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 to grow, especially the pumpkin. I already have some long beans planted and the chayote is starting to flower now. It’s going to be crowded in my garden.
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…
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…
Kohlrabi is in the family of brassicas which includes cabbages, brocolli, cauliflower, kale, collard greens and brussel sprouts. The word kohlrabi is a German word meaning cabbage and turnip. I guess its because it look like a turnip but tastes like a cabbage. I decided to plant Kohlrabi because I was curious about the taste…
SINGKAMAS- Jicama, Mexican yam, chop suey yam, yam bean. Singkamas or jicama is a very popular summer savory snack in the Philippines.
Water chestnuts are synonymous to Chinese cuisine. They are the ones that makes water chestnuts popular all over the world except we only see them mostly in cans. Once in a while you will see them in Chinatown but you probably will not recognize it because they look like the corms of certain flowering plants…
The popularity of kale as a cancer-fighting vegetable made me decide to plant some. I started with seeds and the variety is called “Toscano”. It is a plain-leaf type. Some kales have curly leaves. Some are called ornamental kales because of their different colors and mostly used as decorative plant in the garden. I have…