Pumpkin 'art' and the two loofahs...

Pumpkins are believed to originate from North America...
The Japanese call them 'kabocha', which rhymes with Kampuchea...
Apparently, to the Japanese, the pumpkin came into Japan from Cambodia, hence the name...

Our pumpkin harvest is not too bad this year...

All in all, we manage to harvest seven fruits of this 'Ebisu' specie...

With no scissors on hand, I just ripped the stalks off from this pumpkin...
And woah, do I see a 'bird' here?

And this one... a little monster flexing its muscles?

Now, the loofah is supposed to originate from India...
We grow both types...
The pictures above shows the Egyptian loofah which is rather smooth-skinned...

I observe that it flowers in the morning...

The second type is the angled loofah...

They seem to prefer flowering in the evening...

My sweeto haato prefers the smooth-skinned Egyptian... better taste, she says...
Rather unfortunately for her, our angled loofahs were more productive this season...
Perhaps, 43 angled loofahs compared to about 30 Egyptian loofahs...
In any case, we usually make soups out of them...

Chestnut, pumpkin, beets, and rocoto...

Tried planting chestnut for the first time last year...

The strain we chose is called 'Porotan'...

Don't ask me why it is called such a name, but they are supposed to be easy to peel...

We could manage only one fruit... yes, only one, weighing a great 35 grams... ;=)

 

Actually, there were four fruits forming...

They eventually dropped off before they could fully mature...

Our butter scotch pumpkin did not do as well this year...

Yes, we could harvest only one fruit...

Compared to 6 fruits last season... 

Wonder why, really... 

Beets... just harvested a bunch of them, and was quite amused to see one of them taking on the shape of the bottle gourd...  

Rocoto peppers... yes, from seeds given to me by a former student from Peru...

Their color combination on the insides are really fascinating to observe...

I plan to ask my sweeto haato to preserve them in vinegar...

Bitter gourd, pumpkin, and long beans...

Been very busy with work lately...

Bitter gourd is standard fare on our dining table... 

My sweeto haato specifically says, 'grow the long type and not the stubby type'...

They are quite easy to grow... at this point of time, we have on record a harvest of 54 fruits...

My missus tried to make this dish (known as Yong Tau Foo in Malaysia) and they tasted, yes, bitter... but good...

Pumpkin too, is a staple for us in the summer...

This season, managed to harvest five of them, totaling 8.1 kilos...

Gave one to a neighbor...

I don't know what it is but the yellow pumpkin seeds I bought from Los Angeles some time ago had never given me any good harvest...

After growing to a certain size, they begin to wrinkle away, and eventually, drop off altogether...

So, I decided to just harvest them young, very young...

We had them with the bitter gourd dish above...

Long beans... I love...

They are a very convenient veggie to grow...

You harvest and they keep producing...

Pumpkins, the butter scotch type...

I love pumpkins... both the eating and the growing...

For the last few years, I almost always have my lunch in the university cafeteria... 

And boiled pumpkin is always part of my selection for lunch...

The predominant nutrients in pumpkins are the lutein (which is supposedly good for the eyes) and both the alpha and beta carotene, the latter of which generates vitamin A in the body. (Source here)

The butter scotch pumpkin is quite new to me...

We first saw this pumpkin at the local farmers' market...

We liked the taste and decided to keep the seeds...

We last harvested about 4.9 kilograms of the pumpkin...

And we have been enjoying eating them, bit by bit...

This evening, my sweeto haato just wrapped a portion of one pumpkin, and placed it on top of our wood stove...

Wooh, it was really very delicious...

It does not have the chestnut-like taste as in some pumpkins...

Instead, it is very sweet, and has a 'creamy' texture, should I say?

My sweeto haato also tried making pumpkin cake...

Hmmm, just nice for my tea breaks...

And pumpkin soup... 

Thick, with a little milk, and spruced up with some parsley from the garden and black pepper...

To close this post, here is a picture of the over-cooked pumpkin in one of our cooking adventures with the wood stove... 

We experimented by putting two types of pumpkins (botchan and butter scotch), and two large onions into a dutch oven, and placing the dutch oven inside the wood stove as we retired for the night...

(Mr. H had wanted to see the outcome of this experiment.)

The onions and the botchan pumpkin had somewhat turned into charcoal... 

The butter scotch pumpkin was a little burnt, and I ate it... 

Looks like the heat was still too strong for cooking inside the wood stove...

Last harvest for 2011

Am not sure what this plant is... 

Shall have to look the references up one day...

I supposed the fruits must be quite tasty as the birds do come for them...

Update: Thanks to Debra for suggesting that this could be 'bittersweet'. Did a search on the net and indeed, this plant belongs to the bittersweet family. The bittersweet in Debra's write-out looks like a climber but not this one in our garden. I think this plant we have is called Japanese Spindle. It is not a climber but an ever green shrub with shiny leaves.

Harvested some round daikons today for my suweeto haato to make a new year dish with carrots...

Also harvested the butter scotch pumpkins... 

All six of them, including the one that was harvested some time ago...

In total, they weighed about 4.9 kilograms...

As we retire for the night, my missus is about to put one pumpkin into a dutch oven and placing the dutch oven inside our wood-stove...

We are experimenting to see if the pumpkin gets cooked with the remaining heat from the wood-stove... 

Plus, harvested the last of the sweet potatoes...

The purple-flesh murasaki sweet potatoes were the most productive of the four types... 

All in all, they weighed in at about 15.2 kilograms...

Very good by my standards...

Our favorite sweet potato however, is the orange-flesh An-no...

They are super sweet, almost like honey...

Rather unfortunately, productivity was low...

We could manage only about 2.9 kilograms of this delicious sweet potato...

And to close the 2011 chapter is this little camellia...

Ok folks, looking forward to the new year when we get up next morning...

Butter scotch pumpkin, Hawk's claws chillies, etc...

Was trying to dig out an azalea plant to make space for the 'Southern Cross'...   

Slipped, fell over and hit my head on the concrete steps... 

Next thing I knew was the sound of my own heavy breathing...

My missus came over to look me up...

Lucky thing, it was only a minor cut on the right side of the head...

Lesson learned: be careful and wear the safety helmet while working... 

(I often do so, actually, and today was one of the few instances that I didn't...)

Anyway, am happy to be able to do some harvesting...
My missus bought a butter scotch pumpkin last year from the farmers' market...
We like the taste of it and kept some seeds...
Am delighted that the plants produced 6 large pumpkins...
This one weighs about 900 grams... not too bad...

Similarly, we kept some seeds from the winter melon that we bought from the farmers' market last year...
We manage only one fruit, however... 1.7 kilograms...

The first time I ever planted potatoes years ago, we harvested over 11 kilograms from one kilogram of seeds...

Subsequent plantings were rather measly...

This time, only 3 kilograms from one kilogram of seeds...

Reason? I did not fully dry the cut-up seeds before I planted them, so most of them rotted...

Chillies this season... not too bad although it could be better... 

These finger-sized ones are called 'Taka no tsume', aka 'Hawk's claws'...

They are spicy and they taste good...

I got some okra seeds from my younger brother in Malaysia last year...

And I must say that they have adapted very well to our potager...

These are the last of the harvests for this season... 

Compared to the Japanese okras, these are gigantic...

Some of them were about 30 centimeters long...

And they were tender, super delicious and combine very well with curries... 

Will certainly grow them again next spring...

A fling with the evening primrose...

Hmmm... another big typhoon is heading our way...

This time, it is Typhoon Number 15...

Anyway, in between the intermittent rains and winds, had been keeping busy at the potager...

Pulled out some 'weeds' yesterday, knowing quite well that the 'weed' is the evening primrose...

Had read about the primrose being a 'miracle' plant yet to be fully discovered...

And today, decided to check up the plant a little bit more...

Found very, very little information on how to cook the stuff...
One blog, 'Wild Blessings' stood out... 

And it says, Evening Primrose is a magnificent gift from God.  The whole plant is edible and medicinal.  This is one of those prime examples of “Letting food be your medicine and medicine be your food”.... 

Sounds very inviting...

So I thought to myself... hmmm, would like to have soup with it... perhaps cream-based?

But the chief cook (my 'suweeto-haaato', of course) vetoed and decided to boil the thing for me...

Took some bites... tough meat... feels somewhat 'sappy'...

A little bit like moroheya but not quite...

Would not say that it tastes good... 

Wifey also tried to stir-fry it... 

Still, no cigar... 

Ok, so our taste buds are not very agreeable with this 'wild, miracle' vegetable...

Very well then... taking a leaf from a Japanese homepage, we shall try to dry the leaves and make tea out of it instead...

Why not, as the evening primrose is all over our property... 

They have very pretty flowers... yellow and pink... 

Two of them, the 'straight' type and the 'creeping' type are tall and they have yellow flowers...
The third type is very short and they have very beautiful pink flowers... 

Photos? Ok, the yellow ones in a while but the pinks ones will have to wait for next season...

Anyway, will definitely try to make tea out of them...

Been enjoying our harvests continuously... meaning to say, everyday...

The fruits are the usual suspects...

Okra, peppers, moroheya, amaranth, Malabar spinach, bitter gourd, long beans, winged beans, basil, korean perilla, water spinach, Japanese yam, tomatoes... etc...

So, no repeat of 'boring' pictures... :)

Except perhaps this pumpkin with its 'whiskers' might be an exception...



The loofahs are coming on rather late for us this year... 

Blame it on the farmer for the late and slow germination of the seeds...

While the angled loofahs are popping out quite well, giving abundant fruits of 30 centimeters long, the Egyptian loofahs are not doing as well...

And like (well, almost) all things, while the man of the house prefers this type, the lady of the house opts for the other...

So, you can assume that I shall be channeling more energy on growing the Egyptian type next season... yeepeee...
And yes, I love this gourd... 

Of late, we have been putting it in curries and noodles, besides stir-frying them...

The harvest continues...

Was thrilled to have a week off from the university...

In this 'o-bon' (all souls?) season, the Japanese folks take time off from work to pay respects to their deceased ancestors...

For me, this presents an excellent opportunity for me to spend time in the potager...

Still, the heat is a bit too stifling...   

Which need not necessarily be a bad thing...

For I can sweat it out in the mornings when it is still rather tolerable...

And after my tea break at 10:00 am, I get into a change of gear and head out to the sea...

For the first time since we moved here years ago, I am truly beginning to cherish the joys of  frolicking at the sea...

Each day, thankfully, we have something to harvest...

Pumpkin, which weighed about 1.9 kilograms...

Cucumbers so crunchy and fresh...

Tomatoes so sweet and juicy...

We dug out our potatoes some time ago...

The harvest was not the best we had...

No complains though, as the scales tipped at a little over 3 kilograms...

And my sweeto haato turned the potatoes into this...

A mixture of several ingredients...

Urmmm... simple yet heavenly it was...

Was never successful with water melons, so to say...

But this season, not too bad... 

This one was about 1.6 kilograms...

Just nice for the two of us, for two fruit-courses after lunch...

The bitter gourds are turning out pretty well... 

And as the label implies, they are truly bitter although we should say that 'bitter' stuff is not one of our weak areas...

The watermelon as it was...

Juicy, sweet, and sooo refreshing when consumed in the heat of summer...

Gardening in the heat of summer

Hmmm, must say to you folks that I am more of a (student) 'gardener' rather than a 'blogger'...

I take my hat off to some of you folks who can update your blogs so often...

Anyway, been enjoying dirtying my hands in the potager as usual...

But with this heat... ooh, the mercury hits 33 degrees today...

The heat had my tongue dangling, and my body oozing out sweat literally in the liters...

I must be quite mad to be out in the potager in this heat...

The last time I sweated like this was probably when I worked in the construction firm more than 30 years ago...

My sweeto haato continues to walk the hills in the mornings...
And she found these gorgeous looking wild Dianthus aka carnation or pink....

A check on the net reveals that the word Dianthus is derived from the Greek words dios (god) and anthos (flower)...

And that bug, what's its name? 

I know that bug had been chewing on the young leaves of my cucumbers and pumpkins...   

Everyday, while my better half prepares breakfast, I go out to the potager to pluck off some goodies... Here, we had some (male) pumpkin flowers and a nasturtium flower... 

We eat them together with our breakfasts.....

Those edible flowers, plus of course the tomatoes of the Sicilian Rouge type, cucumbers, sweet basil, dill, parsley...

All freshly picked just minutes before consumption...

We had quite a bit of Japanese plums this season...

Not the 'ume' but the 'sumomo' type (literally 'sour peach')...

We turned them into preserves and we are enjoying it a little at a time with our yogurt... 

Summer is the season of cicadas...

These creatures apparently live most of their lives underground...

We were lucky to see this particular specimen molting right in front of our eyes...

The process took hours, giving me a good opportunity to observe and photograph it...

And finally, I'd like to show a picture of a horsefly...

Like the cicadas, they make their appearance in the heat of summer...

When yours truly is sweating like a waterfall in the potager, the horsefly beckons and bites...

Sheesh, I mean, ouch! 

Often there'd be like 10 of these little monsters buzzing around my legs...

And they bite through the clothes...

I thought mosquito was bad, but the horsefly takes the cake...

Like the mosquito, it is the female that needs to draw blood...

Apparently they need the blood to help them in their reproduction process...

Funny thing is, my wife does not really get attacked by these flies...

Is it because they prefer the 'juice' (blood) of the human male?

Or is it because, as my wife suspects, they find my bodily scent too sexy to resist?

A taste of spaghetti pumpkin...

Just for the fun of it...

Bought two spaghetti pumpkin seedlings

Not very productive

Or, is it the farmer that is the issue?

We got to harvest only two fruits
This one weighed about half a kilo
Not big by any pumpkin standards

Sliced into halves, the texture unfolds
As the name implies, the flesh resembles spaghetti
or noodles  if you like

In Korea, was onced served 'pumpkin tea'
And why not try making our own?

Not as sweet as that of the 'normal' pumpkin

Missus made a vinaigrette concoction to go with it
Sprinkled with a bit of sesame
Ummm...the pumpkin by itself is quite tasteless
But with the vinaigrette dressing, tasty enough to warrant a second planting season...