Parsnip, part two...

Eliza suggested that I could 'get some dual usage' out of the post on parsnips by sending it to her 'How to find great plants' carnival..

Well, happy as I am to be asked, I don't think I can make the deadline this time...
Anyway, am putting up some new shots of the root...

The neighbor we gave a parsnip to is a painter...

Each time we give her something (mimosa, beans, etc.), she draws them...

And then, comes the 'thank you' postcard with the drawing on it... 

Each weekend, I harvest one parsnip...

This one, harvested last weekend, weighed about 450 grams...

Was quite intrigued with all the little roots around the main root...

My wifey Y boiled the parsnip until it was soft...

Salad it was, mixed with squid, red peppers, avocado, lettuce, vinegar, and black pepper...

Today was freezing cold, at least according to my standards...

Still, out into the potager I went...

And woah, a 'mini monster' weighing at about 680 grams...

This time, yours truly cleaned and chopped up the root...

Under the supervision of my missus of course...

We then boiled it for about 40 minutes...

We take the 'soup' too, and it tasted sweet...

The above dish is a mixture of pickled red turnips, broccoli, avocado, roman lettuce, and parsnip graced with a concotion of miso, vinegar, garlic, and sesame seed... 

Rocoto peppers for 'Seed Week'...

An international student from Peru was too gracious to bring four rocoto peppers for me...

The fruits don't look as fresh as they should be...

Why, for they were hand-carried (smuggled?) all the way from the shores of Lake Titicaca, 3811 meters above sea level (higher than Mt. Fuji) and from approximately the opposite side of the globe from Japan... 

Sliced them open, and woah, seeds are black...

As opposed to the white seeds in the 'regular' bell peppers...

This specimen is the one on the left-most in the top photo...

The second fruit from the left...

Seeds are less black but the flesh, charateristically thick and luscious...
According to wikipedia, the rocoto scores between 50,000 to 250,000 on the Scoville scale, which is quite comparable to the fiery habanero...

The only yellow fruit from the bunch...

Seeds were covered with protective cobweb-like material...

Hmmm, why so different from the other three?

The right-most specimen...
The rocoto has been cultivated in Peru and Bolivia for thousands of years, apparently...
Leaves are supposedly hairly and the rocoto is said to be more resistant to cooler climates than other peppers...
Furthermore, they can grow up to 4 meters over a span of up to 15 years... uwaaaahh...
I read that it is quite difficult to grow rocoto, and I plan to try out the seeds this coming spring season... fingers crossed...

My partner Y stir-fried them very lightly, mixing them with some regular green peppers...
As expected, they did taste quite hot...

The Peruvian student cooked this traditional dish in one of the big cooking events here...
The red ones are rocoto, while the green ones are normal peppers...

He boiled the rocotos to remove the hotness before stuffing in the meat...

The peppers are now ready for the oven...
The taste was very good... urmmm...
As expected, the dish was wiped out within seconds after it was served...

See Malay-Kadazan Girl for more stuff on seeds...

Japanese plum flowers, winter roses

Autumn Belle asked about the plum flowers...
We have two white plum trees, and one red...
The whites are flowering now... 

One of the them gives us good fruits every year...

And wine is what we make them out to be...

As a starter for many a dinner time, it is plum wine... 

My partner Y is into flowers...
Roses are one of her favorites
This so-called 'King Rose' keeps us company throughout the winter...

We saw this cutie growing amongst the pathwalk bushes in one of our walks in the hills...
We took a branch and my partner managed to propogate it successfully...

I'd like to name this pretty one 'Princess Pink'...

It's flowers are about just 2 centimeters across...

And it flowers almost throughout the year...
Being from the hills, this little plant is very hardy...
The petals somewhat remind me of mickey mouse, no?

'Assignments' for the coming season...

No photos for this post...

Am contemplating on doing a lot of things this coming spring...
1. Pumpkin: failed miserably last season. The only fruit I got was a fist-sized tiny pumpkin,.. inedible of course...
2. Zucchini: as above, failed badly in 2010... planted a Toscany, a green, and a yellow... but all died or fared poorly... next spring, shall buy a packet of seeds to plant all over...
3. Four-angled beans: had been trying to plant this bean for the last three years with seeds brought from Malaysia, but just as they began to flower, the cold came and killed them... arrggh... this year, I am buying the seeds from Japan... let's see what happens...
4. Cekur: a very fragrant herb found in my family plot in Malaysia... like the four angled beans, had been trying for the last two years without success... but am not giving up as yet...
5. Yes, I am planning to grow more rose geraniums here and there in the potager... I just love the smell when their leaves are rubbed on... this cutie may just win my vote as my most favorite plant...
6. And should I say, trap the racoon that I suspect had robbed me of my sweet potatoes... shall be attending a course soon to get a licence to do the trapping... am quite excited with this prospect...
7. Make the potager more pleasant looking? Hmmm... am not so much of a garden designer but shall try and see what I can do...

For more stuff on 'assignments', see fer...

Parsnip harvest...

The parsnips are ready for harvest...
I bought the seeds from Cairns last year...
This 'three-legged' one weighed 255 grams...
The first two that I harvested a few days ago weighed about 200 grams...

This vegetable is called 'shiro-ninjin' (literally, white carrot) in Japan...
Supermarkets here do not sell them, so it is somewhat a novelty veggie...
We gave one parsnip to a neighbor and they were quite excited to try it out...
I read that parsnips become sweeter after they experience a frost or two...
We had it with chicken broth and indeed, they do taste quite sweet...
Hmm, may I say that it has a taste and texture between the potato and the sweet potato?

Talking of (kind) neighbors, I was pruning the hedge this afternoon when one came a-calling with a two ton truckload full of logs...
Was pleasantly surprised that he offered to give us these logs (as firewood) for our soon-to-be-installed wood stove...

Friendly neighbors...

Several kind readers commented on the friendly neighbors we have here at Aji...
Lucky as we are, my missus on one of her morning walks in the hills met an acquaintance by accident...
The acquaintance was just heading to her garden plot and woah, my missus found herself coming home with a big head of lettuce, a bunch of 'mamba' greens (sort of like a type of Japanese mustard,belonging to the cabbage family), and some big red turnips...  

These fist-sized red turnips, how I wish I can grow them myself...
Ok, next season Ishall try and see...

My wife sliced the turnips and have them seasoned in vinegar...
We love to eat these stuff...

The 'mamba' is a local favorite vegetable of the people around here...
The leaves are large and with just about three leaves or so, we get a plateful of goodies for dinner...
I tried to grow them but only one plant is surviving now...
And it is as usual, quite 'tiny' due to my low gardening skills...

Now, what happened to the sour oranges we received from another neighbor?
Yes, my missus made marmalade out of them...
She relied on several online recipes and came up with her own concotion...
And, this morning, we had the marmalade with some homemade pancakes... umm...

The marmalade is stored in re-cycled bottles...
We also tried using the concotion for hot drinks...

Ok, a change of topic...
I had posted a picture of the tiger lily...
I mentioned about using the edible bulb into a bean dessert...
The picture above shows the bulb which we bought from the store...
We shall be peeling off the outer 'petals' for consumption...
I plan to keep the innermost layers as a 'seed' to plant in the potager this coming spring...

Camellia, citrus, ta-sai...

Camellias in winter offer one of the few colorful sights in our garden...
The nectar in the flowers attract a very cute small bird call 'mejiro' (Japanese White Eye?)... 
I like the flowers so much that I am contemplating to make a hedge with just the camellia plant...

One reason I enjoy living here is that the neighbors are friendly...
Over the weekend, I made a new friend and was immediately offered some oranges...
These oranges are very sour and are sometimes used for religious purposes...
I am suggesting to my missus to make marmalade out of them..
Then our next door neighbor gave us some 'yuzus' (Japanese citron?)...
This citrus fruit has a very refreshing flavor to it, and we plan to use it for cooking...
Our neighbor prefers to squeeze its juice into some Japanese sake, on the rocks...

Harvested some ta-sai (a type of Chinese green belonging to the cabbage family)...
This vegetable is one of my wife's favorite...
The taste is quite lovely, I must say...
It is highly cold-resistent and easy to grow...

Potager frosted...

Went out to the potager to harvest some rocket and mini radish for breakfast...
Almost let out a scream upon seeing the plants 'frozen'...
The carrots, chard, radish, lettuce, onions, fava beans, snap peas, parsnip... ouch!
Wanted to pour water on them to melt away the ice...
But was stopped by my missus... you will only make it worse.... let nature take its way and wait for the sun to warm them up, she said...
Went off for a function and came back in the afternoon to check...
She was right... the plants had recovered... ahh...
Now I am wondering if I should cover my plots with some protective plastic...

We use green peppers to make 'pizza toast' for breakfast almost everyday...
But we need more 'kick', so next season, I shall be planting more Jalapenos instead...
We grew habaneros once, but ooh, no way we could enjoy that fiery stuff...

We have water lily and lotus in our pond...
The water lily flowers every year but not the lotus...
Perhaps I should add some cowdung into the lotus pot...

'POP' index

I started vegetable-gardening in 2008, expanding the plot-size a bit at a time...
By the end of 2009, the potager was more or less in full swing...
I kept a journal to record the activities and progress...
And why not some indices to track the harvest, I thought...
Some indices that can be used a proxy of how I am doing with the crops...
So I came up with this so-called POP thingy...
Potatoes, Onions, and Pumpkin, that is...

Now, why these three?
Reason is, they can all be conveniently weighed as they are harvested in one go...
I can't do this with other crops like peppers or spinach or okra...

I have two potato crops in a year...
My first ever potato harvest in 2009 yielded 6.1 kgs. and the second, 11.5 kgs.
Not bad...
But in 2010, the yield dropped to 3.1 kgs (planted too many companion plants), and 5.4 kgs. (planted too late in the season)...

We also grow another type of potatoes, the sweet ones...
Sweet potatoes was one of the first crops I took up...
We had 5.5 kgs in 2008, followed by 7.0 kgs in 2009...
In 2010, the racoons got the better of the harvest, leaving us with only about 1.5 kgs...
My wife is fond of red onions...
I grow one crop each year and the harvest for 2009 was 6 kgs...
Again, in 2010, as with potatoes, the yield dropped to 1.5 kgs...

Pumpkins... we love pumpkins...
As in onions, one crop per year...
In 2009, we had 11.6 kgs. of that good stuff...
But come 2010, it was zero kgs... complete failure, that is...
I would love to try growing that Butternut squash or better still that Queensland Blue Pumpkin next season...

Yes, my POP index sort of nose-dived in 2010...
Which can only mean one thing...
That is, to improve that POP thingy in the 2011 season...

Pruning the hedge on new year's day...

I have some vegetables growing in the potager now but they are not much of a photography subject in this weather...
So I am picking a photo or two from sunnier days gone by just to spruce things up...
This pic shows the flowers and pods of lentils...
Malaysians are fond of making a sweet coconut-based desert from these beans...
I just wanted to see how it feels to grow this plant...
Think I shall not be planting it next season...

In April, when we walk in the hills, we can sometimes pick wild berries...
If we are lucky, that is...
These berries tasted quite like raspberries, although not as sweet and flavorful...

Yesterday, 2nd January, was a beautiful day...
No wind, sunny, with a high of about 9 degrees...
Could not resist the urge to go outdoors...
Decided to prune the hedge of Juniperus chinensis or 'Kaizuka'...
They have grown too fast and too dense...
I cannot keep up with their pace...
Am planning to thin them out, carving little ball-like shapes at the end of their branches...
There are about thirty such plants in the property and it is quite a task to prune them...

Then, my missus came out and announced that my mother-in-law had advised me through the phone, to take it easy on the second day of the new year...
The gods are visiting, said mother-in-law... so it is rather impolite to do such 'work' which may offend the gods...
They shall be here until the seventh day of the new year, so it goes...

Oops, no arguing with the missus and no insubordination against the mother-in-law...

Gales on the 1st of January 2011

Looking at the picture above, I can't wait for spring to come...

It was taken one morning in the spring (April) of 2010...

Was returning from a morning walk with my missus in the hills...

And was carrying a gunny-sack of dried leaves to mulch the plots...

The sakura trees in the background are 'natural'...

They offer a beautiful view for us each year...

Today was very windy with a low of 2 degrees and a high of 6...

Went down to the slopes to check out my cauliflower plants...

Arrgh...five cabbage worms were feeding on the cauliflower head...

The tomato plants are still going strong...

Wonder why the crows are not eating them... hehehee...

Planted my potatoes late in October last year...

Due to my returning home to Malaysia, I had missed buying the potato seeds...

A neighbor had offered to give me some of the smaller potatoes he had harvested from the spring season...

Although we know that 'spring' potatoes do not grow that well in autumn, I accepted his offer...

Some of the plants were drying up, and I did not want to risk them being eaten by racoons...

So, with nose a-running in the winds, I harvested them today...

Very nice looking indeed...
They weigh about 5.4 kilograms... not too bad...