Rangoon creeper

I use to admire the Rangoon creeper in my neighbourhood so much. The flowers are so beautiful.

I bought a young plant from nursery last year. However due to my negligence I almost lost the plant. Finally after waiting for so long, the plant emerge back and start flowering too!

I didn't know that it has some medical properties.

From Wikipedia:

The plant is used as an herbal medicine. Decoctions of the root, seed or fruit can be used as antihelmintic to expel parasitic worms or for alleviating diarrhea. Fruit decoction can also be used for gargling. The fruits are also used to combat nephritis. Leaves can be used to relieve pain caused by fever. The roots are used to treat rheumatism.

The seeds of this and related species, Quisqualis fructus and Q. chinensis, contain the chemical quisqualic acid, which is an agonist for the AMPA receptor, a kind of glutamate receptor in the brain. The chemical is linked to excitotoxicity (cell death). The seeds from the pod are useful for treating Roundworm and Pinworm. It is toxic to the parasite and kills it in the digestive tract.

The flowers are just so beautiful and has a nice smell! I just love looking at them! Currently they are making the perimeter wall as their trellis!

small bitter gourd

This is my first time to have handful of harvest from bitter gourd plant! I never have luck with them in the past. The plant die after start flowering or half way thru fruiting time.

This time around I can harvest many of them! they grow well and I can say that every week my menu shall have bitter gourd. I share with family too! That's a blessing!

This is where they are growing! Previously this bed was used for pak choy.

The bitter gourd plant has a beautiful foliage and yellow cute flowers! I must admit that I just realise it!

The tendril hold on everything to keep growing.

The stone is to big for them to tie up!

spinach harvest

The last of spinach harvest. Most of the leaves already tasted by the grasshopper.

Pucuk Manis an update

Pucuk Manis have been growing quietly at the back of the garden. Very minimum care is given but they don't mind about it. They are growing happily.

Beside the vitamin rich vegetable, this leaves are believed to increase breast milk in human.

I like to add pucuk manis leaves in my dhal curry and they can be stir fry like pak choy too! They taste sweet and tasty. How do you cook this vegetable?

GBBD - May 2014

The weather have changed so much now. It's raining everyday. Sometimes it's too much but I don't dare to complain....I still remember the drought we had back in January and February.

It's a blessing to have rain actually!

 Finally Torenia have decided to make a "come back" to my garden after long time!

 This is pretty miniature hibiscus

To see more bloom around the world go to maydreamsgardens.com

Cili Padi

When do you identify something in garden is in abundance? When you share with family? friends? more than what you consume?

As of now I have cili padi in abundance. I seldom use them. Most of them are self seed chillies. I share them with neighbours, family and with birds! Yet many just turn red and wasted.

I wonder what type of bird eat this chillies. They are spicy though!

Avaraikaai

Avaraikaai or Indian broad beans are putting a lot of flowers and pods! It's great to have them in garden. I harvest a lot of them nowadays and share with family members.

Their growth are similar to other beans variety.

This beans is rich with fibre and very nutritious that you can have it everyday!

bunga telang's empire

Butterfly pea or commonly known as Bunga Telang" in Malaysia is seems to be very happy growing at a corner of my garden. I can see many little seedling emerging from the garden floors. Sometimes neighbours who pass by pluck the dry seed pods!

It has strangle the lemon tree to some extend. The lemon tree seems to be ok with the vine. They seems to be living in harmony! Butterfly peas must have fixed the nitrogen in the soil for the lemon plant. So lemon plant don't mind to provide place for the vine to climb on.......

attempt to grow pineapple

This is my 1st attempt with success to grow pineapple! So far both the pineapples are growing well in between chillies. I think they don't mind sharing the bed with chillies, kangkung and some weeds too! It's time to do weeding but the rain season is making the weeds grow so fast that I pull my white flag up!

I'm not sure how long it take to bear a fruit but it seems to take very long time to grow to this size.