When my kangkong plants started flowering in March this year, I finally made the mental connection of where we get the seeds to grow the plants from. Since then, I’ve been observing the plants to see what happened next.
The little spinach fruit, about 1cm in diameter.
After the flower blooms and drops off, a small fruit starts growing. It keeps growing for about a month before it starts drying up.
After about a month, the fruit dries up.
The dried fruit doesn’t seem to drop off easily. There are several of them left on the plants, and they’ve been hanging there for a few weeks already.
The harvested kangkong pods and seeds.
Because I couldn’t wait, I plucked a few of the turnip-shaped pods and peeled them open. The skin covering them was quite papery and tough. Each pod contained between 3 to 5 seeds in individual segments.
New spinach plants growing from freshly harvested seeds.
Naturally, since I had seeds in hand, literally, I tossed them into a pot. To my joy, several started sprouting after just a few days! I did learn then that you shouldn’t surface sow them. However, I’m satisfied now that I’ve followed the full life cycle from seed to leaf to fruit and back to seed. 8)
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That is awesome! =D
Did you manage to see the flowers, too? They should look like morning glory flowers.
I sure did, Sky – kept so many flowers that I now have a lot of seed pods! They were really pretty, but I figured one post on the flowers would be sufficient.
=D W00t!
I hope my kang kong will flower too… Can’t bear to eat them. lol
I know what you mean – I let one of the plants grow a 3-metre stem because it kept producing more and more flower buds. They really are pretty! But the kangkong is tasty, too…