Pepper Tracking Heritage

 I got this pepper seeds from saving the seeds from the fruits that I got from our local seed-saver group meeting last year because I knew that this was heirloom seeds, true seeds. However, I forgot the name of this pepper and the generous seed-saver member that grew this pepper. Got distracted easily when there are so many new things to learn during meetings. So I have been trying to get the name of this pepper by google image. The saved seeds really grows well in our garden and thrive with neglect. Perhaps due to the origin of the pepper parents from the generous gardener garden has similar micro-climate like us. So its one of the pepper that has make into our easy to grow list in our garden. At first, I was not sure whether this pepper will be in the same group with chilli or capsicum? I am thinking more towards chilli because when I was harvesting the seeds this week, I feel my hand sting a little but not as strong as our chayenne. I would say the heat level is low or moderate. I really appreciate if anyone can give me some ideas what type of pepper is this. To me it looks like pimiento or topepo pepper. Dear pepper guru and pepper fan please help me.

This plant is really compact, does not seem to take up much space. The fruit seems to be not following Newton law of gravity slightly because the fruit bottom faces upward. The fruit size is slightly smaller than the cherrytime capsicum, we usually grow about 3~4 cm in diameter. But it was easier to differentiate between the two as this pepper plant fruit is more roundish and the fruit is facing upside down. A very drought and heat-tolerant plant. I don't know how it manage to survive heat waves when I just abandoned them. I am very cruel with my plants this year, all must survive by their own without care. Tsk...tsk...tsk....yet the plants still give rewards to the lazy gardener.

 This photo is taken last week. How nice that this pepper seems to cope well in our mid-winter as well. Pepper picking time. Hopefully the plant will fruit earlier when the weather starts to get warm again. Its officially end winter here now.

Cherrytime Capsicum Life-Cycle

The cherrytime capsicum has been the most reliable and prolific capsicum this year together with banana capsicum compare to the other varieties we planted last warm season. The cherrytime capsicum produces small size capsicum fruit with average of 5cm. The ripen fruits is sweet and have a roundish shape with a pointed end which looks like a cute heart-shape sometime. This capsicum become more sweeter when grill or roasted which I found out this year experimenting in the kitchen. It goes nicely with grill yakitori/kebab alternating between meat and cherrytime capsicum which our family enjoy.

The cherrytime capsicum can be left over winter (frost-free area) in the patch. The photo below are 2 plants of cherrytime capsicum which still have some unripen fruit left living through last winter (photo taken early winter last year 2011). Snails or Slugs sometime munch on the capsicum leaves during winter.  As you can see, no protection is provided for this cherrytime capsicum plants during winter.

This is one of the same plants above with some fruits ripening earlier this month of June (early winter). This plant is going through its 2nd winter now.

When I tried growing this cherrytime capsicum the first time with the seeds I bought from Eden Seeds company I have trouble germinating the seeds. The germination rate was really poor about 20%. However, we saved some seeds last year.

Last warm season I sowed the left-over seeds I bought from Eden seeds and our own home-saved cherrytime capsicum at the same week. The left-over seeds only give me one plant. Amazingly, the seeds that we saved, germination was very good. Since we had many seeds, I simply sprinkled home-saved cherrytime capsicum seeds in one straight line about 40 cm long. I was not expecting a good germination rate that time because it was just the first generation of seeds we saved. But suddenly in a few days I have so many seedlings sprouted closely together with hardly any gap. I guess that the home-saved seeds has adapt ed well with our garden micro-climate here. This is one of the main reason saving seeds is fun and give a sense of a small achivement from the garden.

The cherrytime capsicum grows well in container too. In this cold weather, this cherry capsicum plant is growing along with carrots in the same container saving space and makes it productive. In summer, the cherry capsicum plant was growing along with a different plant but I can't remember which at the moment (I think it was watermelon plants).

Now, we are in Royal Children Hospital in Melbourne since last week Wednesday because Rayyan needed his 3rd cardiac surgery. He had his surgery last Friday and he is really recovering well. He had an open heart surgery but this is the first time the medical staff did not stop the heart while they did the surgery. Amazingly from experience this time he does recovery very fast and will soon be a troublemaker again. He made the nurses busy by pulling out his wires and putting it on his teddy which makes his heart monitor alarms beeping continuously. Many of the nurses and medical staffs remember Rayyan from his previous cardiac surgeries and was surprised Rayyan a boy now and not a baby like before. I have limited access with internet as I am using the hospital resource centre computer at the moment. Hopefully next week, we will back home.

Late Warm Harvest Continues

Our warm season vegetable/fruit harvest were late this year for picking.

For example, we usually don't harvest any cucumbers in May.

But our white spine cucumber and lemon cucumber has just started to supply our kitchen.

I don't have much luck with lemon cucumber.

The lemon cucumber in our garden is not very prolific.

I am hoping I have success collecting white spine cucumber seeds this year.

Eggplants harvest still continues here in May.

Cherrytime capsicum is the most prolific in our garden this year grown from our home-saved seeds.

We harvested several Turkish Leopard Melons.

I think this melon is very heat-tolerant as they survive with neglect and little watering.

The white flowers are weeds growing between the melon plant.

Show how lazy I have become and not caring much about the plant.

Da Cheong Chae thinnings.

Earlier this month, I was a bit impatient and I harvested chocalate capsicum while they were still green or not fully ripen but left some to ripe. Last weekend some has ripen for picking. 

Big surprise from the garden is that we got a cauliflower harvest from a one year old plant left growing at the back of our backyard fence. The plant had survived our extreme summer heat without much watering. Amazingly the cauliflower was one of the tastiest home-grown cauliflower I have ever tasted so creamy and sweet, pack full of flavour. I thought it was going to be bitter as the cauliflower curd form in warm weather. Other harvest last week was summer grown carrots, beetroots and eggplants. Finally some of our long chilli has also ripen was so spicy.

We also have some fresh salmon trouts last weekend.

Our house fisherman learn a few trick from his friend and found a new good spot for fishing.

I probably be left alone with Rayyan each Saturday morning now this month.

Visit Daphne's Dandelions for Harvest Monday!

Mid-Autumn pickings

This month harvest is all rather quick process of picking what I needed while cooking so did not taken many photos of our harvest this month. This month available harvest in our kebun (garden) are mainly consist of...

Some of our banana capsicum is ripening at the moment. Banana capsicum is not a hot but sweet variety type so Rayyan can enjoy it as well. He won't eat spicy food yet. Brought in our last batch of home-grown onion that were hanging out at the shed. Cut some Chinese celery stalk. It was growing under the canopy of our tree dahlia plants that I almost forget I have them in the garden. It does not received much direct sunlight at the moment. Harvested our first 'bari' cucumber. Its actually a melon and very mini size type. I did not realised that it is actually a 'heirloom' cucumber that is not available in catalogues. I got it from our local seed-saver group. 

With the warm mild weather, the garden is producing eggplants, cucumbers and okras. I tried to grow several variety of beans in the shade during summer as they still get indirect light. We did get some produce though not as prolific as the ones that are growing in sunny position during spring/autumn. In the basket, bean harvest from shade position.

Pull out some of our summer growing parsnips to see how they are growing under the soil, glad that they are roots to enjoy. But I will leave some for winter harvest. 'Cherokee Wax' and 'Redland Pioneer' bush bean has been the main bean that we harvested this month. I am excited with the 'Redland Pioneer' harvest because it was my first time growing home saved-seeds of this bean. The bush bean 'Redland Pioneer' produces the first batch of bean to harvest the same as the fast growth of Pak chois for fast crop. Everyweek we have some kangkung to harvest.

What amazed me is how tolerant the savoy cabbage and Italian sprouting broccoli withstand our extreme summer weather. I have one neglected happy Italian sprouting broccoli plant and still producing shoots for us at the back of our backyard fence. It only gets water 3-4 times a week during the warm season. It is already a year old.

We caught many bream fish but there are still small (mostly almost 20cm) not legal size. So have to be released back into the water. The only legal size catch that we had is whiting.

See harvest all around the world at Daphne's Dandelions Harvest Monday.

Mid-Winter Fresh Food

Every day as August come closer, I get a bit worried that the amount of vegetables that can be harvested from our garden decreases. Well, that would be expected its already middle of winter. Moreover, I sowed and transplanted cool season vegetables rather late this year compared to previous year. But we should count ourselves lucky as we still have fresh harvest flowing to the kitchen as we have not even rely on our frozen vegetables as yet. We still have peppers slowly ripening for us which is a nice treat. Little Rayyan broke one of our capsicum branches so we had to harvest 3 green capsicums. Cherry capsicum managed to mature, although it hardly received any suns at the moment. We got to harvest some sprouting broccoli too this week. There are still some yellow cherry tomatoes from the garden.

Some of the greens that were harvested last week~Baby kailans, purple mustards, loose-leaf lettuce and self-sowed cos lettuce. I did not noticed at first that some of our garden containers had self-seeded lettuce seedlings popping out. I thought it was weed at first until those seedlings grow bigger. Harvested some tatsoi, but it look really bad almost bald without leaves. We inter-planted tatsoi with cauliflowers. Those cauliflowers were saved from having the same fate as tatsoi which has been sacrificed to pest.

I got some mandarin from my backyard neighbour who grows vegetables and have some olive trees in his garden. He makes his own olive oil and every fall I watched him gather olives with his family from inside the house. Sometime, if he is alone I worry he will fell down from the tree. I was surprised last week he invited me to see his garden. We are usually shy and won't go out to garden at the other side of our backyard if anyone is there. But I have overcome my shyness a little bit and greet him whenever he come to visit his garden.  When I visited his garden, he offered me some mandarin and at first I was too shy to accept. Since he insisted and I was curious (malu-malu kucing) how fresh mandarin tasted like, I took some back home. Those mandarin was so juicy. We harvested our last wong bok (Napa cabbage) that was grown in container last week.  It was about to bolt.

Visit Daphne for Harvest Monday.

What vegetables is popular in your kitchen at the moment?

Beginning of cool season veggies...hopefully

We started to harvest cool season vegetables this week. A lot of first harvest for this year! Harvested our first Italian sprouting broccoli for this year.  We just steamed the broccoli and season it with salt and pepper, even the big stem under the broccoli curd was sweet and tender. First baby lettuce of 2011 which is not pretty because we had to share it with slugs but was welcome since we have not eaten any since last year. Our first home-grown purple vienna kohlrabi, never tasted one but I have not eaten it yet to comment about it. We harvested our first home-grown beetroot which is medium size and not baby beet size anymore. Steamed the beetroot and I was so surprise by how sweet it was. My first thought was it taste almost as sweet as sweet corn. We also harvested some chillies and capsicums.

We finally harvested some Ilhan first-grown sweet corns. It takes a long time for Ilhan sweet corn to mature in winter compare to summer weather. But it was worth the wait.  I was thinning some Afghanistan carrot variety that we are trying for the first time to give more space for some to grow. I was surprise that some of the roots has already grown long and fat. I did not expect that it can grow that big since the soil is hard to break still and in this cold weather. One carrot was almost as big as the sweet corn size. Some roots were deformed but I don't mind as long as it is fresh and organically home-grown. We are lucky that some of the carrots were determined enough to grow bigger in our hard clay soil. Afghanistan carrots are a colourful mix of root.

I ate them fresh straight away like that after washing them. So sweet and crunchy. This is how the burgundy colour carrot root look inside.

I was clearing out one container that were growing okra burgundy plants for garlic planting. In that container I found a self-sowed leek, one leaf amaranth plant and 2 parsnips which the seeds that I did not sowed. I must have been careless and drop some parsnip seeds into this container. I never expected to get any roots when I pull out those parsnip tops. A nice surprise that in 3 months growing in this container, it has actually develop a root size that I can use to cook. So this make it official as our first home-grown parsnip harvest. Gardening is mysterious, the ones that you did not plan to grow on purpose always work much better than the ones you anticipated.

We also harvested some pink radish, yellow cherry tomatoes, snow peas and peas. Cut some rainbow chard stems and all were give-away to friends.

It took a bit longer to harvest last week. Not because I have that many harvest. But Tom the cat constantly wants my attention. He gets annoyed if I ignored him, he will walk over all my seedlings unless I stop and play with him. To my surprise when I turn to fill in my basket with veggies, Tom were in it and sitting on our chillies and tomato harvest. Not my cat but my neighbour's. It is a bit tricky with one hand patting and stroking the cat and the other hand weeds until Tom is satisfied and don't walk on the veggie patch. Tom is a very clever cat and keep rodents away from our garden since he visits frequently now. He only ask a little bit of love from us.

Visit Daphne our wonderful host for Harvest Monday and see other gardens all over the world is harvesting at the moment.

Massey Pea First Harvest

Main harvest for last week was mainly chillies, tomatoes and giant purple mustards. I tried to pull out one carrot to see how much the oldest sowed-batch have grown. The upper part of the carrot is medium size but still very short. I think one of the main reason is the carrot roots are having a hard time to push into clay soil. We harvested our first Massey peas last week and the boys were so excited. Kept asking for more. See Rayyan hands reaching for more peas while the photos are being taken.

Found some self-sowed tomatoes has ripen in winter and some does not look that good. But they tasted good. Pruned some laksa leaves (Vietnamese Mint) to cook with sardines.

Last sunny Saturday we finally tidied up and organised all our backyard garden containers. Summer plants which are no more productive were pulled out. We got to harvest 2 pumpkins that were grown from containers. This is the first time we harvested Queensland Blue pumpkin, although it is smallish compared to the shops. Found 2 inches of fresh ginger rhizomes from one of the containers. We grow turmeric for it leaves as well, so we freeze some leaves to use later to make rendang. Starting from early June, we had a new target trying not to buy any potatoes from the market. Thanks to Berry Gnome for the pink fir-eyed? seed potato we received a few months ago, we got to taste our first home-grown pink-eyed potatoes last week. We saved some of the potatoes to plant back and some were used to make beef korma. We also cut some rainbow chards stems.

Snowball turnip is not something that I can grow well because I don't lavish them with enough water. Yesterday, we harvested a yellow bell pepper and our first cherrytime capsicum. We waited that cherrytime capsicum to turn red since last April. All those red chillies were given-away to my husband friend for the nice traditional cake that were shared.

Visit Daphne's Harvest Monday and see other gardeners interesting harvest all around the world.

Last Autumn 2011 Harvest

I can't believe it in less than 30 hours will be officially winter season here in Adelaide. Not only that we are also almost middle of the year when I felt that we just entered year 2011. On the other hand, it is interesting that the opposite hemisphere have longer day hours to enjoy and don't need to wear jacket soon. Visit Daphne's Dandelion to see varieties of harvest from different part of gardens around the world is enjoying. We harvested our first giant purple mustard grown from Harry seeds that we inter-planted with broccoli. As the giant purple mustard grow much faster than slow-growing broccoli, it gets overcrowded on the patch so we harvested some of it. We had some sweet corns, tomatoes, volunteer potatoes and different variety of capsicum to harvest last week. Interestingly, one of the sweet corns plant had kernels on the tassel and it tasted very sweet brings back childhood memory when my aunt brought back young stalk of rice for a treat.

Yellow cherry tomatoes, pencil size leeks and red capsicum fried together with rice noodles for Sunday breakfast.

Red hot chilli harvest.

Pak Choi and funny looking root vegetables.

Bitter gourd plant is still producing some male and female flowers at the moment. But with the cold weather, the fruit won't grow that much even it is well pollinated. Will this be our last bitter gourd harvest for this year? Not sure we still have ping pong ball size of bitter gourd on the plants. More and more daikon, snow peas and chili to harvest next month.

How do you prepare your radish in the kitchen?

First 2011 Pumpkin Harvest and Saturday Dinner

We had our first pumpkin harvest for this year yesterday. Hazel Dene had such a fantastic pumpkin harvest this year and so colourful too, very inspiring. Other vegetables that we managed to harvest on Saturday are Leeks, Lebanese eggplants, Lemon grasses, beans, corianders, snow peas, chilies, tomatoes, radish thinnings and 4 different variety of capsicum. The rain keep us indoors so I decided to cook and cook, gave me a chance to try many new recipes that I have been keeping in my favourites. Wendy's Garden to Table Challenge has also motivated me to fully appreciate our harvest and the way we used them in the kitchen.

The pumpkin that we harvested was growing vertically (photo taken in March) and in container. I almost forgot about that pumpkin because tomato foliage were covering it from view. I have to admit it is not easy to grow rambling pumpkin on a small limited space. We had to train the pumpkin veins so it won't annoyed other neighbouring plants. During rainy weeks or high humidity, have to make sure there is lot of space for air circulation so the plants are not succeptible to powdery mildew. I tried to grow bush pumpkin but birds keep on uprooting young seedlings that it was too late anymore to grow them.  In 2010, we only harvested one pumpkin. Hopefully this year will be a bit of improvement. Does anyone know the reason or how to avoid when your pumpkin is growing the size bigger than a tennis ball suddenly it become rotten and died? We have this problem every year.

Our main dishes with warm rice for Saturday night are P.F.Chang's Stir-Fried Spicy Eggplants from Joyce recipe and Cencalok Prawn from CikManggis kitchen recipe. Together with the Labanese Eggplants are beans and leeks used for P.F. Chang's Stir-Fries Spicy Eggplants. Joyce told me that snake bean is also good for this dish but I don't have any fresh snake bean in our garden substitute it with french bean.

This was the first time I tried making this exotic Cencalok (cincalok) prawn cuisine as we have a lot of home-grown chilies and lemon grass to use. This dish is an instant hit on the dinner table. My husband had 3rd helpings.

On Sunday morning, with the help of tomatoes, radish thinnings, capsicum, coriander, chili and leek , I made Mee Goreng (Fried Noodles) before we went off to the state museum for the kids.

No gardening this weekend due to heavy rain and strong wind.

Container Gardening (五月)

Nothing much going on at our garden containers section at the backyard. Not having the time to clear up some of the containers to grow cool season vegetables at the moment and organising the container layout. This is a new vegetables that we introduced in our garden this year parsnip and beetroots. We had our first taste of stir-fry beetroot thinnings this week and we like it.

Beetroots, dragon carrots interplanting with leek seedlings. Two containers need to be clear up which content end season bush bean and some spring grown leeks.

We are waiting for one angled luffa fruit to dry to collect the seeds. Last week we were surprised with several new female flowers of angled luffa form in this cold weather. Not sure whether it will actually grow, observing at the moment. Okra burgundy seems to tolerate cooler condition more than clemson spineless variety. Can that be our last okra burgundy pod? Leaf amaranth (chinese spinach) growing under burgundy okra plant. Lenay has nipped the shoot several times to prevent it from bolting for Rayyan's meal. Self-seeded nasturtium growing together in the same container with jicama (sengkuang). I wonder if we can possibly get some tuber from this jicama plants.

At this corner, potato, golden calwonder capsicum and red chard plant. In the background, lemon grass plants with rainbow chard seedling which is hard to see from this photo.

Yellow and purple bell capsicum taking such a long time to mature, it has been more than 2 months. We are growing flower bulbs for the first time this year and happy to see that ranunculus has sprouted some leaves. I think I spied some new shoot of jonquail or daffodils on one of the pot the other day. I felt relief that I managed to plant them properly.

Have a nice weekend!

Hoping you make it...

It is middle of autumn now and the weather is getting colder and colder each week. The warm season vegetable is almost end of their season now. It is time to clear them up and make way for new plants that tolerates cooler condition much better. However, we are still getting a few surprises in the garden.This is lebanese eggplant that I have treated as perennial going through its second autumn. I thought it was time to say farewell to this plant earlier this month but it surprise us with blooms that actually develop some eggplants. Some eggplants for the kitchen perhaps next week. Not sure whether the new bloom will drop or give fruit now this week. I did got a question how did my eggplants survive through winter ~  This plant was growing in pot during its first summer and was moved against the brick wall which received a lot of sun during winter. I transplanted this plant on the veggie patch next spring and it grow much taller and bear more fruit in its second year. I think this eggplant was really annoyed with me because it was grown in medium size pot in the first year, a bit to small and crowded for the roots.

Capsicum, another perennial in front of the kitchen window probably will have less sun now as it is getting shady this area as winter comes near. It has been more than 2 months to wait for it to turn red, although you see it red from the front, the back are still green. Since it is growing on the patch instead of pot, I cannot alternate turn the plant to face the sun like the ones growing in container.

Mammoth sunflower has develop bud. Will the sunflower show its face in this cold weather?

Ilhan's sweet corn sowed in March has already shown its male and female organ for pollination to occur. Hopefully there will be more sweet corn on the kitchen table and some to freeze.

Waiting for these chilies to mature. This is a new plant sowed from home-saved seeds. I don't know what the variety is because it was chosen for its taste and nice smell. Under chili plants are lettuce seedlings.

This plant does not look good since it has experience a couple of 40+degree Celcius during summer and was very stressed with lack of water growing on sandy-loam soil. But it does give some long sweet capsicum to harvest. Some of the capsicum does look rather odd but food is food, cosmetic is a different matter. I think I am going to let this plant grow through winter if it survived we might have early capsicum to harvest come next warm season. So I planted 4 sprouting broccoli seedlings around this plant to protect it or blanket it from chilling wind in winter, creating a micro-climate for this capsicum plant.

Hope the weather behaves this month and prolong summer vegetable plants production for the kitchen table. Actually I feel rather guilty because I know some other temperate region or closest to us in Adelaide Hills already experience their first frost. While we near the city and coast still has summer vegetables to enjoy. Next month is another story.