Bittermelon/Ampalaya

I always plant Okra in my garden. It is an indispensable ingredient in the famous Filipino recipe called “Pinakbet”. I actually just cook that today. I gathered enough eggplants, bittermelons, okra and winged beans today that compelled me to make pinakbet. I also gathered some tomatoes which is also an important ingredient for pinakbet. I…

I like beans, long beans, green beans, winged beans I like them all. But I always have more fun growing pole beans. There are also bush beans variety but I prefer pole beans because it gives more yield I think. I just transplanted these on the ground. Normally I would plant it directly on the…

Chinese Broccoli also known as Kai-lan or Gai-lan is one of my favorite vegetable to grow. It is also my favorite vegetable to stir-fry. I first encountered these delectable leafy vegetable when I traveled to Hongkong a decade or so ago. Most of the restaurants in Hongkong serve these delicious leafy greens mixed with meat,…

Malunggay/ moringa (Moringa Oleifera) is also known as horseradish tree because the roots taste just like horseradish.  It is also called drumstick tree because the fruit or bean pod is long.  The fruit is segmented in a triangle and has lot of seeds inside.  In the Philippines, we used the fruit or beans as vegetable. …

Three weeks after sowing and the pumpkin seedlings are doing good so are the winged beans and the hyacinth beans. I actually planted the winged beans on the ground yesterday. I like to wait a little bit for the pumpkin and the hyacinth beans plus I need to make room for them. They need room…

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…