Happening in the garden

We have been getting lots of rain lately. Tropical Storm Bill is finally here today and I cannot wait to see more growth in the garden.

The garden is doing very well. I have been harvesting if not every day or every other day some super sweet sugar snap peas. They are delicious to be eaten raw or sauté lightly with butter, salt and ground black pepper. Yummy!

I managed to snap some pictures last week before storm Bill arrived.  Below is a picture of the tomato plants. Finally, I was able to set up the fence for this yellow tomato. I started the plant from seeds indoor. They are doing well despite having less leaves. I have been trimming the leaves especially the lower leaves. The plant will not get any disease if the lower leaves didn't touch soil. I set up a bucket in the middle to water the deep root.

Here is the picture of my first tomato. They do look healthy. I cannot wait to see them turning yellow.

Beans, beans and rows of beans. Below is the bush beans. They do look great. I cannot wait to see them flowering and producing beans. I love string beans. They are delicious if saute with garlic, butter, salt and pepper. I could eat it just like that.

More beans. But the picture below is the yard long beans. In bahasa it is called Kacang Panjang. I set up the fence for the beans to climb up.

The lemongrass in the picture below has just kicked in. They are looking great. In between the lemongrass is the cucamelon also known as sour gherkin. This is my first year growing this tiny cucumber that supposedly to look like the skin of watermelon. It will be interesting to see them growing. I hope the fence is tall enough for the tendrils to climb.

In one of the raffle drawing, I won these eggplants. I have 4 plants. They are supposedly to be a long Japanese eggplant. In the past, the eggplants usually eaten by the bugs in my garden. I make sure to spray them with some insecticides. I hate to see the plants died. So far these 4 plants are growing very well. They look very healthy. I have to make sure to give some plant food so that they can grow bigger.

Below is a picture of my cucumber. Yes, I am growing tons of cucumber plants. I started them from seed directly sown in the garden. I have seen a few flowers and I think soon I will be getting some cucumbers. I am so excited.

Below is a picture of my broccoli. I am thrill to see the broccoli head started to form. They do look very cute. I must say thanks to the heavy rain. This plant is thriving! The leaves are huge and there are no bugs. Yes! I hate bugs. Bugs could eat the whole plant and leave me with nothing. They are just hungry and very bad creatures. So far, I am very happy with my hard labor in the garden.

The only plant that I see that did not doing well is the kohlrabi. They are tiny and didn't seem to perform. I might have buried their seeds too deep when I sown them in the early spring.
I have a few more patches that I need to weed. The carrot patch need to breath a little. If I let the weed grow bigger, they can choke the carrots.

Unfortunately storm Bill is here. The garden is too wet to work on.
I will wait a few days until the soil is dryer.

Ramadan is here. I am wishing happy fasting to my muslim reader.

Stay tuned for more garden story.

Clean up in the garden

Finally, the heat wave had passed. I was able to clean up the garden today. However, I did start as early as  at 6 am. By 10 am I had to stop. The sun started to hurt me. Ramadan is here this month and today is Day 12. I thought I will not be able to fast due to long hours this summer. But my body says otherwise. Fasting all day has been very smooth. I ate oat meal for early breakfast and so far that is the only food soothing to my tummy.

I am so happy that the cucumber I am growing is not bitter. They are sweet. I surely do not remember the type of these cucumbers. The round ball zucchini is delicious. Each plant do not seems to produce a lot of zucchini. But I surely will grow this zucchini again next year. The big yellow tomato has only one that is ripe. The rest are still green.

 I love home grown cooked edamame. Some people call it soy bean. All I did was just boiled them in salt water. They are delicious!

 I have harvested and removed the plant of my edamame. I have about one full of the grocery plastic bag.

 I also harvested some red onion. I love pickled red onion. They are delicious when eat with murtabak. I also harvested the rest of the beans. I will use this beans in my soup. The pea plants are done too. I removed the fences and pulled out the plants. It was really a lot of work to finish before the sun started to heat the earth. In the picture above is also the ground cherry. They are growing like crazy. I picked all of the fruits that are ripe and fell on the ground. They are very sweet. I could eat them all. But I thought I should share them with one of my co worker since I know that she loves this cherries.

 Above is a picture of the cooked edamame/soy bean. The beans are very sweet and buttery. I seasoned the boiling water with some salt. This will enhanced the flavor of the edamame.

 I have packed the sweet 100 and the yellow cherry tomato mixed in a smaller zip loc bag. I will share these tomato with my co workers.

Harvesting the tomato was the toughest job ever. I am growing about 10 plants and most of the tomato ripe almost at the same time. These past few weeks I could not go to the garden at all due to heat wave. Until yesterday, when we received a good quick splash of rain water, I am able to clean up and pulled out the weeds easily from the wet ground today. Before working on the peas, I started with this cherry tomato. I used shear to cut the branches off. This way, the trimming will allow me to move around the plants easily.

After cleaning all of the harvest and keeping them in the refrigerator, I am going to continue working on my second raya dress...

Cucumber, Peppers and Broccoli

I finally found the time to tilled the patch where I've had grown the peas. It took me a few strokes to start the Mantis tiller machine. Thank god it was not difficult for me to use the machine. I am now growing cucumbers, peppers and broccoli in that old pea patch. I have dusted the lime soil on the plant to boost their growth. The plants are still baby and need lots of nutrients to survive in the hottest day.

Cucumbers

This is the only slicing cucumber I transplanted. It started to show some cucumbers. They are tiny and I hope they will survive.