Chives' seeds look like tiny green apples

Is it just me? They look like tiny green apples...

I'm allowing them to flower to hopefully multiply the chives naturally.

Indian Almond leaves for sale

For sale: Indian almond leaves

RM0.20 per leaf.
Varying levels of dryness and size
Self collect. Whatsapp 011 6356 3789 to confirm before coming.

Homemade chili sauce - pt 2

29July2020
I am about to make my 2nd batch of chili sauce. The first was good, but a few things need to be adjusted...
- less vinegar. I thought the taste was a bit too sour
- a tiny bit more sweetness (maybe by adding more onions or some sweet fruit?)
- a tiny bit more heat (I will add chili powder)
- cheaper without sacrificing quality. The total cost for my first batch was too high. 2 ingredients I used that had a high price tag were chili and vinegar. For chili, I cant get cheaper than whatever the going price is. For vinegar I used Bragg apple cider vinegar which is the most expensive. This time I will use white vinegar (the middle bottle)

The bottle on the right we use for cleaning.
Here are the ingredients for the 3 types of vinegar...

So the middle looks good. We will see about the taste after it's all done.

Here are prices of the chili sauces I have bought before. Maggi is the most popular and well established brand here. Its too sweet for me.

 If my calculations are right, that costs RM1.09 per 100g

This one is ok tasting.

 Cost is cheaper at RM0.78 per 100g.
I am sure these ones in the regular condiments aisle are filled with chemical preservatives, fillers and colouring.

The one that is pretty good in natural ingredients and kept in the chiller veggie section is this, my favourite...

The cost is the highest at RM4.65 per 100g.

My first chili sauce was RM3+ per 100g. It cannot match in price compared to the regular condiment aisle sauce, but definitely is cheaper than my favourite. And it had better ingredients and zero chemicals, and most importantly tasted good. There is still room for improvement. I will try to calculate more accurately each time I make some.

And here we go....
250g chili

The sauce at the end wasnt hot enough. I used the same quantity and type of chili. Just goes to show the main ingredient is so variable that it is impossible to reproduce the same flavour each time.

80g garlic

I upped the garlic but still wasnt enough. Next batch will be 100g.

200g onion

I might reduce this to 150g next time coz I want the garlic and chili to be the main taste.

Vinegar 200ml. Water 400ml. I reduced the vinegar coz the last batch was too sour.  The final product was a bit runny, so maybe 300ml water next time. Simmer for 15 mins until the garlic is soft.

Its late I will continue writing tomorrow. Good nite ZZZZZZ

Blend...

Sieve out the bigger bits if you was a smooth sauce, back into the cooking pot.

Now with low heat, add the rest...
Salt 1tsp, sugar 4 TBsp (I start tasting after 3 and stop when I like the level of sweetness) , chili powder 3 tsp (tasted after each tsp. 3 was not enough but I stopped), lime juice from half a lime (maybe less next time).

I couldn't get the same taste as the last batch, and ended up adding a bit of soy sauce 1tsp and cumin powder 1tsp as an experiment. The taste was ok but different. It gave the sauce a slight Indian taste. 

The final product was too runny so I added half a tsp of this...

psyllium husk!!! It worked! Just thought of it instead of corn flour which most people use to thicken a sauce. Only a tiny bit was enough. And give it time to work its magic :)

A short video of the bottling so you can see the texture...

Bottled...

The one on the right looks exactly like its original contents :) Shame I haven't achieved its taste yet.

Heat was not a good as the last batch. I will need to figure out the best way to increase the heat if the chilis are not hot.

Never had success with spring onions

I've planted them in water, soil, mud, etc. Never worked. But I still keep trying. Maybe one day the Garden God might grant me a wish...

Pond water - a treat for the fry

I sometimes take some water from the climbing perch pond outside to add to the aquariums inside.

 This amount of water doesn't green my aquarium. But it does contain microorganisms that the fry love.

This "disaster zone" aquarium is intentionally like that. I use the bladder snails as food for the perch, the excess algae for the compost, and the tank as hospital/quarantine for sick looking fish. The guppies in there are thriving so I occasionally take out some to ass to the perch pond as food. But now the perch pond itself has a thriving guppy population, enough to sustain even with some being eaten by the perch.

I hate CUPS

In recipes, I really appreciate it when they give measurements in grams (weight) rather than cups (size). It just make more sense to do it by weight coz there are so many versions of CUPS!!!

Brinjal doing a bit better

I used to get maybe one fruit in a month if I was lucky. Ever since watering from the climbing perch pond, it has started to bear fruit. There are about 5 on the plant right now. Still smallish, but at least more abundant.

Kale leaves

For sale Kale leaves
RM0.50 per leaf. Max order 20 leaves
Freshest possible coz harvested only when you come to collect.

100% organic
0% chemical pesticides.
0% chemical fertilisers.

Self collect. Whatsapp 011 6356 3789 to confirm before coming.

different approach to the next banana tree harvest

This is the 3rd tree. I will follow roughly this method of care for the fruit, from 1:43 to 2:23

Starting to cut...

This went to one of our neighbours who loves it...

Removed the flower ends like in the video. I didnt do it for all though. The bananas with the flower removed produced a protective sap instantly.

Left untouched, middle plucked, right plucked but not completely...

Sort of done...

The day after update:

The left was done yesterday, on the right was a couple of hours ago. You can already see it darkening/hardening. I pulled the flower off the middle one but not completely so the effect wasn't there.

22Sep2020 update: the fruit are filling out

15Oct2020 update: top comb started to ripen

20Oct2020 update: harvested all the fruit

Ginger beer - 5th batch

Batch 1-3 were good. 4 was a flop. I checked the brewing forums and Youtube but no one really knew what was the cause.

Anyways, back to present day. Batch 5.

After 24 hours. Bubbling nicely.

after 2 days. Bubbling nicely. It looks darker coz I used a different camera.

Day 3... still bubbling. Taste was bitter. I think it was all the lemon skin that i added. Next batch will not do that.

Day 4... still bubbling, Decided to bottle it all due to the bitter taste. Will experiment with different sweeteners when drinking.

Decided to bottle it...

Water monitor lizard

This guy came out of the drains!

we are blessed with amazing neighbours

The lady who taught me most of what I know about plants was banging at our gate yesterday. She had a little plastic bag in her hand. I thought it was some veggie or fruit coz she quite often passes us her harvest. But the bag looked a little too small for veggie. She handed me this cute vintage looking clock...

... and in her broken English explained that she had seen our retro furniture / ornaments and thought this clock would be happier to stay at our home! I love my neighbours :)

How our ginger bug is doing

We have had the bug for about a month, using it weekly to make ginger beer. Here is a view of the bug from the time I take it out of the fridge, till when its time to place it back.

Sayur Manis - Sauropus androgynus

A passer-by stopped to have a look at our garden and gave me some sayur manis branches to plant.

It was from a nearby restaurant. All the leaves were stripped but she assured me that all I had to do was to stick them in the ground.

Closer inspection...

All the joints had tiny growth.

Stuck in the ground!

I like these leaves and often have them in soup. Now that I had some possible future plants, I ran a search to learn more about the plant. It turns out that raw sayur manis is toxic for humans!! Yikes!!! I taste all my plants raw!

But as the article also points out, cooking it changes the properties and makes it safe for consumption. It also has the traits of a superfood.

Another plus point showed a study on the benefits as fish food. 

tiny bananas ripened

When the plant fruits, the bottom few combs will have bananas that don't reach full size. The last few won't grow at all. That's when we chop off the flower below.
Anyways back to the fruit... we kept a few of the bananas that grew a tiny bit, just to see how they would turn out. They were less than half the size of the rest.
We had a pleasant surprise. The fruit still ripened and produced a sweet, but small, banana...

test kangkung in an area always waterlogged

This corner of the house always has water... mostly from the pond overflow, and also from the roof runoff, reservoir overflow, etc.

However, there is no direct sun. So lets see how the kangkung will fare.

25 July 2020 update:
Five days after throwing a cutting into the puddle...

It's doing ok. The youngest few leaves are all up, and it has started to take root. I will try to do a close up in the next update.

28 July 2020 update:
Lots of roots, but the young leaves being attacked.

5Aug2020 update:
We have had some dry days. The cutting is still doing well.

The roots have really extended out in search for water. Kangkung is always thirsty.

23Aug2020 update: Growing well

14Sep2020: Looking healthy. But it gets in the way and I keep stepping on it at least once a week. Will probably pull it out soon.

29Sep2020: It is getting out of hand. It set root in every crevice and wound its way out in multiple directions. 

Scary! I pulled it all out!

One of the common pests that attack our kale

Very often our kale leaves are attacked by this larvae / caterpillar. And they go for the very young leaves killing the whole plant if unchecked. If they end up on the older leaves, it is often where the leaf is narrowest.

This fella became fish food.

baby grasshopper in the dill

Spotted this tiny fellow just by chance.

I caught it later and fed it to the climbing perch (puyu). Sorry no video of that bit.

bizarre reaction in ginger beer

3 batches went as planned. After 3-4 days of fermentation, I would bottle the juice, and leave it one more day to carbonate further. That one day in a sealed bottle would result in the plastic bottle expanding due to pressure building up inside. It would be very hard with hardly any give.

This 4th batch was the OPPOSITE!!! The bottles were caved inwards. No idea what caused it. The taste was fine but no carbonation.

Spaces for fish to hide

I have a few bricks and pots with holes submerged in the pond. They are for small fish to hide from the bigger bullies.

You could also use old coconuts that have fallen. Many already have a hole made by some creature, probably squirrels.

25 July 2020 update:
Here it is in the middle of the pic, still floating nicely, nestled with all the other bits of floating matter. A nice extension to spaces for the guppies and perch fry.

Homemade Golden Syrup

I made ginger biscuits for the 1st time a few weeks back. The recipe called for golden syrup which I didn't have. Instead I used honey. It turned out good but I want to see what the ori recipe will taste like. That led to this...

This first stage of a little water and sugar 

Watching the video on the side

This was the video. I followed it exactly...

 Mine turned out a lot darker and thicker as you will see.

Bubbling...

Starting to brown...

Just before stage 2...

Stage 2 with added water, sugar and a piece (1/4) of lemon. Scraped off the skin before chucking it in coz I dont trust any of the fruit I buy from the market.

Removing the lemon after the 45 minute simmer

The final product

Placed it in a sterilized used jam jar. Weighed 400+g

I think the total weight was close to 500g coz there was more in the pot.

The day after update...

It is super thick, flowing very slowly like lava. Dunno what to do abt that.

our slightly overripe bananas look like this

Its called Pisang Hijau "green banana" for a reason. It doesnt turn bright yellow when ripe. This is one that is slightly overripe... 

I wish we had some way to collect rain

More often than not, there is an abundance of water in Malaysia. 

One normal downpour... those containers were just collecting some of the water from the porch awning. That water will go to the aquariums when I do a water change.

Imagine the volume running off the roof! When we do our next home renovation, I would really like to add some kind of rain harvesting system. A simple gutter feeding into a reservoir, and then the reservoir to the pond, etc.

Indian Borage midst the Kangkung - pest deterrent test

Neem oil isn't working, probably due to all the rain we have been having. Today I planted some Indian borage cuttings in one of the kangkung boxes.

You can see it in the bottom left corner of the box.

A list of plants that deter bugs that I have and will be expanding around the garden...

• Indian borage
• Basil
• Mint
• Chives
• Garlic
• Dill

Up to now, most have been separate from the veggies. From now on I will be planting them in between.