Saffron, figs, etc...

Just returned home to Japan after a little visit to my native country, Malaysia...

It is about 5 degrees here, compared to about 30 degrees in Malaysia...

Shot these pictures some time ago but did not have the opportunity to post them...
The above shot is that of the Crocus sativus...
We have quite a few bulbs but have not been taking good care of them...
Still, we can harvest some saffron from the flowers (which we use for cooking)...
Apparently, the saffron is among the most expensive spices in the world...

Had the opportunity to harvest a few fruits from our fig tree...
We got their seedlings from a neighbor some years ago...

They tasted really sweet and good...
Next season, I certainly plan to give more care to this plant as figs are one of my favorite, favorite fruits...

The Chingen-sai, as this vegetable is called in Japan, was thriving well before we left for Malaysia...
I took a look at the potager after coming home today...
Hmmm, they looked kind of wrinkled, probably from the effects of the cold...
And yes, I mean, no... the wild boars have definitely made their mark on my potager...
Their foot prints can be found here and there on the beds...

The Chingen-sai stir-fried with a little ginger and garlic...
 Lovely taste...

The cauliflower plant is still growing well, despite the cold...

The lettuce too, is thriving and giving us a lot to chew on...

The Komatsu-na too, is quite resistant to the cold and is growing well..

This is the last post for the year 2012.... I'd like to wish all my friends and readers a very happy 2013, and may the new year bring you and your loved ones much joy and happiness...

Beans, winged and long... and nuts of the pea-type...

Tried to grow for three seasons, winged beans from seeds taken back from Malaysia...

But no cigar... just as the plants began to flower, winter came along and killed them all...

Could it be that these these beans are too used to the perennial summer conditions in Malaysia so much so that they could not adapt to the changing seasons in Japan?

Finally purchased some seeds from a dealer in Japan...

And woah, the accumulative harvest came to about 200 pods...

Meanwhile, long bean seeds taken back from Malaysia coped very well with conditions here...

For many seasons, they have been fruiting quite profusely...

Sometimes, my missus cooked these long beans omelet styled...

They taste good, I must say...

Peanuts... yeap, I love growing them... and of course, eating them too...

Last summer, had three plots of them...

Forgot to weigh the harvest but it was quite substantial by our standards...

Am enjoying the nuts bit by bit these days...

Japanese yam aka 'Jinenjo' and the Beautiful Blog Award...

While walking the hills near our home one day two or three years ago, my suweeto haato suggested that we harvest the 'jinenjo' (自然薯 literally, 'natural yam') that were growing in the wild...

We, more like I, dug at one plant, and boy, it turned out to be heavy duty work...

'Jinenjo' is a climber... perennial... native of Japan... scientific name, Dioscorea japonica... common name, Japanese yam or glutinous yam...

We took back some 'seeds' which I believe are actually 'fruits' that grow on their vines...

We like to joke that they resemble 'small potatoes' growing in the air...

This is a close-up of the 'little potatoes'... diameter varies from half to one centimeter...

The Japanese folks call them 'mukago' and they combine very well with rice... so much so that there is a term call 'mukago gohan'...  'gohan' being rice... the taste is really very good...

This is how the tuber looks like...
Their flesh is white in color and they have a very high viscosity (?) level, that is, they are very 'sticky' or 'glue-ish'....
Lovely, lovely vegetable... as we can enjoy both the 'fruits' and the 'tubers'...

I'd like to dedicate this post to Ash of 'Houris in the Garden' who graciously nominated my humble blog for the Beautiful Blog Award... 
I am most honored and would like to thank her for the gesture...
However, I would like to ask Ash to forgive me because due to time constraints among other things, I am not able to fulfill the several things I should do in order to accept the award... one of which is to pass the award onwards as requested... 

Once again, thank you, thank you, for thinking of my blog...

Wild grapes...

Had a 'bumper' harvest from the wild grapes in our property...

All in all, 2.2 kilograms... whoopee...

This, compared to last year when I could hardly get any harvest...

Perhaps there is some truth in plants alternating between bumper harvest and poor harvest... no?

There is absolutely no need to take care of them...

All I did was to prune them down, and rather brutally at that too...

The fruits are just about 5 millimeters in diameter...

There is little flesh in them...

And the best way to enjoy them, I thought, was to turn them into juice...

Managed to make about 12 liters of delicious wild grape juice from them...

No additives of any kind... and with each sip, hmmm, the feeling of pure delight...

Red shiso...

My missus bought a red shiso plant some years ago...

And for all the following years, they have been self-seeding in our potager...

They are part of the mint family, so they have 'relatives' like the basil, sage, lemon balm...

Flowers are rather minute and quite pretty...

There are not many ways to use this herb...

I sometimes make juice out of it...
And occasionally, I boil them to use in our baths...  

The Japanese folks use them (together with salt) to preserve plums...
Of course, we do likewise too... with plums from our potager....

Akebi aka Chocolate vine...

This plant is a novelty... native of Japan...

The Japanese folks call them 'Akebi' while the English speaking world labels it 'chocolate vine' because their flowers seem to smell like chocolate... 

We are very lucky to have these vines growing wildly in our property...

Ours is the three-leaved variety as opposed to the five-leaved ones that can be found in the nearby hills...

The fruits do not look attractive when green...

However, they take on a very pretty pinkish-purple tone as they ripen...

At the same time, the fruit splits vertically from top to bottom, revealing a whitish pulp....

Birds love this flesh as we sometimes observed empty fruits that are either left dangling on the vines or have dropped onto the ground...

We carefully split open the pulp and were pleasantly surprised to see the insides being quite 'intricately designed'...

The taste is faintly sweet... the seeds can be quite bitter if chewed on...

Just out of curiosity, we tried cooking the skin with some miso sauce...

The taste was slightly bitter and some Japanese folks say that it goes well with Japanese wine (sake)...

Pumpkin 'art' and the two loofahs...

Pumpkins are believed to originate from North America...
The Japanese call them 'kabocha', which rhymes with Kampuchea...
Apparently, to the Japanese, the pumpkin came into Japan from Cambodia, hence the name...

Our pumpkin harvest is not too bad this year...

All in all, we manage to harvest seven fruits of this 'Ebisu' specie...

With no scissors on hand, I just ripped the stalks off from this pumpkin...
And woah, do I see a 'bird' here?

And this one... a little monster flexing its muscles?

Now, the loofah is supposed to originate from India...
We grow both types...
The pictures above shows the Egyptian loofah which is rather smooth-skinned...

I observe that it flowers in the morning...

The second type is the angled loofah...

They seem to prefer flowering in the evening...

My sweeto haato prefers the smooth-skinned Egyptian... better taste, she says...
Rather unfortunately for her, our angled loofahs were more productive this season...
Perhaps, 43 angled loofahs compared to about 30 Egyptian loofahs...
In any case, we usually make soups out of them...

Chestnut, pumpkin, beets, and rocoto...

Tried planting chestnut for the first time last year...

The strain we chose is called 'Porotan'...

Don't ask me why it is called such a name, but they are supposed to be easy to peel...

We could manage only one fruit... yes, only one, weighing a great 35 grams... ;=)

 

Actually, there were four fruits forming...

They eventually dropped off before they could fully mature...

Our butter scotch pumpkin did not do as well this year...

Yes, we could harvest only one fruit...

Compared to 6 fruits last season... 

Wonder why, really... 

Beets... just harvested a bunch of them, and was quite amused to see one of them taking on the shape of the bottle gourd...  

Rocoto peppers... yes, from seeds given to me by a former student from Peru...

Their color combination on the insides are really fascinating to observe...

I plan to ask my sweeto haato to preserve them in vinegar...

Bitter gourd, pumpkin, and long beans...

Been very busy with work lately...

Bitter gourd is standard fare on our dining table... 

My sweeto haato specifically says, 'grow the long type and not the stubby type'...

They are quite easy to grow... at this point of time, we have on record a harvest of 54 fruits...

My missus tried to make this dish (known as Yong Tau Foo in Malaysia) and they tasted, yes, bitter... but good...

Pumpkin too, is a staple for us in the summer...

This season, managed to harvest five of them, totaling 8.1 kilos...

Gave one to a neighbor...

I don't know what it is but the yellow pumpkin seeds I bought from Los Angeles some time ago had never given me any good harvest...

After growing to a certain size, they begin to wrinkle away, and eventually, drop off altogether...

So, I decided to just harvest them young, very young...

We had them with the bitter gourd dish above...

Long beans... I love...

They are a very convenient veggie to grow...

You harvest and they keep producing...

Flowers... of Soap wort, Oregano, Jerusalem artichoke, and Lotus...

Japan is in the midst of the O-bon season, as in All Souls Day...

The university is closed for a full week... 

Put in the two weekends, and yours truly is only too happy to be having a 9-day break...

Which means, an excellent opportunity to catch up with the chores in the potager...

Yes, it is a joy to be able to work in the garden, but still, the heat... ooh, it's killing...

We have been trying to grow this soap wort for a while now...

Am happy to see that they are growing well...

Belongs to the carnation family and has sweet smelling flowers...

Apparently can be used as a mild soap but we haven't tried doing so...

The wild marjoram a.k.a. oregano looks pretty but my missus prefers the sweet marjoram for cooking...

And so is the Jerusalem artichoke... it looks pretty...

We tried eating their tubers but did not quite like their taste...

The mini-lotus flower is doing beautifully in the pond... 

Blueberries, corn, eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes...

Oooh hooo... the temperatures these days...

The highs oscilate between 35 and 36 degrees....

Scorching.... burning.... brutal...

Each day during the weekends when I do the garden, I need to change my garden clothes three to four times, alternating between two sets of clothes...

Had planted three blueberry seedlings some years ago...

This year, they are fruiting quite substantially...

Each day, we get to harvest a little bit of the fruits...

We take them with our yogurt for breakfast...

Corn is really doing well, despite being attacked by pests...

We love the taste of home-grown corn so much that we decided to buy more seeds...

They are now beginning to germinate and we hope to see some harvest in October....

Planted only one eggplant this season...

They are heavy feeders and they need quite a bit of water....

Next season, I shall add one more seedling as my sweeto haato is beginning to like eggplants...

As with the eggplant, I have only one zucchini plant....

It is just sufficient for the two of us...

Tomatoes are a regular member at our potager...

We can't get enough of them...

My missus sometimes cooks some lovely Ratatouille with the tomatoes, zucchini, and eggplant together with some other ingredients...