FOOD IN HER BACK YARD

It is now the rainy season in Malaysia and the East Coast region is flooded with people being moved to 3 evacuation centres. This happens every November and December when the North East monsoon sweeps into the East Coast and unburdens its load. Vegetable prices have increased 100 %. We are grumbling and moaning, but there is one smart lady who will not have to worry about this.

Madam Loo in her vegetable plot protected with fencing from "friendly" dogs who need to squirt frequently. Ceylon spinach with purple stalks climbing on the fence . This vegetable goes into making a soup flavoured with salted duck eggs. Banana trees fruiting

Hairy gourd - a herbaceous climber and salad vegetables.
Simple technology and the vegetables are growing so well.

Just when I had got over the envious feeling of the the hugh winter melons on my neighbour's fence, I uncovered Madam Green Fingers during my morning walk. Madam Loo is 84 years old, lives with her daughter's family and has 3 grandchildren. Her exercise is potting in her vegetable plot every morning after the family has left for work or school. She must have seen me "oggling" as she came out the back door. She's very friendly and spoke only Cantonese, a Chinese dialet I am not very fluent with. But, we crossed the language barrier and had a good half hour conversation with some sign language.

The large purple banana flower can be stir fried or cooked in coconut milk.

A large variety of vegetables, fruits, gourds and aloe vera in pots
All planted on government land at the back of her house
Hairy gourd covered with short silky white hairs for soup. The best ones I have seen are only a quarter of this size. This can feed 20 persons.

All these are planted in her back yard. She uses natural fertilisers (vegetables and fruit peelings and rice water). Do you know that water from washing rice before cooking is pretty nutritious for plants. I did explain to her how I wiped out my vegetable plot with too much fertiliser, how the insects were enjoying the vegetables more than me and how punny my egg plants and gourds grew.

She is a gardening encyclopedia and lectured me on how to water the plants (not using the garden hose and drowning them), plant seeds into pots first and how to mix soil. She gave me 3 hairy gourd seeds which I preciously wrapped in my sweaty hanky. I asked her permission to photograph her vegetables, she asked me to take some photos of the gourds once the plant bore fruit. I don't think I will get the gourds as large, something half the size will make me happy.

"Illegal" Vegetables

Winter melon on the backyard fence. Maize by the side of the house.

Aloe vera in the back plot .

Salad, chillies and a lime tree on the kerb in front of a house.

We do not have much land in our township but the government has left idle bits and pieces of vacant plots in between houses and especially in our back yards. Of course we are not allowed to build anything on this land, but no one has stopped us from planting our greens. It is not that we are obsessed with vegetables over here, but the Malaysian weather is so "kind" with high humidity, good rainfall and eternal sunshine. "Everything grows so well" as Carolyn puts it. It seems like a waste not to make use of God's gifts to us - the free land and the good weather. As Maternal Tales said, "Imagine not having to wear coats and scarves all the time," it's really so convenient to go from inside to outside in the same shorts and T-shirts. I have taken photos of how we "squeeze" every bit of land for vegetables in this township.

Papaya tree

Government land put to good use.

Cabbages and Ceylon Spinach (purple stems) in troughs in the front of a house.
More cabbages, purple spinach in a pot and Chinese Chives in the trough.

This winter melon is truely as large as a bowling ball. We use it in our soups. The inside can be scooped out, chicken, mushrooms and other ingredients placed inside and the melon is then steamed.

VEGETABLES NOT FOR SALE

Brinjal or egg plant in my tiny vegetable plot.

Bitter gourds on the fence.
Vegetables in the market were getting quite expensive since last year so I decided to plant some of my own. I have a really tiny piece of land ( don't even know if I can say that, maybe a tiny space will be more appropriate) in the back of the house. I started with digging out the stones and mixing the hard clay soil with bags of potting mixture and vegetable waste. I actually had to go buy and PAY for organic fertiliser - processed chicken and goat "poo" pellets. Does this strike an idea for anyone to venture into an export business to Malaysia? Ohh...the dried pellets were OK but once they got wet, they looked exactly like how chicken and goat "poo" should look like. I am a city girl, was I suppose to know that? I got more potting mix to cover the mess.


My better half, seeing my enthusiasm in the vegetable plot, gave me an assortment of gardening tools for our wedding anniversary. I was thinking of something a little bit more romantic for our 19th anniversary, instead I got a spading fork, shears, weeder, gloves and packets of seeds. GismoMan, being the expert in gadgets and not gardening, bought seeds for peas, capsicum, carrots and salad, stuff which I think are not going to make it in this really hot 30 - 35 C temperature. Surprisingly, the peas have sprouted but the rest are having much difficulty germinating.


Every day I am out there watering, digging and mixing the soil. It's a really cheap way to get off the excess pounds cos' its a sauna out there even in the evenings. Now that the beans and gourds are growing, the pests are enjoying the fruits of my labour. Chemicals are a definite "No, No" and GismoMan suggested using ginger, chilli or tumeric mixed in water as natural pesticides (something he read). The chilli made my hands all hot and swollen, the tumeric stained them a yellow as bright as the monks' robes and I got a back ache bent over pounding ginger for juice. Does anyone know a simpler form of natural fertiliser?


I shouldn't complain as I have already start eating my own produce. But, the salad leaves are slightly bitter, not sweet like the ones from the supermarket, the brinjals are puny and the okra so fibrous, MartianGirl just kept chewing at the dinner table until the rubber bands in her braces snapped. GismoMan was very supportive, "Maybe you should not mix the bitter gourds with the other vegetables, the bitterness probably gets transfered."


Something's not quite right but I will not admit defeat. We Asians have this saying, "Never say die." My tomatoes and peas should be fruiting in about a month and then, there will be another story.


Pea, salad, chillie and tomato seedlings.
Four-angle beans.