Pumpkins

There's Ah Peng .... our CG Pumpkin Grower .... these three varieties were all grown from seeds. All were hidden in the lush surroundings of the wintermelon vines until he pointed them out to me.

Tapioca Harvest

Finally after the stem reached almost 4 stories high, my CGer decided to chop a couple of stems down.
The tubers were huge ... I must say. Someone is definitely gonna have lots of tapioca to eat.

Fruiting Veges Updates

The vege garden grows and changes too fast for me to write about them. So here's just some updates on what had grown and are growing in the vege patch.

Bittergourd Again.

Another CGer loves bittergourd. Another attempt to grow them and it was successful with the huge fruit harvest there.

A Solitary Bowl Gourd Fruit Harvest

The vine was doing pretty well after I added in the compost and the vermicompost fertilizer. There were many tiny fruits forming. My CGers were looking at them in anticipation of their harvest. However the rains that came almost everyday in the last two weeks dampened all hopes cos' I noticed the area where the vine was planted didn't drain out the water well. So the vine started to rot and the baby fruits also started to rot and the leaves turned browned. Only one fruit despite all odds managed to grow a good size.

Winter Melon Babies Sleeping In The Garden

We have three growing on the vines this very moment and they are huge and heavy. One of our CG helper decided to make three mini hammocks for them to lie down. Many people passing by the CG fence often gaze in awe at the 'babies'.

Bowl Gourd

The bowl gourd vine is finally fruiting. The leaves on the vines are huge and they have invaded the entire fence ... well almost :-) So many baby bowl gourds .... my CGers are full of expectations with regards to this vine.

Melon Fence Harvest

I managed to get my first harvest from the fence a couple of days ago. About two xiang gua rotted away before I got to it but there are still a couple of the mini melons hanging there and turning a tinge of yellow. They are about the size of tennis balls .... some are slightly bigger though.

Had my first taste of the melons below. My first time eating such small melons. They were crunchy with a refresing taste but not as sweet as I would like them to be. Perhaps it could be due to the many afternoon rains that could have affected the sweetness during harvest time.

My fellow CGers are looking forward to eating them but I am afraid that they would be disappointed about the level of sweetness these melons have to offer.

Mini Cucumber

My neighbour germinated the seeds and another volunteer helped her to plant them in the CG.

It has been fruiting quite a number of times and the cucumbers are the mini variety ... so cute looking.

Purple Brinjals

The elderly lady loves to eat brinjals and so she grows them white. But this time she grows the purple variety. She believes that eating brinjal is good for the joints. I suspect that for the elderly ladies, any fruiting vegetable that gives off the mucilaginous substance ..... when eaten ... they believe .... would help the joints. But I don't like eating them .... LOL

Fruiting Melon Fence

The melon vines are growing and I've controlled the snail population by throwing snail pellets onto the soil. So now the leaves grow lush and the flowers are out.
I've got the baby melons you see below and the largest one was spotted by one of my CG volunteers. They have sharp eyes for fruiting vines :-)





Hopefully and very soon this will grow a little bigger and when it turns yellow .... it's time for harvest. This would be the first Xiang Gua in the CG.

Melon Fence

I have torn down the two planter stands to make this melon fence possible. I am growing melons from the seeds given to me by a kind forumer after reading his post about his melon fence.

The idea is to use the fence as a trellis to support the growing melons since this area has got quite a bit of the morning sun.

The seedlings below are the Xiang Gua melons and they produce a lovely oblong, yellow melon if I manage to grow them to fruitation.


See, the male flowers have been spotted. Now to wait patiently for the female flowers to appear.

Exciting times ahead .... if they survive the snail attack.



Here's the planter with the Taiwanese Mini Melon seedlings and the last three of my bowl gourd seedlings. The seedlings here had to battle the snails as I was less vigilant here. So maybe got to germinate seedlings again .... haiz!





My one and only Bowl Gourd seedling left.

Dried Luffa

A couple of the luffa fruits dried on the vine and this particular one was at least two long rulers long. The amount of seeds I got from the fruit ..... if I plant them could last me a life time but I don't particularly fancy eating luffa for the rest of my life .... once in a long while, it's OK! So anyone wants luffa seeds ?

Pumpkin Harvest

Finally one of the pumpkin vines produced a couple of fruits. The size of the pumpkin was just slightly larger than my fist. When I cut it open I was surprised that the centre was hollow without seeds. On a closer look, still couldn't find any viable seeds. I baked the pumpkin and tried eating the flesh ... it was bland, no sweetness at all ... so unlike those that I buy from the supermarket.

Jade Bittergourd Update

The vine is bearing fruits. The last time I took a peak at it, I saw this set up .... someone has already laid claim on two of the fruits ... LOL and you know I never cover the fruits this way.