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...

The harvest continues...

Was thrilled to have a week off from the university...

In this 'o-bon' (all souls?) season, the Japanese folks take time off from work to pay respects to their deceased ancestors...

For me, this presents an excellent opportunity for me to spend time in the potager...

Still, the heat is a bit too stifling...   

Which need not necessarily be a bad thing...

For I can sweat it out in the mornings when it is still rather tolerable...

And after my tea break at 10:00 am, I get into a change of gear and head out to the sea...

For the first time since we moved here years ago, I am truly beginning to cherish the joys of  frolicking at the sea...

Each day, thankfully, we have something to harvest...

Pumpkin, which weighed about 1.9 kilograms...

Cucumbers so crunchy and fresh...

Tomatoes so sweet and juicy...

We dug out our potatoes some time ago...

The harvest was not the best we had...

No complains though, as the scales tipped at a little over 3 kilograms...

And my sweeto haato turned the potatoes into this...

A mixture of several ingredients...

Urmmm... simple yet heavenly it was...

Was never successful with water melons, so to say...

But this season, not too bad... 

This one was about 1.6 kilograms...

Just nice for the two of us, for two fruit-courses after lunch...

The bitter gourds are turning out pretty well... 

And as the label implies, they are truly bitter although we should say that 'bitter' stuff is not one of our weak areas...

The watermelon as it was...

Juicy, sweet, and sooo refreshing when consumed in the heat of summer...

Autumn delights

Mid to late autumn is the season when the morning sun rays are well positioned to light up one of our three stone lanterns...
This lantern sits right in our view as we chew on our breakfast goodies each morning...


Your truly is not much of a vegetable gardener as yet... the dry summer almost killed the eggplants but the autumn rains save the day for us... so, we got to taste these plump looking fuits...


Plus, of course, our favorite bitter gourd, and the loofah which made good soup... oooh...


These are Jalapeno peppers... not that spicy so to say... but they are quite meaty and delicious to savor...


For some years, I have failed to produce any pumpkin from the garden... but this year, woah, 14 pumpkins big and small... cooked one small one the other day, and hmmm, wholesome, chewy, and not overly sweet... we are keeping them for winter consumption... waaah...