Gaint Grasshoppers

We do have a lot of grasshoppers in the garden, especially these giant grasshoppers - some of them with body lengths (from head to tip of abdomen) of up to 12.5 cm (5"). They may be pests but we leave them be as they are such amazing creatures .... as seen in this mating pair.

Lovely creatures!

Going Bananas ......

Last week, we harvested the bananas from one of our banana plant growing at the back of our garden and it was a huge bunch, too! It took the two of us to carry it to the kitchen patio where we "dismembered " it :-) Before that, we laid out some old newspaper on the floor to soak up the sap flowing from the cut bunches. The smaller individual bunches were then laid out on newspaper on one of our tables to let the sap run dry.

There were a total of 108 bananas ....

This was one of the larger bunch with 25 large bananas.

There was no way we could have finished them fast enough before they became over-ripe. So we distributed them to the guys in the shops and to my sister-in-law but there still remained quite a lot ....so they got turned into 10 loaves of yummy banana bread!

At least we can freeze them!!

Curry Tree and Leaves

As in many Malaysian gardens, we also have a Curry Tree (Murraya koenigii) in our garden.The curry leaf is an aromatic leaf used in South Asian cuisines but now commonly use in other Asian cooking. At home, in addition to using the curry leaves in curry, we also fried them to add to various meat dishes for the aroma.

This is the young curry tree ...

It took a year or so to reach this size.

I love the arrangement of the leaves.

 

Few people realise that the curry tree produces flowers but they do. Seen here are the small flower buds.

The flowers are white and have a very light fragrance.

Finally, the fruits. The unripe ones are green and as they ripened, they turn red and finally looks like a black peppercorn.

Propagation is by seed and you need the naturally ripened fruit to plant. They must be fresh as dried or shriveled fruits are not viable. Potting medium must be kept moist, and never wet.

Curry leaves have many medical uses in folk medicines. Do a search if you are interested.

One interesting medical use is to control diabetes or to reduce one's sugar level. Apparently the leaves contain agents that slow down the rate of starch-to-glucose breakdown in people with diabetes and could control the amount of glucose entering the bloodstream.

So just chew and eat ten leaves every morning on an empty stomach!

Bunga Kesidang or Bread Flower

What smells like the lovely fragrant pandan leaves but is not pandan. Of course, this is the Bunga Kesidang, also known as Vallaris glabra or Bread Flowers. 

I love the fragrance of this plant - a very light and sweet smell. 

In our garden, we have this vine in a large dragon pot and have the vine going round and round the central stake. This plant can do much better in the ground but as we have limited space for growing climbers have to be contented with this plant in a pot!

 

 

The small white flowers .....

 

The flowers are magnets for insects, especially ants!

This is certainly one of the nicest plant to have in a garden and if you can get this plant, make sure to have it in your garden. My friend, Harmit Kaur, in Subang Jaya have this lovely plant in her garden with the Bunga Kesidang on one side of the walkway and the rangoon creeper on the other side! Lovely place!

Recently, I was told that there is this house in Siniawan, outside Kuching, with hundred-years old Bunga Kesidang vines that forms the bulk of the fence of the house and the whole neighbourhood is scented with the lovely fragrance of the flowers when the plants are in bloom! Unfortunately, recently, the owners' descendents started to cut away some of the old old vines to make way for concrete fence..... :-(

What a great pity!

Barbados Cherry

I have this bush in the garden which I really like for the flowers and the fruits and is very attractive to bees, butterflies and birds but was not able to identify the plant until recently. I asked at the GCS Forum and Wisteria told me that it was Barbados Cherry (Malpighia glabra). It is also variously known as Acerola or West Indian Cherry.

This is the Barbados Cherry bush in my garden.

I think I got it more than two years ago from the Satok Market in Kuching. It took a while to get established and is very slow growing. Only in the last year or so, did it started branching out profusely and is now a nice bush - not having been pruned at all.

When it blooms, the plant is really beautiful with masses of small but beautiful pink flowers. Lots of bees and butterflies visited this bush.

 

The fruits are the size of small cherries and they looked like cherries. Birds seem to like them!

Close-up of the fruits ....

The plant with the fruits looks really nice and is very popular with our visitors. I have eaten the fruits - really sour but edible and I have tried making juice with it - nice cold drink for a hot day! According to a University of Florida report :

The flesh is yellow-orange and very high in vitamin C (ascorbic acid). Vitamin C content ranges from 1000 to 2000 mg per 100 gm in the edible portion of fully ripe fruit and may be as high as 4500 mg per 100 gm in partially ripe fruit. A single fruit of some selections could supply the daily adult requirement of vitamin C. The fruit from most seedlings is rather tart but from some it is sub-acid to almost sweet. The more acid fruit has the higher vitamin C content. 

The plant self-sows but you can use the stones from the fruits. It takes a while - just be patient!!

Bananas ...

A while back, TK's second sister-in-law gave us two offshoots from her banana grove in her garden. She told us that the banana plant is of the dwarf variety and fruits well. The two offshoots were planted right at the back of the garden next to the chicken hut and our local guava tree.

The banana plant grow to about 2 metres and then produce the inflorescence.

The unopened banana inflorescence.

The banana inflorescence, now, partially opened.

Partially opened with fruits.

Just look at the amazing symmetry of the bunch of bananas!

The bananas looks like they are of the the dwarf cavendish variety.

First sign of the ripening fruits ....

The bunch of the bananas was cut down and the harvest was a grand total of 84 bananas with a total weight of 17 kg.

 

The naturally ripened bananas are very sweet but ripens pretty fast. There is no way we can finish them so we gave most of them to my younger brother. At least he got lots of employees at the shops to eat them!