From pumpkin seeds to pumpkin shoots

i bought a pumpkin from supermarket. As usual, i will compost the skin and throw away the pumpkin seeds into dustbin. Because i have no place to plant it. Pumpkin need quite a lot of space & time to grow.

But today, i kept the seeds. Of course, u can use this seeds to grow pumpkin. The seeds itself can be eaten as kuaci. U can fry them or roasted them in the oven.

i read from the internet that pumpkin shoots can be eaten. i myself had never try it. So, i purposely keep the seeds this time for pumpkin shoots producing.

i sowed the seeds in a polystyrene box. The seeds germinated within two days. Quite fast!

See....The shoots are ready for harvest! U can wait until the 1st tendril have turn out or U can harvest it as earlier as u want...

The harvest...Peoples usually cook pumpkin shoots with coconut milk. But i do not like my vege in coconut milk. So i just simply stir fried the shoots with oyster sauce & garlic. It taste good. Please take the young shoots only. As peoples on the net said matured leaves taste like sand paper.

Pumpkin shoots are hairy, u can removed the hairy layer if u want. i just simply peel off the hairy layer using my hand, by taking a little piece and peeling down toward the other end. A long piece of hairy layer should come off.  Go all around until all the hairy layer is removed.

It was worth a try.....as the shoots were tasty, pesticide free and easy to grow.After shoots harvesting, u can keep the plant for shoots producing again or u can remove the whole plant & re-sow the pumpkin seeds...since we have a lot of pumpkin seeds...

Please do keep the seeds next time if u ever buy pumpkin from the market...u can easily transform them into tasty + healthy green!

Bayam Hijau (Green Amaranthus)

This was my very 1st experiance on growing my own green amaranthus (bayam hijau). I got the free seeds from En. Iskandar. Thanks a lot! That was my 1st time reading his blog too. From that day onward, i keep track on his blog. Bacause i am very keen to grow my own food in my backyard or even in the container. 

My green amaranthus grow up very fast. Maybe it was the raining season that help a lot beside the chicken manure pellets that i put in.

The green color was look so lovely right? Do u notice that there was a red bayam among the green...

The harvesting time.......The green amaranthus look so beautiful. i harvested the bayam 3 times. For the 1st harvest, i only picked those that already grew up and let the smaller one continue to grow.....

Now, let's see what happen after the bayam was left abandoned for one or two week as i balik kampung.......My bayam had been attacked by small green worm....yiyer...a lot of them! argh! BTW, i purposely kept the red bayam to produce me seeds later on....Ya, i do have the seeds now =)

Kailan

Harvested Kailan yesterday afternoon. Not much. But at least enough for me & Mr. Muscleman. i put it into noodles. i afraid the kailan will be too fibrous, luckily it was not. Still tender & tasty! I love kailan. The price of kailan is usually higher than other green veges in the market. But i hate the leaf miner.

Can u see the white tunnels made by leaf miners?

When the Italian food meet Budu sauce

We ate Spaghetti with Basil Pistachio Pesto for today’s lunch. It was served without the cheese. U can easily look for the pesto recipe in the internet. I made the sauce last week and store in chiller. So it was a speedy lunch. 

However, I felt that the taste wasn't intense enough. So what do I do? 

Haha....so I end up eating spaghetti pesto with budu sauce. Budu sauce??? Ya, u hear me right! What a weird combination right? 

U just needs to add a few drop of budu. Voila! It tastes so much better! The budu sauce really enriched the taste of the spaghetti.

My professor told me that budu is good for us, and tat’s y I bought a small bottle to try it. I found myself quite like the taste of budu. Maybe because my favorite food is asam laksa with strong fish taste. 

Mulberry tree & Seeds

Hurray! I had managed to buy myself a mulberry tree from Putrajaya FLORIA 2012. Very good deal. It only cost me RM7 per tree. So regretted i only bought one. But it is okay, i can grow it myself from the cutting next time. Mulberry tree is very easy to be propagated through cutting.

When i can taste the 1st mulberry fruit???

Besides, i also managed to grab some seeds with very good price. i bought corn seeds and petola or luffa seeds. Last but not least,i bought broad bean seeds (kacang parang)! yeah, u hear me right. It is broad bean! i have not seen broad bean seeds before. But i did try those roasted one as a snack.

Ya, i only have 2 broad bean seeds

Tapioca

I planted tapioca last year using cutting that I brought from my hometown. It is a yellow type tapioca variety. I had seen my mother grow them before. It is so easy to grow. U can just plant the cutting vertically and it is done. My neighbor told me that the tapioca only can be harvested in at least 6 months time. Well, I just planted the tapioca and leave it there….Actually I almost forgot about it. And now come the harvesting part…So excited. A bit like gold miner ..….hehe

Special thanks to Mr. Muscleman for helping me

Harvest of the day

I share these tapiocas with both my left & right neighbors. I used up the smaller size one for dessert and the rest I still dump in the freezer.

5 baby cucumbers

Wao!  I found something amusing. This is a cucumber young shoot with 5 baby cucumbers on it! Amazing right? But I cut it off. I admitted that I am a little regretted. The reason I did that because there is already a cucumber growing on the plant at the same time. If I keep all this baby cucumbers, it will not grow well.  I prefer a well grow big cucumber rather than a few cucumbers that mini size + undernourishment.

Twin baby?

Can I call it twin baby? It blooms at the same time and came out from the same location. But I know, only I of it will grow well…… I found out that my cucumber plant does not do well if there is more than one cucumber grow on the treat the same time. Only if I harvested the big one, then the small one will start to grow well. The plant will also start to bloom more female flower when u harvested the cucumber. ya, my guess is correct. I already harvested the left cucumber but the right one still remain in small size.

Cucumber harvesting again

Ehem.... I harvested another 2 big cucumbers on last week. They are bigger than the previous batch of cucumbers. I gave one to my friend and another one i stir fried it. Not good. This time my cucumber has a bitter taste ><. Luckily the bitter taste was not so obvious after I removed the peel.Enjoy!

Let's eat cucumber-finally

I have a really good time planting cucumber in my backyard. They are really productive!!! 

I will definitely plant them again.

i’ve managed to harvest 5 cucumbers and have a few more on the way. 

Fresh crisp cucumber right from the garden really tastes so good and satisfying. No bitter taste!! Nothing beats the feeling of eating own grow food from my garden!

As a thumb of rule, u can harvest your cucumber in 8-10 days after flowering to prevent it get to old and spongy. 

Taa--daa..finally the fruit of harvesting.Love it!