What’s In A Garden

Just updated my garden blog at https://arlene1027.wordpress.com and posted some photos there.

The tomato seeds that I just threw at the back garden have grown and are bearing fruits now. Our two jackfruit trees are showing off. In a month or two, I would pick one and cook ginataang langka, a yummy dish cooked in coconut cream. My two old kalamansi trees are still bearing fruits. Ah, squash is growing too.

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Fresh Harvest

The sun is shining bright. I hope the monsoon rains which typhoon Maria would be bringing are not strong to cause flooded streets and houses. Sometimes monsoon rains take as long as more than a week, a little inconvenient when you want to go out and it’s raining outside.

I checked the garden for a while making sure that the the plants in the planter’s box not reached by the previous rain yesterday are not too dry.  I also checked our jackfruits which are still fruiting and our two kalamansi trees.  What do you know. I just harvested about a kilo of fresh kalamansi. Perfect for  marinating meat, dips and making kalamansi juice. I am trying to limit my sugar intake though so it would be just a bit of  sugar.  I am planning to buy honey when I go back to the supermarket.

Fresh kalamansi

For the past two days, I avoided eating rice. Carbohydrates eventually turn into sugar and sugar feeds cancer cells. Trying to do it right slowly until my body adjusts to no rice at all. My daughter Nissa is on a Keto diet. She’s been on it for the past two years.  I asked my internist about it and he said I should not eat fats  since I am on maintenance with high blood pressure. I  don’t like fats specially from pork  and chicken.   When I buy chicken, I remove the skin or have chicken breasts deboned by the vendor.  Josef suggested that I cook my meals in our steamer to avoid those unnecessary oils and fats that I don’t need.

Over the weekend, Josef and I bought some wonton wrappers and cooked  Pinsec frito. Pinsec is a type of dumplings wherein wonton wrappers are filled with ground meat, carrots, sesame oil, salt, ground black pepper, green onion, crab meat (optional), and egg  or seafood filling and then deep-fried until golden and crisp. It’s best eaten when it’s hot and it’s best with sweet and sour sauce as dips.

Pinsec Frito

As we grow older, it’s not just the body aches and muscular pains that we experience. I still feel my immunity is low. After all these years, maybe it is still the effect of chemo drugs. I am grateful though that despite all these  setbacks, I feel okay and I thank God for that.

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It’s Another Monday

What’s it about Monday that makes one lazy sometimes or bold enough to tackle another difficult job?

I am half-way through trimming our carabao grass again. I bought a new grass cutter several days ago so it is easier to do the job now.  The weather is just fine for gardening with a gentle morning breeze to enjoy.

Gosh, the noise of the vehicles passing by our street. The main road in Ortigas Avenue Ext. is being repaired so some commuters pass through  our subdivision to avoid the heavy traffic. I hate it  when some use their car horns inside the subdivision. They are not supposed to do that since the subdivision only allows  a lower speed limit compared to the main roads. It is annoying. Yesterday afternoon, two cars bumped into each other right in front of the house causing a traffic jam for a while. Those drivers get so impatient.

I harvested about a kilo of kalamansi  after gardening and made some into juice. The fresh, delicious taste of freshly picked kalamansi…heaven.

 

There are plenty more where they come from.  It’s time Nate visits us again so he could bring some home.  Speaking of  food, yesterday I  cooked  pancit bihon for lunch. It is a Filipino noodle stir fry so popular for everyday meals and on special occasions too.  Since it is a complete meal in itself one does not need to add rice to the dish.  You would need about a half kilo of pork, 500 grams of vermicelli noodles, carrots, chayote, Baguio beans and two stalks of celery.

 

There is still a little left inside the ref with two pieces of longganisa to boot. Perfect for another meal later.  Left-over meals for  Monday…haha!

Have a nice week ahead friends!

 

 

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One Afternoon At the Garden

It’s one of those days that I get to trim the carabao grass again. Although they are growing   a little slow because it is summer I need to weed out unwanted grass too.  The weather is just right for afternoon gardening. I am just halfway through,  I still have so many things to do in the garden.  It was quite windy but the sun shone brightly.

Our two jackfruit trees are bearing so may clustered fruits again. I noticed the small  fruits at the base of the second tree not knowing that the first tree has born fruits earlier.  I took one to cook in coconut cream.

The remaining five are now large enough to ripen. They were a little up the tree so we really didn’t notice them earlier.  Maybe in a month or two, I could harvest again. Every year, these two trees give us  fruits. All we do is water them every morning together with the other plants we have here plus the two Philippine lime shrubs (kalamansi)  that bear fruits all year round. They are just perfect for a small garden.  Some branches are in their flowering stage.

I am getting impatient with the lavender I planted late last year. I wonder how long it would take before it would bear flowers. The herbs I  planted at the same time are doing well. Maybe the lavender need not be watered daily but the weather is hot here so I water them every day.  Gardening is really a hit and miss thing. Sometimes you’ll see some flowers resurrecting in the heat of summer. Sometimes there are unknown plants that just sprout in a corner.  I find fulfillment in gardening though just like I do with reading and blogging.

Gardening is also a relaxing activity and growing things from seeds and branches are just wonderful.    You won’t notice the passing of time when you are in a garden. Some of my bulb plants and the Amazon lilies planted in pots are presently in bloom.  Oh to see them bloom again. What a reward!

Do you love gardening?

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Busy, Busy Day!

The heavy downpour woke me up from a deep sleep this morning but it saved me precious minutes of watering my plants. And amidst catching  PNoy’s speech at Barasoain  Church and watching the short program on TV, I managed to harvest Kalamansi in our backyard. I harvested more than a kilo and gave some to our neighbor. Perfect for that ice-cold kalamansi juice.

Gardening sometimes is a backbreaking  job , rather it is a backbreaking job but when you are rewarded by something like this, fresh pick and free from pesticides, it’s all worth it.  I have to cut our carabao grass since the frequent rains made them grow  easily. Believe me it’s like you’ve run a marathon and I think you get more exercise out of it than running.  It’s a workout in the yard sans those exercise machines.  You need enough strength and stamina to cut the grass smoothly  and at a uniform length. Gardening is an art all its own. Will have to spend a few more hours tomorrow  with the grass cutter and I hope the weather cooperates. Sometimes, it’s crazy to see the sun hot on your back while it drizzles.

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Today’s Harvest (Calamansi, Anyone?)

I took  shots of the garden blooms and some of our vegetable plants early this morning and hubby suggested that I harvest our Calamansi. We have two grafted Calamansi trees which I planted many years ago and they haven’t stopped bearing fruit.  They are part of our garden landscape.

Here in our country it is simply known as Calamondin or just plain Kalamansi but it’s known elsewhere as Philippine lime.  The flowers  emit that sweet and tangy scent much like pomelos and oranges when they are in bloom. Kalamansi is one of the most basic necessities in Philippine kitchens. It is used  for marinating either fish or meat or  sea foods and anything that requires something sour. It is also used as dip, mixed with soy sauce or  as juice drinks, hot or cold. I wonder if  we could survive  in the kitchen without these small, juicy, tangy fruits which are very similar to lime. They are best used fresh.

The fruit also has several medicinal uses. It can be a good treatment to itchy scalp, to heal insect bites, remove freckles, clear up acne and pimples. It is also used as a deodorizer and  for stain-removal.  It is also a popular home remedy for cough. And if you want your skin to stay smooth and blemish free, you can gently rub it with kalamansi before taking a bath.

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