Petola Sarang / Loofah Gourd / Luffa aegyptiaca & Seed Giveaway

Lush petolas hanging down and climbing on windows

Sorry for the long silence, dear friends. I didn't feel like blogging in a long time, and I even stopped visiting all my blog friends here for a while. Right after I posted my last entry, I went to check on my cats and found Yoruichi dead. I was quite sad at her loss, especially after she survived against all the odds. She was a brave, loving girl, and I guess she fought so that she can spend her last days at home with us. Every time I looked at my blog I am reminded of her. Then not long after that we went for Umrah, which was truly a gift from Allah the Most Beneficient. Perhaps I shall write a bit about my experiences there in later entries. And then did some more to-ing and fro-ing due to hubby's work. The heavy monsoon rains derailed a lot of gardening, and my garden began to resemble the Jung-Den (Jungle Garden) it is named after. Haha. And now really I am in the middle of reorganising the house, but that also led to reorganising the garden... and fond memories of my blogging friends... and now I guess here I am.

Current partial view of my Jung-Den. In the background is the cat enclosure,  its roof completely taken over by a single petola plant. Foreground: The same petola plant on black netting. As you can see it is very cool beneath this green canopy :-)

Can you tell that the petola plant is fruiting prolifically? I guess it is pretty happy at its present location, right next to the kitty waste + kitchen waste compost bin *wink wink*

Top view of petola plant interspersed with kacang sepat / lablab beans on top of black netting. They are fighting over dominion of the skies! 

We were quite pleased that the petola plant chose to clamber all over the cat enclosure roof, as we feel the leaves will provide shade and some odour-proofing.

The very first petola gourd I noticed. :-) This was back in early October 2012.

The same baby petola all grown up :-) I gave this baby away.

Freshly cut petola, to be eaten with sambal belacan or enjoyed raw as it is. Surprisingly nice. It took me awhile to learn how to harvest big petolas that have not gone to fiber yet. Leave them too long on the plant and they will have some inedible fibers in them.

What I had for lunch today: petola, kacang sepat, sweet potato leaves and cekur manis leaves stir fried with fermented black beans (taucu) and dried fish (ikan bilis).

Another stir fry: onions, chili, petola and ikan bilis. I have also made soups with petola.

Peeling off the skin of a dried petola. Note the latte colour of the skin. This seems to denote the perfect time to harvest these gourds for loofahs.

Peeled loofah and dried skin next to it. Shake the loofah and you get seeds!

The above is the first loofah I peeled. It was gorgeous. By Allah's graciousness, the first petola my neighbour chose to peel was the perfect one. The others we peeled were at too advanced a state of decomposition, with grey fungus growing on the fibers.

Now for the giveaway bit. If you are interested in growing your own petola, I have a limited amount of seeds to give away. Just drop me an email at homelychaos(at)gmail(dot)com with your name and email address and I will send them to you. Offer stands while stocks last. :-)

How I Grew My Own Wheatgrass at Home (Quick & Dirty Method)

Buy some organic wheatberries. I got mine from the local organic and health food store. About RM10 per kilo. I used about 3 handfuls of wheatberries.

Day 1: Soak overnight in filtered water.

Day 2 and Day 3: For the next 2 days, rinse the wheatberries every 12 hours or so, and keep covered with a moist cloth.

Day 3-4: When you see tiny tails shooting out of the berries, move these to trays containing potting mix. I recycled some food containers that would otherwise be thrown away.

Day 5: These look like little, pale spring onions.

Day 5-12: Place the tray where it will receive some indirect light, for example your kitchen window or front porch, or balcony. Make sure there are no animals that might disturb the tray, or even worse, burrow in it! :-)

Day 7. Looks promising :-)

Water everyday. Either spray/mist lightly, or carefully pour water at the edge of the tray. Don't overwater, unless you have to be away from home for a few days.

Day 12: When you see the beginnings of a second shoot on your wheatgrass sprout, you are ready to harvest!

Day 12: ready to harvest!

I harvest a couple of inches above the roots for safety reasons. Don't want to get any dirt or nasties into my wheatgrass.

I harvested 1 and a half containers today. The slightly longer grass was from when I harvested yesteday. 

Then I juice them using the manual juicer below:

Yield: 1 1/2 tablespoons, according to my measuring cup here.

Smell: Mossy.

Taste: Slightly leafy but overwhelmingly sweet. I drank it neat, no addition of sugar, lemon or water.

Verdict: A bit tedious having to rinse and water but after a while it gets easier. Now I might try having several staggered batches going on at the same time. I might start a new batch every time I get to the point where I move the wheatberries onto potting mix. So fresh wheatgrass everyday.

Warning: If you are new to green juices, it is a good idea to start slow, because excess green juice can cause diarrhea. I started at 1/2 tablespoon, and am slowly working my way up to 2 tablespoons or more. Also drink on an empty stomach so the juice can be digested quickly. I once drank wheatgrass juice after lunch and I had a LOT of flatulence.

Main reference: Wheatgrass Greenhouse

Thank You Ummu Aidan :-)

These were waiting in my mailbox today :-)

A big barak Allahu feekum to Ummu Aidan of Aku di Fiji Islands for her kind gift of these not-available-where-I-am seeds :-)))))) Am so excited to find this after a long day of hard travelling. Insha Allah these will be sown soon!

Tremulously Tuberous: Carrots, Radish, Turnip?

Travelling and life got in the way of gardening pursuits. Also I was distracted when Miss Poogey, a cat who hangs around for the free food, brought her kittens to live with us. Yes. There are signs of my pots and styrofoam boxes being dug up by these curious kitties. Unfortunately I don't have a good picture of them because they are extremely unfriendly. One of them bit me when I took hold of her/him/it, and all I see of them are their little tails as they scurry away to hide from scary ole me. 

Yesterday I finally sowed another batch of carrots:

• Topweight
• Mixed Heritage
• Dragon
• Early Scarlett Horn

So today I thought I'd update on the other carrots here in my humble garden.

My BBS009 F1 hybrid carrots from Serbajadi have flowered, and gone to seed. There are about 4 blooms from this single flowering carrot.

Topweight carrots under the shade of a Rangoon creeper. I really think they need the sunshine. 

A potato that started sprouting on my kitchen counter continued its existence sharing a spot with a tomato plant. I did not plan this companion planting buddy but their roots were so closely intwined in their previous pot, that I just moved both of them without disturbing the roots too much.

Sweet potato, of the purple variety, I think. Aunty Kan gave me the cuttings, I stuck them in this styrofoam container, and now they are spilling outwards. Also bloomed a few times, a light purple flower similar to morning glories.

I think these are Paris Market carrots and parsnips.

Purple Dragon carrots in their purplish-coloured pot. I am not sure why this one has its leaves spread out.

To be honest I've forgotten what these are: Snowball Turnips or Watermelon radish? Help! Next to it is a tiny heirloom beetroot.

Heritage mixed carrots in a pot that si perhaps too small. Poor things.

Topweight carrots again, in a pot. Huge pot. The tiny Sergeant from Ali Baba Bujang Lapuk can easily fit in.

Blooming Bounties

Giant Russian Sunflower. Not as big as they should be, maybe due to lack of sunshine while growing and not enough fertiliser (lazy gardener!)

Sawi Menang flowering. I read in EjaMaria's blog that she has new seedlings from a sawi plant she let go to seed. So yeay for that.

Turkish Leopard Melon. Now it looks a bit yellowish, I fear it might be a bit sick. I have fertilised it and sprayed some organic pesticide on it. Hoping for the best.

Peria katak flowering and in need of more support! Though some of the newer tendrils have learnt to climb the wooden post by themselves...

Purple bunga telang. I was pretty sure they were single-petaled before.. now they seem double-petaled. On the left behind the grills is Miss Pongkey :-)

Snake/long bean, bush-type. Profusely flowering after addition of blended ikan patin guts as fertiliser. :-)

Sweetcorn Kelvedon Glory F1. These are barely up to my knee and already flowering? Oh nooo. I wonder what to do with them now, shall I leave them be? Or lob the flowering bit off? I was away for several days and did not ask the neighbours to water my plants, thinking that it rains almost everyday. Well, apparently not.

Urban Hornbills/Enggang near Urban Gardens

Hornbill viewing its domain. Saw this during my morning walk around my housing area. It was a rather chilly (for the tropics!) and gloomy morning, excellent time to go and exercise without sweating too much. Sorry for the poor quality of the photo, this was taken using my camera phone, and then enlarged.

Aunty Kan invited me to join her for her morning walk. I was glad I did, it was fun chit-chatting and peeking into other neighbours' gardens (hahaha what busybodies we are!)

Then I spotted the above hornbill on a tree. There were 2 of them. I remembered as a child here I used to see a pair of hornbills often near my school. I guess these majestic looking birds mate for life. As we got closer, its partner flew away, and soon enough, this one flew off too. It has been years since I last saw one. I do wonder whether they can still be found at my old school.

I found an old article from the Star on dwindling numbers of hornbills, due to destruction of swampland and peat forests. There was a swamp not far from my school, and I used to see brightly coloured kingfishers there all the time. There is a reserve forest near my school as well, though the areas bordering it have been replaced by luxurious million-ringgit houses. Sigh.

Finally Getting to It!

After a delay of a few days, I was finally able to get down and dirty in the garden last Saturday 25 August. Perhaps calling it a garden is stretching the truth a bit. There is no symmetry, nor organised beauty in my haphazard planting, raising new beds nor placing of various differently-shaped styrofoam boxes. Suits the name Homely Chaos, indeed. Letting go of my inner Miss Perfectionist means more fun experimenting, learning and exploring.

My parcel from Kebun Bahagia Bersama arrived on Wednesday after Eid, sadly I was not home during attempted delivery by PosLaju. On Thursday morning I managed to pick it up from the post office. It contained seeds, bulbs and some cuttings of tree dahlia. The bulbs especially, really should be planted ASAP. Various errands and engagements made me plan to garden that Thursday night, when I have replaced the light bulbs so that I can work in the dark. Disappointingly the lights did not work despite changing the bulbs, so that plan was postponed to the next morning.

Then early Friday morning, we received the shocking news that my dear cousin passed away, a jovial, healthy male of 38, at the prime of his life. We dropped everything and made for the funeral, which was to take place the same day. Meeting his family was heartbreaking, but they bore their loss well, with fortitude and acceptance. I passed the day trying to keep busy, but it is only today that I really grieved.

So the gardening helped make me feel thankful to be alive, and chased away the clouds of sadness.

I managed to plant:

• 1 Tulbaghia bulb
• 2 Agapanthus bulbs
• 6 Gladioli bulbs
• 1 Oriental lily bulb
• 1 Oriental lilium bulb
• 3 Asiatic lilium bulbs

Agapanthus bulbs in a styrofoam box. What? Because I ran out of pots and it is too hot to prepare a bed. I don't want to put this off any longer.

Asiatic Lilium. This pot formerly held some Tigerella plants, which didn't do well. In the background is my weed-like kangkong, aiming for world domination.

I also sowed:

• White carrots
• Guernsey parsnips
• Cherokee butter beans
• Purple bush beans
• Mixed heirloom beetroot
• Sweet peas

I also repotted:

• Black pepper plant
• Green zebra tomatoes into recycled tyres, with bamboo stakes

Black pepper plant in pot near a pole. Er, 2 poles. Oh well.

Yellow pear cherry tomatoes. I wondered if these were twin mutant tomatoes until a few days later I realised these are the gourd-shaped cherry toms. Haha.

My neighbour Aunty Kan who also got bit by the 'grow your food' bug, invited me to her garden to see the changes so far. She grew these gorgeous looking leafy veggies from the Mixed Lettuce seeds, originally from Pun Pun Organic Farm.

Pretty mixed lettuces from Pun Pun Organic Farm, grown by Aunty Kan.

Aunty Kan also grew some Rainbow Chard from some seed I gave her, but strangely enough hers are all white or green, whereas mine were all pink or red-stemmed.

Pretty rainbow chard.

I feel a Rainbow Swap coming up soon-ish...