Garden Update

Finally...one growing bitter melon / bittergourd on the vine! This market seed that I germinated had a good number of flowers and baby melons but just one managed to develop larger...I am still feeling satisfied :)...and this growing melon was a surprise because I only saw it a few days ago...under the net and cloth-shade : My chilli padi plants finally are having loads of chilli padis...the plants are having milder spots which was a concern to me at first :

The calamondin comquot has put on loads of flowers since addition of potash. It has been the centre of attraction in my backyard as lots of bees are visiting it...the smell of the flowers is awesome :

Just harvested the longest ever cucumber...1 cm short of 40...:

Silverbeet growing well :

Buk choy ready for harvesting :

Buk choy cum silverbeet for lunch :

Sweet Potato leaves for dinner :

Tomatoes, Cucumber, Capsicum and Coriander

A cloudy day with predicted rain. It's indeed very rewarding to see the fruits of my labour. Two yellow capsicums are ripening under the last few days of hot sun : I harvested one capsicum along with a few tomatoes and a bunch of coriander. Hmmm...something for my lunch :

Few days ago, another batch of ripened tomato silvery fir and a large cucumber for dinner :

Looking forward to harvesting more greens such as buk choy, silver beet and sweet potato leaves...

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 :