Angled loofah

We were growing the smooth loofah (aka Egyptian loofah) for sometime now...
My missus initially bought a seedling and we have been using the seeds for several seasons now...
It taste a bit like eggplant...
Then, I bought some angled loofah seeds from Bangkok...
And woah, we are blessed with a constant supply of loofahs...
Except for the people of Okinawa, the Japanese people apparently do not eat them...
However, I gave them to several of my neighbors to try...
I think the angled ones taste a little sweeter than the egyptian ones...
They can measure up to 50 centimeters, and weigh up to 200 grams...
I love them in soups or stir fry...
Tonight, we are going to sink our teeth into this lovely vegetable...

Beets and cucumbers...

Harvested quite a bit of beets this season...
They belong to the 'goose-foot' family, as does the spinach...
My missus slices them and have them cooked lightly in vinegar...
Lovely vegetable, I must say...

Here is a sample of the cucumbers we harvested last summer...
I normally harvest them early in the morning and bring them straight to the breakfast table...
They are super crisp, and very good to chew on...
Whatever that we could not eat that day, we pickled them for a later day...

Tiger lily... pink rose...

We put on the kerosene stove to keep us warm in winters...
On top of the stove, we sometimes put a pot there...
From the pot, we cook soup, boil water, and at times, red beans...
With the red bean soup, we put in the bulb of the tiger lily...
My missus bought them from the neighborhood market...
The bulb peels off like the onion...
And we kept the inner innermost layers, so as to try planting them...
(Actually, my missus did the planting, and me, only the picture-taking...)

See the pretty flowers?
They are the result from the bulbs...
The so-called tiger lily... pretty and delicious...
Shall be planting them this weekend...

We bought our Honda CRV more than 10 years ago from the local Honda dealer...
I am hopeless with machines, so we send the car to the Honda workshop once a year or so...
Never have had a problem all these years...
The pink roses... yes, birthday presents for me...
As in the last few years, the Honda salesman had been bringing me birthday presents...
Madagascar jasmine, garbella, anthurium, rose... 
I suspect he is trying to win my heart into buying a new car from him...
Anyway, we always try to plant these plants after a period of enjoying them at the dining table...
They all died...
And my missus just told me a minute ago, that the rose had probably died too... sigh...

Failures and successes this spring season

We had thought that it was a human thief who stole our sweet potatoes...

And then my missus talked to one of our neighbors who said that their sweet potatoes were also stolen...

By racoons, they said...

Just then, my missus had buried some fish bones left over from dinner...

She buried it quite shallow, and there it was... dug up by some animal...

The paw marks were too big to be a cat's...

This morning, I checked the potager and found more paw marks from a freshly dug out patch...

We are almost sure that the culprit is a racoon...

They are apparently very intelligent animals but I shall try to think of a way to trap them...

Anyway, this post is about the failures and successes of the spring season...

Failures, I have many...

The potatoes were miserable... only managed about 3 kilos...

I probably planted too much of 'companion' plants in the same patch...

Strawberries, garlic, onions, celery... too much...

Corn... tried to plant some seeds brought from Malaysia...

Didn't work out... by the time I switched to the Japanese seeds, it was a bit too late...

Still, managed to harvest 14 ears... not too bad...

Zucchini... ooh, big failure... bought three seedlings (green, yellow, and Toscany)...

Pumpkin... ooh, another big failure... like zucchini, no fruits at all...

Green peppers... arrgghh... tiny, and too few fruits... probably didn't water them enough...

Jalapenos... sigh... too sweet, and too small...

Moderate successes included tomatoes...

Grew some big ones, and some mini ones...

Managed to harvest quite a bit...

Okra... better than the previous season...

Bitter gourd... not too bad, but could be better...

Loofah... oh dear, I wonder what happened...
Most successful was the cucumbers...

Was determined to succeed this time, and we harvested 221 cucumbers from May to August...

Very tasty stuff... I brought them to eat at my workplace several times...

I still have yet to harvest the swede and the parsnip...

Wonder how they will turn out although I have a feeling that the swede is probably too old and tough...

Resumed working on the potager today, after an absence of more than one month...

Prepared six beds for onion, carrot, burdock, spinach, beets, radish, lettuce...

I am making sure not to over-plant the beds... otherwise, duh!