Sweet Potato Leaves

My sweet potato creepers...all six of them, have overtaken much of the mulching around my golden sheens. Finally I can harvest my first lot. I took most of the young shoots, about 50cm each. I had the leaf stalks removed from the main stems and gave the whole bunch a good wash.

Here's the leaves fried with sambal :

Yum yum!!!

Eggplant with Pork, Thai Basil & Coriander.

For lunch today, I just had one dish involving my harvested eggplant supreme...impromptu recipe! Eggplants go fantastic with pork mince and pork mince goes excellent with thai basil and coriander... Ingredients : Eggplant sliced into 1cm thickness and fried in a pan with some olive oil. Minced pork. Tea tree mushroom (washed, soaked lightly, remove stubs, retain a little water). Garlic chopped, coriander chopped, thai basil leafed, chilli cut. 1-2 tsp of Japanese miso paste. 1 tsp of oyster sauce. 1. Fry the eggplant slices in a pan of heated olive oil. Remove. 2. Fry garlic in more oil, add pork, miso paste and oyster sauce. 3. Continue frying, add mushrooms with its water. Simmer. 4. Return eggplant slices to pan to allow them to soak in sauce. 5. Add thai basil, chilli and coriander. 6. Stir fry more and remove from heat.

Tea tree mushrooms (available in Asian grocery shops) Thai basil, coriander, hot chilli harvested from garden.

The final look...taste even yummier!

Chillies, Herbs & Vege.

My original pot of rosemary recently was in a poor state. The leaves were looking really skinny compared to its daughter rosemary shrub at the patch next to the garage. Compare them at http://organic-is-better.blogspot.com/2009/11/patch-next-to-garage-fresh-faces.html . I was not sure if it was too dry or the pot has gotten too small. I had actually gave it a root trim (See http://organic-is-better.blogspot.com/2009/11/catching.html) somtime back before putting it back into the same pot, so I believed it had got too dry in the hot weather. I began watering it more often which is quite strange as rosemary prefers it dry. Deciding to dunk n drench the whole pot in charlie carp helped. It looked better since : I gave my second season thyme a good hair cut and it came back beautifully again :

Finally the three skyscraper-tall chilli padis are begining to fruit after some trouble with sickly spotted leaves :

And the sickly-looking chilli fire (see http://organic-is-better.blogspot.com/2009/12/garden-bird-rescue-heronswood-garden.html )which I bought from bunnings is also producing chillies :

And my Nellie Kelly hot chilli are fruiting its heads off :

Thai basil has also grown and is smelling glorious. Maybe this is the first success I am having. However they are seasonal as they produce flower heads very easily and I have to keep up with the deflowering :

A recent hair cut for my vietnamese mint also see them coming back beautifully. The logic 'kill the top and leave the roots' does work :

Nice bunch of crisp buk choy for lunch :

Loving these buk choys :

All the Creepers and Climbers.

I have great love for climbers and creepers especially when they look beautiful and produce edible food. My six sweet potato creepers have taken over most of the mulching among the golden sheens. It is almost time for some harvesting of their leaves : I have fallen in love with growing cucumbers. They are such joy! These two vines which I grew from seeds have started producing cucumbers from the bottom and now up. Once there are new shoots, new female flowers developed. This specie I have is called cucumber burpless and has no bitter taste. I am having more cucumbers to eat soon :

My grape carolina black rose is climbing up the trellis and looking really pretty. Need to research more on its pruning and training it up my pongola :

Passionfruit Panama Gold is doing well up its trellis in front of the shed. Rough start I had with it due to pest attack but hopefully it will grow well to produce lots of yummy passionfruits :

This bittermelon which I grew from seed is very gorgeous because of its decorative leaves. Unfortunately the melons it is producing are remaining small. I havent got a single mature melon so far. Well, at least it looks too pretty for me to pull it off :

Rain After a Dry Week.

Finally after a hot dry week came the showers. Garden has a good drink and even had hailstones falling in the back garden.