Harvesting organic papaya

Well - harvesting may be slightly overstating it, when I only got one fruit :) But it's the first one we got off these trees (a previous fruit was taken by someone).

The trees are growing well, although the recent dry weather has not helped particularly, and you can see many fruits in the earlier stages, with couple that should be ready soon


and some flowers too


This was the fruit that was ripe


I was waiting for it all to lose the green colour, but the non-green part was clearly ripe, and if had left it any longer it would have started to rot, or go into someone else's kitchen. I'm not sure why the underside was ripening more, normally I would expect the part exposed to the sun to ripen quicker...


and here it is chopped and ready for breakfast :) I'm not a super fan of papaya, but this one was nice - not too strong a taste and - of course - very fresh. It's called 'honey papaya' - which may be the same as the 'honey dew' variety.

And here is a fact sheet on papaya.

Organic papaya tree growth

Papaya, or Carica papaya, is a tree that grows very easily. The first ones we had started more or less by accident, with some seeds thrown on the ground. We replanted those on the grass verge outside our house, but the first batch were either knocked over or pulled up by a stupid contractor, respectively.

So we eventually planted out another six, of which four have survived till now (though one is at an angle after someone knocked into it). Here are some pictures of the various stages of growth or two of them. The first was in October 2008 (note the red line on the pole behind the left-hand tree, this will give you an idea of the subsequent growth)


The next is about a month after that


Then fast forward five months to April 2009. You can see it didn't grow very much in height, but is more leafy: this period was generally wet, and we also fed it vermicompost and organic compost. The large fruit you see on the right was pinched by someone before we got a chance to harvest it.


Then, four months later in August, they have grown taller but the fruits are slow in coming. I suspect it's because it hasn't been so wet over the last few months. The fruits are also curved, perhaps for the same reason.


Some random things about papaya:
* "It is the first fruit tree to have its genome deciphered." (Wikipedia/Science News)
* Some people say that the juice of boiled papaya leaf helps dengue, but I wouldn't count on it.
* Also - the papaya fruit is actually a mild laxative.

Organic chilies harvest

Sorry to anyone out there for not posting for ages, I will try to do better from now on. Brief but regular :)

Cili padi (bird's eye chili) are a favourite of most Malaysians, but not that easy to grow I find. They need a well drained soil and tend to do better in pots. Most of our previous attempts failed miserably but this time - aided by loving care from WW and perhaps our vermicompost - it's looking good :)

This was on May 10th


And this is today!


You can see the flower in the foreground, and how the chili still has the remains of the flower on it as it grows


Here you can see it going red - these chilies are hot, and quite sweet


Here are various stages of growth


and a 'field of chilies' :)

Palm tree flowers with bees

We have two palms at the back of the garden.
I'm not sure what type they are, but it is similar to the MacArthur palm (Ptychosperma macarthurii) - the similarties are that it grows in clusters, and has a similar seed thing, but I never remember seeing red seeds on it. I'd say it's definitely some kind of Ptychosperma, but which one I'm not sure...

A few days ago, I noticed that the seed/flower stalks had burst into bloom - I'd never noticed the flowers there before. Maybe it's the recent hot and dry weather.


Closer up, I saw that it was buzzing with bees!




On this one you can see the pollen that has been collected (a 'pollen sac'?)


Based on the picture of the flowers here, it looks like a Ptychosperma elegans - aka 'Alexander Palm', but the seeds are also red. Maybe I just never paid enough attention to the seeds.

In fact, I have taken to pulling off the flower stalk, as my father-in-law suggested - in order to stop lots of little trees growing up. But now I feel kind of guilty, having seen the bees enjoying the flowers so much!


It reminded me of one of the paradoxes of gardening - I like to think of myself as using the garden to get closer to nature, using organic means, caring for the environment and all that; but in the end of the day, a garden is such an unnatural environment :/

Planting Organic Lemongrass - The Return!

[No posts at all for the whole of April! Tsk tsk...]

I had previously tried growing some organic lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus), which ended in a resounding FAIL! But then a helpful reader (A Canadian in King Parakramabahu's Court) suggested getting the roots going in a glass first before putting it in the ground.

So I tried it out - after a few days, the stalks started growing out


and there was some root growth


I stripped off the outer leaves


and cut the stalks back too (because someone else had told me that this would encourage root growth)


Only four days later, the results were impressive! Lots more roots


and the stalks have grown back too


I've been lazy since then and have not transferred to a pot, but I will do asap and report back :)

myBlogS 2009 - Malaysian Blog Survey

I have not been updating for a while - not because our garden has stopped growing, but because I'm well busy with this

It's for my research into the monetisation of Malaysian blogs - I'm doing an anthropology PhD on the Malaysian blogosphere, focusing on how monetisation is affecting blogs, bloggers, and blogging.

If you read Malaysian blogs, please take the time (5-10 minutes for blog readers, 10-15 minutes for bloggers) to do the survey. As a token of appreciation, there's a prize draw for participants - the top prizes are Platinum Movie Suite vouchers. The summarised results will be posted online once I have compiled them.

And feel free to tell anyone you know who may be interested! :)

Click here to do the Malaysian Blog Survey

For the gardeners out there - here's a picture of some colourful iridescent beetles - I'm not sure if they are good or bad for the plants, but they look nice anyway :)

Elephant's Ear propagation

We have an Elephant's Ear in the corner of our garden under a palm tree. It appeared by accident, but I think it's no coincidence as the Elephant Ear likes compost (according to this useful guide to 'General Aroid Care'), and that's where we put a lot of the larger waste that we can't fit in the compost bins.


The official name is Alocasia macrorrhizos, and another name is Giant Taro.


As you can see, it spreads easily too - it is known as a hardy plant that can also survive in less favourable environments, and works as a house plant too.



It spreads by stolons that form corms - here you can see the roots, or stolons I'm not sure, coming out of the stem.