Monthly Archives: February 2008

Local Cucumbers

Posted on February 29, 2008 | Leave a comment

In Singapore, we have a type of cucumber that we are very familiar with. However, till this day, I am still not quite sure what is the category it belongs to! I have seen some seed catalogs putting it as a type of ‘Oriental’ cucumber.

The fruits of this cucumber are usually straight and the flesh is crispy and not bitter. The rind is smooth and does not have any prominent spines.

The younger, green fruits of this cucumber variety we have here features itself most commonly as slices which form an indispensable part of a local dish, Hainanese chicken rice. Another local dish which we can see it being used is in the Malay roasted meat skewers, called satay. In the latter, this cucumber are cut into cubes rather than slices.

Older fruits of this cucumbers, which many people may not be aware, are the ‘old cucumbers’ that the Chinese here use to boil soup. The older fruits have a brown rind and are much larger and many people thought it could have been another type of cucumber.

Cucumbers are easy to grow and they grow at a quite fast pace in Singapore. However, they are susceptible to a multitude of pests and diseases, notably, downy mildew and aphids, are two most common problems that we face here. Unless action is taken, vines succumb very quickly and they die off rather rapidly. Viral diseases will also be prevalent if there is an existing sucking insect infestation too.

The younger fruits that are green skinned are used like a slicing cucumber.

The rind of older fruits of this cucumber turn into a brownish colour and are used in soups.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Vegetables

Tagged

Tree with ‘potato chip’ leaves and fruits that wear ear muffles!

Posted on February 28, 2008 | 3 Comments

The elephant apple tree is one stately tree that I am very fond of. Initially I wasn’t aware what this tree was and only got to know its identity as well as more information about it from a book published by NParks – Trees of our Garden City: A Guide to the Common Trees of Singapore.

Botanically known as Dillenia indica, it is a tree that is native to this part of the world. The origin of this tree’s common name is derived from the belief that elephants eat its fruits. It is a medium-sized tree that grows up to 8 m tall. If you can afford the space, grow one elephant apple tree! Let me tell you why you should do that… 

The leaves of this tree are quite interesting – they are quite large and have a rib-like appearance with toothed margins. In my opinion, all these characteristics make the leaves of this tree somewhat resemble ruffled potato chips although their shapes differ quite a bit!

I took the pictures below in my university’s grounds. Several elephant apple trees are planted next to the University Hall and coincidentally, they are all fruiting and this was the first time that I witnessed this!

The yellowish green fruits are quite big and larger than those of our edible apples. In the book – Trees of our Garden City: A Guide to the Common Trees of Singapore – it was stated that the elephant apple trees are not planted near the roadside because of the sheer size of the fruits. You can imagine how a falling fruit can make a dent on the roof of the car! That probably explains why it is also not planted in our open carparks, though it can provide some form of shade.

The fruits are unique and interesting to look at. They have a cover over them (technically, it is the calyx) and because there are two of such covers on opposite sides of each fruit, it looks as if they are putting on ear muffles or wearing some form of a head-dress!

These fruits are, in fact, edible (to my surprise!) but are said to be acidic and hence sour. They are usually pickled or cooked before consumption.

The elephant apple tree makes a good specimen tree in any garden.

 

Don’t the ribbed appearance of the leaves make them look like the Cottage Fries brand of ruffled potato chips?

What a bumper crop of elephant apples!

 

The persistent calyx makes the fruit look as if it is wearing ear muffles or a hat – I leave it up to your own imagination!

→ 3 Comments

Posted in Trees

Tagged ,

The other Red Okra that I grew before…

Posted on February 27, 2008 | 4 Comments

Red lady’s fingers as they are known here in Singapore, was once a novelty when it first appeared in the nurseries about three years ago.  Lady’s fingers are more widely known as ‘okra’ in the West. Now, the red okra has become quite common and can be found almost in every community garden in Singapore.

Because of the unfamiliar colour of the fruits, many people thought they were more of ornamental rather than edible. On the plant, the fruits actually look quite decorative. The fruits are, in fact, edible only when they are young. When cooked and the red fruits fade to the usual green when they are exposed to heat.

I personally find red okra tends to turn fibrous more rapidly than the usual green ones. Hence, red okras need to be harvested quite young, when the fruits are still short. Rather than providing rigid measures as an indication of the right time to harvest, I rather let people know the traditional way we use here. All one needs to do is to try to bend the pointed tip of the lady’s finger fruit. When it is still soft and ‘bendable’, the fruits are still tender and hence good for the dinner table. When they become too stiff to bend, the fruits are so-called ‘over-ripe’ or ‘old’ and should not be harvested. They will be too fibrous to eat and some people ‘soften’ these by cooking under prolonged heating by using them in curries.

Below are some pictures of the red okra variety F696 from Known You Seeds. The description of this variety from the website is given below:

“This attractive-looking red okra is about 13 g in weight, 11 x 1.8 cm diameters, with some spines, and five angles. It can usually be picked around 46 days from sowing. The red color may fade away when cooked and becomes pale green.”

However, I harvested these fruits the last time when they were around 8 cm. My family finds the fruits quite fibrous when they were longer. They can be harvested quite quickly – about 4 to 6 days after the flowers fade.

→ 4 Comments

Posted in Vegetables

Tagged , ,

My Epiphyllum – A plant with memories…

Posted on February 26, 2008 | 13 Comments

As I get to know and grow a more varied range of plants these days, I have a pot of Keng Huay which I will never discard, no matter what. It is a plant which I have since kept with me after my paternal grandmother, whom I am very close to, passed away 8 years ago. How time flies… She was the one who brought me up whilst my parents were busy working their lives away to earn enough money for the family while I was young. I remembered my grandmother telling me she first got the cutting of this plant from a Chinese temple.

I have been rejuvenating the plant by propagating fresh leaf-cuttings periodically so that I do not lose it altogether. The plant seems to need to grow to a certain large size before it flowers, so don’t worry if your plant doesn’t flower. It is a rather maintanence-free plant that asks for some direct sunlight to grow and as a cactus, it doesn’t need to be watered all too often, but more frequently than the spined cactus though. For me, it only gets bothered by scale insects.

The epiphyllum (single petalled flowers) from my grandmother which was in flower.

The many buds that were produced.

The Keng Hua, a name known by the Hokkiens here, is in fact, a cactus that is botanically known as Epiphyllum oxypetalum. It is considered as a ‘lucky plant’ here because whenever it flowers, the plant supposed to bring good luck and of course, strikes with the lottery!

What we see as “leaves” are actually the much flattened stems of the cactus. It doesn’t really have those fierce spines we see in other cacti. In Singapore, we can only see plants that bear flowers that are white and in both single and double flowered forms. This genus of cactus actually has more flower colours than white, but surprisingly, these do not fare well here. My friend Boon Kiat got and planted some cuttings of these but they just melted away.

This cactus is considered as a medicinal herb here. The useful part of this plant is the flowers. The flowers open near midnight and they fade once dawn arrives. After they fade, the flowers are picked and dried. When they are used, the flowers are actually used to treat several ailments like inflammations, phlegm, pharyngitis, etc (from PROSEA vol 12(3)). I do have neighbours who came knocking on my door before to ask to safe-keep the faded flowers before.

During my recent trip to HortPark (33, Hyderabad Road), I saw a very nice way of potting up this epiphyllum. In the medicinal plants plot, a pot of this epiphyllum was placed inside a wooden cart, as shown in the picture below. Very sweet, isn’t it?

→ 13 Comments

Posted in Flowering plants, Herbs

Tagged ,

SGF Mascots – Where did the Sunbird fly to?

Posted on February 25, 2008 | Leave a comment

I was talking about the name the Singapore Garden Festival (SGF) mascots contest with a friend recently. It did not occur to me that out of the three mascots that were made their debut in the first SGF, the sunbird, has flown away to make way for the bee!

Below are the three posters that were used to publicise the first SGF…

The sunbird has decided to ‘quit’ this SGF… :P
Here’s the poster showing the grasshopper. Apparently, during the first SGF, there were two life-size walking mascots that roam the exhibition hall. The grasshopper was one of them.
The other life-sized walking mascot was the ladybird. The ladybird stays on as one of the three SGF mascots this second SGF.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Events

Tagged

Root Awakening (23 Feb 08)

Posted on February 24, 2008 | Leave a comment

Here’s another instalment of the Root Awakening column that was published on the Life! Section of the Straits Times on 23 Feb 08. Enjoy! 

Do let me know if you have any alternative views for the questions that were sent to the paper.  :)

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Root Awakening in ST Life!

Tagged

Pollinating Cucumber Flowers

Posted on February 23, 2008 | 17 Comments

The edible cucurbits that we grow in our edible garden, namely, pumpkins, luffas, cucumbers, rockmelons, watermelons and various squashes, have unisexual flowers where the male and female flowers occur separately on the same plant and the term “monoecious” is used to describe this phenomenon.

The sexes of cucurbit flowers are quite easy to tell apart. Female flowers have an obvious baby fruit behind the petals whereas you don’t find any behind the petals of the male flower. This is the description that I have often used to tell visitors as well as my gardeners in the community garden.

In the lowland tropics, pollination of cucurbit flowers that open during daytime should not be a problem since insects such as bees will automatically visit the flowers and help transfer the pollen.

If you face problems with fruit set, your plants may need your help to assist in the pollination of the flowers they produce. Here’s a step-by-step guide as to how you can play the role of the matchmaker… In this example, I am using the flowers of the cucumber.

The male flower of the cucumber – there isn’t a baby fruit behind the petals.

Once you have identified a male flower, pluck it off the vine and strip off all its petals.

Here’s a picture of a female cucumber flower. Notice there is a baby fruit behind the petals. To pollinate the female flower, lightly brush the pollen laden anthers of the male flower with the pistil of the female flower. In doing so, you transfer the pollen from the male flower to the female flower.

Once pollination is successful, the female flower will wilter and develop into the cucumber fruit.

→ 17 Comments

Posted in Vegetables

Tagged ,

Singapore Garden Festival 2008 – Name the Mascot Contest

Posted on February 20, 2008 | 1 Comment

The 2nd Singapore Garden Festival will be back again this July!

Finally, there is this “Name the Mascot” contest so that our three insect mascots – the ladybird, the bee and the grasshopper (My friends have been wondering why a garden pest has become a mascot!) - will have names after the 2nd Singapore Garden Festival!

The contest is opened to all Singaporeans and non-Singaporeans. As long as you have a mobile phone and not a pre-paid card, you can participate!

For more details, please refer to the official website of the Singapore Garden Festival via the following URL:

http://www.singaporegardenfestival.com
 

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Interesting News, Miscellaneous stuff...

Tagged ,

Green Oriental Eggplant is Fruiting!

Posted on February 18, 2008 | 5 Comments

The interesting Oriental eggplant variety “Lucky Green” which I got from the Taiwanese seed company, Known You, has started to flower and fruit… Below is the description of this hybrid given by the seed company at its website:

“Plant is semi tall, spreading, and early. The fruit is long, fruit end is pointy, rind and calyx are green with a few thorns. The flesh is white green, with good flavor. The fruit is about 38 by 4 cm, 200g in weight, and good for shipping.”

Oriental eggplants are long and slim, in contrast to eggplants from other localities. Locally here, they are mostly known as brinjals. Those that are green are hard to come to by and most of the brinjals we eat here are those purple ones. As given in the description above, Lucky Green produces green fruits! Many visitors who walk into the garden are quite pleasant surprised when they saw the green fruits.

At the community garden, Lucky Green started to fruit at a short height of about 1 and half foot (45 cm) and it took the usual maturity period – nearly three months - indicated by the appearance of its first flowers. It flowers and sets fruit at nearly all the forks of the branches. Fruits are harvested based on the expected length of the fruits (given by the label) rather than counting the number of days.

Eggplant flowers, in general, are violet in colour and very pretty. They usually appear in a small cluster. My gardeners and I did not deliberately pollinate the flowers and we left it to Mother Nature to help us do that. Apartment dwellers may face some problems with fruit set due to the lack of pollinators in the growing area. One can attempt to use a paintbrush to brush the anthers of the flowers so as to transfer the pollen to the pistils. If you have ants in the growing area, sometimes as they visit the flowers for nectar, they also help to pollinate the flowers for you.

Coming to the sad portion of this blog post…  As the plants fruited over the recent Lunar New Year weekend, many young fruits have been stolen by passers-by to my open-concept community garden. My community gardeners haven’t got a chance to taste a fruit yet! Just this week, I have been told one of our seven Lucky Green eggplant shrubs have been dug out and taken away.

The flower bud of the eggplant.

 

One opened blossom of the eggplant.

A young fruit of the Lucky Green oriental eggplant.

Almost ready for harvest, but it got stolen before my gardeners were able to the pick it…

 

→ 5 Comments

Posted in Vegetables

Tagged

Living Hearts for Valentine’s Day

Posted on February 14, 2008 | 1 Comment

Did you received a painted heart this Valentine’s Day? What I am referring to is this stiff, usually all green, heart-shaped leaf stuck in a pot that has been painted with some words or simple decorative graphics. Here is a website on the internet to show you what I mean:

http://www.houseofplants.co.uk/Hoya_Kerrii_Heart_shaped_hoya.htm

These painted hearts are in fact the leaves of the Sweetheart Hoya, Hoya kerrii. With only one leaf stuck inside the pot, it is hard to imagine how the actual plant looks like. Below is a picture of the Sweetheart Hoya that I took when I visited Woon Leng Nursery at Jalan Lekar some time back. This plant is the variegated version which spots leaves that have those yellow swirls against the usual green background.

The Sweetheart Hoya, like many similar species are vine-like and it can be trained to climb a support to keep it neat and tidy. Because it is variegated, it is relatively slower-growing compared to its all green counterpart. This may not be a bad thing afterall, since slower-growing vines means lesser maintanence!

This plant needs to be grown in an area with semishade for at least 6 hours daily. Suitable for apartment dwellers too for those who have the light. Do not chuck it in deep shade as the lack of light will not only affect the growth rate and flowering, it can also cause the variegation to be lost. It also needs to be grown in a porous medium and should be kept pot-bound and watered just enough to keep the substrate moist but not wet. Hoyas tend to rot if the medium is too wet. Feed with a plant food that has a higher proportion of phosphorous. I found a good blogsite that teaches one how to grow Hoyas:

http://www.briansgarden.com/2001/03/hoya-kerrii.html

Like many other Hoyas, the Sweetheart Hoya also blooms and the flowers are fragrant! The color of the flower is creamy to greenish pink with a darker corona. The flowers are borne in large waxy clusters and are very long lasting.

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Tropical ornamentals

Tagged , ,