mycookerygarden

I turned the pot moringa plant as the branches were growing lopsided. See the plant's 180° moves in the pics below. Amazing.

An Edible Garden is fun as you can eat the fruits of your labour. I tried to plant Okinawan spinach from one cutting cut into 2 stems. Alas, the first stem died as I had planted it before rooting. I had read somewhere that it could be planted this way. Well, this did not work out for me. The second cutting fared better after some roots grew in the water first. Okinawan spinach from a friend. Made a salad with some of the leaves. 4 Mar 2018: Two cuttings in water. The leaf-less cutting survived 1-2 weeks in soil before it rotted. Those leaves at the side of the pot are Indian Borage leaves. I stuck them in there to suck up some water, because I had over-watered on some days. 22 Mar 2018: First planted. 3 Apr 2018 10 Apr 2018 14 Apr 2018 26 Apr 2018 Bought a pot of sweet basil from NTUC supermarket. Cut up the big basil leaves for a pasta. There were about 5-6 plants in this pot. 7 Apr 2018: In the original brown pot, t he long roots were ...

A friend gave me a cutting of Okinawan Spinach. Yay, new vegetable to try planting. The leaves can be eaten raw or cooked. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gynura_bicolor Gynura bicolor, hongfeng cai 紅鳳菜, okinawan spinach or edible gynura, is a member of the chrysanthemum family (Asteraceae). It is native to China, Thailand, and Myanmar but grown in many other places as a vegetable and as a medicinal herb. Since most of the leaves needed to be removed for the rooting, I made a salad. This was a 'Global' Salad with Okinawan Spinach, Mexican Asparagus, Malaysian cucumber and cherry tomatoes, Argentinian blue berries and NZ salad dressing! In future, if I grow this vegetable successfully, I will stir fry it with sesame oil and ginger. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gynura_bicolor   According to Chinese food grouping, Gynura bicolor is a 'cool' food, so the leaves are stir-fried with sesame oil and ginger (both 'hotter' foods) to achieve a balance. After m...

My chives' bulbs from Malaysia have survived from 31 Dec 2017 till now. Keeping fingers crossed and the pot 'dry' - with very little watering. 31 Dec 2017: Plant bulbs and cuttings from Kuala Lumpur - chives, curry and coriander. Curry leaf cuttings did not survive - it was a valiant fight for about 1 month but the bald sticks just rotted in the end. Chives at first potting on the last day of 2017. Do-re-mi 5 Jan 2018: Chives look promising. 17 Jan 2018: Chives surviving on 'dry' soil. It is damp inside. 22 Jan 2018: Final days of this coriander. Another one bites the dust. 8 Feb 2018: Happy chives. Happy gardener.

Leafy vegetables from my balcony garden - sweet potato leaves and ti wan chye / di huang miao For a noodle dinner with shrimp roe noodles bought from Hong Kong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrimp_roe_noodles 1. Soak the shrimp roe noodle in one bowl of hot water for 10 minutes. 2. Heat the roast duck pieces in the pan to release the duck oil. 3. Saute one sliced garlic and one sliced shallot. 4. Add the vegetables and sliced tomato. 5. Add in the noodles and the water used for soaking as well. 6. Minimal seasoning is needed as the shrimp roe noodle is salty. Adjust salt and pepper to taste. Pointy leaves are sweet potato leaves. HK shrimp roe noodles with greens and tomato, 'garnished' with 2 slices of duck.

I saw a post in Facebook group 'Urban Farmers (Singapore)' that Susan Ng had made tempura with Indian borage. It looked great and she said it tasted good as well, not spicy after cooking. https://www.facebook.com/groups/sgurbanfarmers/permalink/910494292436785/   The raw leaves are quite inedible - not sure if it is spicy, but I know it is bitter as I pounded it a few times to extract its juice for my cough. The leaf is quite thick, not paper thin. https://remedygrove.com/bodywork/Indian-Borage This tempura idea sounded good but as I am not a fan of deep frying. So, when I saw the next follow up post by Christine Lim who experimented with a baked zucchini chips recipe applied to Indian borage, I decided to try it out too. https://www.facebook.com/groups/sgurbanfarmers/permalink/915864861899728/ Baked Indian Borage Chips Ingredients: Eggwash (1 egg diluted with some water) Biscuit mix: Grated cheese, about 3 tbsp - more if you are a cheese lover 1 tbsp of corn ...

1 Oct 2017 Trying to root rosemary plants. Bought a packet of rosemary from Mustafa's for $2. It was a huge packet. I gave about a third of the pack to a friend, made some rosemary chicken fillet and still had all these stalks left for rooting. Even the bottom leaves (that were removed to avoid the water) formed a nice pile for drying. Tips garnered from Facebook group "Urban Farmers". The rosemary plants should be suspended above the water for rooting. The bottom tips should touch the water but just a little bit. As a rough gauge, not more than 1 cm. This way, the stem will not rot. 10 Oct 2017 : No roots yet. Some people said that their plants rooted after 1-2 weeks. Or even longer. Planting needs patience but the rewards are really satisfying there is success. 16 Oct 2017 : No roots. So, trimmed most of the leaves except a few at the top. Cut off stems that had browned. Wait again. 17 Oct 2017: Hope these will root! 23 Oct 2017 : All gone except for...

26 Sep 2017 This is my umpteenth attempt to plant ginger in a pot. Maybe, fifth or sixth attempt. There was one pot that I managed to grow lots of green leaves but there were no ginger roots (rhizome). Finally, the plant died as well. Now, this ginger was rooted in Aug 2017 .. let's see if this ginger plant will survive or not. 11 Sep 2017 15 Sep 2017: Ants (or mites?) in the soil. Dusted some cinnamon powder - supposedly ants don't like it. 26 Sep 2017

Updated 26 Sep 2017 Planted seeds of a small lime (calamansi). Took a few days for the shoots to show. Don't know why the shoots clump together for one of the seeds? Are there many seeds in that spot? 9 Sep 2017: So many shoots from one spot for the top one. 11 Sep 2017: The single shoot is growing faster. A few days of growth and it is survival of the fittest and the one who has less competition for resources. The single shoot has grown bigger than the cluster. 15 Sep 2017 Scattered some cinnamon powder to try to kill some white ant-looking creatures in the soil. Hope they are not mealy-bugs. Just springtails or soil mites. And noticed two more shots have sprouted. More lime plants? 26 Sep 2017: I just read that that it takes years for a lime tree to fruit, when grown from seed. Now, I am considering whether to quit this plant or not. Two tomato plants came to join the party. Their old house was over crowded.

23 Aug 2017 First flowers in this pot on my balcony. I have planted mostly leafy plants, mainly vegetables and herbs on my balcony. This pot is the only concession to beauty, for its own sake. First flowers 27 Aug 2017 6 Sep 2017 11 Sep 2017

This hardy plant has been on my balcony for ages. I did not know it had medicinal uses. Pound the leaves, squeeze and drink the juice for cough relief. Nasty taste - very green, minty and actually a hint of oil. I think some boil the leaves and make some sort of tea drink. I also put it in my juice - cannot escape the taste but it seems to work to stop/lessen the coughing. Survivor A few po-hor leaves for the morning juice.  

Update 3 Oct 2017 A few presents from visiting Raffles City rooftop farm tour on 29 Jul 2017. Mexican tarragon, Thai basil, is that sweet? basil and mint. About time that I tried to plant herbs again. The last batch of mint and basil died when I had to go on a trip. Or was it mealy bugs? Can't remember. Hope this batch grows well. The herbs after surviving several hours of 'wet tissue' treatment in my shopping bag. After 1 day. 4 Aug 2017: Mint making it to soil, share pot with spring onions. Small basil cutting, sharing pot with moringa. Will this fellow survive? 4 Aug 2017: First Thai basil in pot. 7 Aug 2017: Second Thai basil in pot. Plus a small little torn-off cutting. Will it survive? 7 Aug 2017:Sweet basil in pot. 7 Aug 2017: Additional mint cutting from a friend. The Mexican tarragon is taking a long time to root. Hey, I got a sprouted sweet potato from a friend. Let's see where this goes. 15 Aug 2017: The (bo...