Togi/Wild root starch

Bataw or Lablab is a relative of the purple-hyacinth bean. It is a very versatile bean because you can use it in almost all type of cooking that requires beans. I particularly like to cook it stirfry with pork and shrimp. It takes a while before the seeds germinate after sowing but when it does…

Cucumber or pipino as we call it in the Philippines is my favorite salad vegetable. I also make pickle out of it. But I really don’t have luck in growing cucumbers. Last month, a friend of mine gave me some seeds which he said came from Sri Lanka. I immediately planted it and see how…

  We have been using squash flowers for as long as I can remember in cooking.  But the method is just simple.  Removing the anthers first and then mixing it with other vegetables seasoned with fish sauce is the norm.  But I found out that the popularity of using the flowers in the modern culinary…

I just started some long beans seeds (sitaw). Not all of them showed up yet but this is what it looks like when they emerge from the soil. It’s not quite ready for transplanting yet. I have to wait for what they call “true” leaves before moving them to the garden bed. I already set…

Patola is what we call the luffa gourd. There are two types of this gourd but I am only familiar with the one that has angles or ridges on the skin. This is the specie called Luffa Acutangula. The other specie must have been introduced in the Philippines at a later date. We call it…

Kalabasa or pumpkin is a favorite vegetable of mine. I like to cook them in coconut milk with shrimp and a little bit of curry powder. It’s so delicious especially with ginger and lemon grass as added flavoring. It is easy to grow. When it starts to flower, you can gather the flowers too for…