Starfruits & New year wishes

Starfruit flowering again! I do not know if starfruit is seasonal or flowering plant throughout the year plant! 

Little fruit start hanging once again on the tree!

I choose to pluck and ripe them in the basket near kitchen. I will add sugar or salt to eat them!

It's final week before year end. To all blogger friends Happy New Year 2016! Hope all of us have wonderful year ahead!

My garden resolution for 2016:

1) to plant more vegetables for cooking
2) maximise the garden area for vegetable gardening
3) Create good resting area in garden surrounded by hibiscus
4) minimize usage of pesticides - this is something hard as the hot weather combined with high humidity create good environment for the pest!

You have any resolution for 2016?

GBBD - Dec 2015

December suppose to be rainy season in Malaysia. Usually it will be raining day and night. Very wet season. But this year rainy season seems to have shifted in front. It was so wet in October and November. Now I see sun most of the days! World is really facing drastic weather changes I guess!

Flowering plants do enjoy basking in sun! I can see Hibiscus everywhere. In full bloom!

Cape Honeysuckle flowers are so radiant under the hot sun!  Butterflies flying over this plant. The flowers must have sweet nectar! I love butterflies but dreaded the babies! The wriggly caterpillars can eat almost all the leaves in one day!

Zinnia a come back!

Flowers are everywhere to be seen!

This is for GBBD Nov 2015. What's flowering in your garden now? I'm adding this post to GBBD hosted by May Dream Flowers at may dream flower

To all Blogger friend who are celebrating Christmas, wish you all MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Jackfruit

I planted Jackfruit or "Nangka" tree 3 years ago. The first sight of small fruits was back 1 year ago. However, all of them drop down. I guess the tree was still young. I didn't put any hope too.

This year August, finally two of the fruits keep growing and I harvested a big jackfruit last weekend! One more is still small.

It was a fight between me and the monkeys. I thought I would let it ripe a bit more on the tree but monkeys were also looking forward for the fruit. I have no choice but to cut and bring it inside.

Since there was a small bite from the monkey, i cut open the fruit. The whole kitchen was feel with jackfruit smell. The fruit was ripe!

Surprisingly no smell came out when the fruit was hanging on the tree. I read somewhere that the fruit will burst into nice smell when ripe!

The taste was so sweet! The flesh was not so soft but still edible. 

Snake gourd

 Yesterday morning i was walking around the garden after heavy rain. I found some strange looking flowers. I never seen them before. Guess what flower is this?

It was on my petola vine / angle loofa vine. Petola has yellow flowers. So what is this flower?

 It belongs to snake gourd! I didn't realise one of the seed that I sowed burst to live. This is my first attempt to grow them. Almost all the seedling died except this one. It has produce gourds too! This shows I have been away from garden for a while.....

The gourd is not so long like the one in wet market.

The flowers are in white colour . Don't you think it's pretty ?

Rosella is a must in my little garden. They produce juicy fruits which I use to make cordial. While young I call them ribena juice. They have similar taste but better and healthier than the store bought one! No preservative and no flavouring and any colouring agent.

The fruits are red in colour and in abundance!

Indians use the leaves too. We do curry with the leaves or pickle. The leaves have sour taste! It compliment the spicy taste of Indian cooking!

The blooms are in red like hibiscus! The above is the spent bloom!

The green beans are shaded by the mango tree. However it does not stop them from producing beans! 

 They grow slowly due to lack of sun.

The beans are shorter but juicy!

Fat and shot green beans from the garden! I have been wrong with beans. I thought they love to grow in little sun. But actually beans love the sun. Next time I will grow them right under the sun!

GBBD - Nov 2015

Rainy season have started in Malaysia! It rains all the days. Yesterday it almost rain whole day! It's wet everywhere!  

Should I complain? I think no....I have seen the strange drought season and evil haze this year. So rain is a blessing!

Marigold is back in my garden. They disappear few years ago! I planted the seeds again middle of this year!

 Roselle do have beautiful pink flowers! The leaves are edible but sour! Some insect must have tasted and left them.....

Bunga telang look ornamental on the gate!

The lovely orange hibiscus is flowering profusely!  The ants love this flowers a lot. Some of the petals have holes. I'm not sure who ate them though....

 The flowers of cape honeysuckle always invite the bees! I have seen many bees buzzing around this flowers! They must be very sweet!

This was taken in the morning while sun was shining generously!

In the evening they cape honeysuckle had a good bath!

The pink rose bloom cheers the morning!

They are all wet after a shower!

This is for GBBD Nov 2015. What's flowering in your garden now? I'm adding this post to GBBD hosted by May Dream Flowers at may dream flower

Starfruit do have beautiful flowers. The pink flowers must be very fragrance and sweet. I use to see many ants crawling to the flowers everyday!

 There are still few more fruits produced by the tree. I must thank the tree to provide abundance of fruits for us!

They are little in size. Nevertheless very juicy tart taste!

 This time, I plan to let it ripe on the tree! I want to see the taste comparison between ripen on tree and in kitchen basket. I heard there are different in taste.

I take this opportunity to wish "HAPPY DEEPAVALI" to all Hindu bloggers, and Happy Holiday to the rest. In Malaysia many should be taking off on Monday so to have a long stretch of holiday!

long beans - a new try

I only planted long beans once in my garden. Mainly as I know i would not be able to harvest the beans.

However i could not resist and finally i give a try. I'm not sure if the monkeys will spare some for me but hope they consider me!

Little long beans learning to climb trellis. There are 3 seedlings in a row. Sharing the area with indian broad beans, lemongrass and pak choi.