsp Andaliman
5 Asam Cekala/Torch Ginger seed pods (crushed)
a handful of Batak Chives (Bawang Batak)
1 Torch Ginger bud (halves, optional)
8-10 Kaffir lime leaves
100 gram of long bean/eggplant (optional)
1 lime
2 liters of water

How to:
1. Clean the fish, slice the meat and halve the heads. Sprinkle lime juice on the fish. Refrigerate it while preparing the spices.

2. Clean the chives and trim the tip of the leaves, and clean other spices and veggies. set asside.

3. Grind together red onion, garlic, red chili, Andaliman, turmeric, and the candle nuts in the blender.

4. Pour the ground spices into an alumunium skillet (or any skillet you like), Arrange the long beans/eggplant on the skillet. Pour the water on top of it. Insert crushed galangal and lemongrass, torch ginger seed pods and the kaffir lime leaves.

5. Cook it and let it simmer for 10 minutes. The objective is to allow the Torch Ginger seeds pods to render the acidic juice which will prevent the fish meat to disintegrate from a long processing time. Then, insert the fish and add more water to cover the fish as needed.


6. Turn down the fire, insert the chili paddy, put a lid to cover the skillet and let it brews with low heat until the sauce is about to dry. (about 45 mins - 1 hour).

7. After it's done, let it sit for several hours for better flavor (as the spices saturated in the meat). I usually cook it at night and eat it the next day, or cook it early morning and have it for lunch.

8. Serve it with steamed rice.

9. You can also substitute fish with pork (shoulder, tenderloin or the belly meat).If you don't like it too greasy, make sure to trim the fat if you're using the belly meat. 

Pork Arsik (Belly Meat)