The Curious Gardener | Gardening discoveries in Singapore

Making roselle syrup

Posted on October 16, 2013 by CuriousG

These branches were so weighed down by fruits that a heavy downpour would have broken the plant stems

The roselle plants were dipping lower and lower because the branches were absolutely laden with fruits, so we decided to harvest them and make another lot of roselle syrup.

This harvest included over 50 roselle fruits. We soaked and rinsed the calyces after harvesting them, then separated the inner seed pods from the calyces. We rinsed the prepared calyces again before boiling them because the pods, depending on their maturity, felt a little gummy or gritty. You may also want to wear a glove on the hand holding the fruit because your skin may start to itch because of the gummy/gritty ooze from the fruits.

A cluster of roselle fruits closely spaced together. That’s what I call prolific!

When making the syrup, I like to use about double the amount of water to the quantity of calyces. The boiling process doesn’t take very long – up to about 15 minutes for it to come to a boil and for the calyces to shed their colour and flavour into the liquid. I stop boiling when they become translucent. Then it’s time to remove the calyces and let them cool before adding them to the compost heap. While the liquid is still warm, I sweeten it just a little, because some people don’t like things overly-sweet, and those who want it sweeter can add more, to taste, later. When it cools, it gets stored in the fridge.

This is the point along the stem where the fruits start from behind the flower, and the buds are in front of it. They look almost the same in both stages, don’t they?

We got just over 2 litres of syrup from this lot this time. I think it will last us a while, because it’s rather concentrated and will stretch for quite a while…

The almost-watermelon

Posted on October 12, 2013 by CuriousG

The recovered watermelon plants. There were only stems and a few leaves left when the aphids finally left them alone. They’ve made a nice comeback!

I’m glad to report that our watermelon plants managed to recover after the aphid attack a couple of months ago. It took a while, but they have started growing new, healthy leaves, and the vines are doing their best to get over the rim of the pot that the plants are growing in.

As usual, I’ve been an anxious “parent”, watching all the buds that develop, on the lookout for female flowers. And there have been several. Most don’t get past the tiny half-centimetre diameter before the buds abort.

One of the early female watermelon flowers in bloom.

A couple raised our hopes when they bloomed, but the mini fruits were quite small and green. The latest one, though, had my hopes rather high, because the miniature fruit at the base of the female flower was the largest we’ve seen so far, at just about a centimetre “big”. It even looked like a tiny watermelon, with proper striped rind and all!

I really thought it had successfully set fruit because the tiny fruit stayed on the stem for a few days, and the stem holding it remained strong and healthy-looking. Alas, though… the fruit started to turn yellow and eventually aborted.

The watermelon fruit flower that had my hopes so high. Just look at that miniature fruit!

I’m not even sure if watermelons can grow in our climate, so it will be interesting to keep watching the plants. I expect the plants to start running rampant, so maybe I’ll just leave it to nature to (hopefully) surprise us sometime in the future with a fruit or more.

A bi-coloured kangkong flower

Posted on October 8, 2013 by CuriousG

We’ve had kangkong or water convolvulus growing here for a couple of years now. I’ve grown the plants in recycled PET bottles, flower pots, and directly in the ground. Each time, the plants have borne pristine white flowers.

Last week, however, an unusual flash of colour caught my eye when I passed our overgrown kangkong plants. I saw this:

An unusual but attractive kangkong flower.

I know that there are different varieties of water spinach plants, and when I looked up images of kangkong flowers online, there were images of flowers just like our unusual one above. I’m just curious why this was the only one to have additional colour, unlike the regular white ones.

Side view of the bi-coloured kangkong flower.

Side view of a regular (for us) kangkong flower.

Ah well, the flowers are pretty, no matter what colour they may be!

RIP, Marrow II

Posted on October 5, 2013 by CuriousG

We finally decided to harvest one of our mighty marrows – the younger one, because my mum was worried that the marrow would be too old, and I was unwilling to snip off the first one because it’s still growing bigger. Remember that I had laid claim to the first while granting her authority over the second.

The great moment – harvesting our first marrow! Gloves were necessary because there were still some bristly hairs on the exterior of the marrow.

Well, at time of harvest, Marrow II was just shy of being a full two feet long, and weighed a hefty 5.5kg or 12 pounds! It’s no wonder the trellis had been leaning more and more – almost to a 60-degree angle when the harvest took place…

When we cut it open, the cross-section looked just like a winter melon. Cooked into a soup, it was just like winter melon in texture, too, with tasteless flesh that simply took on the flavour of the soup.

Cross-section of the marrow – looks very similar to our winter melon, except this had a narrower ring of flesh.

What it had, highly in its favour, was that unmistakeable freshness of home-grown fruits and vegetables. A family friend who dropped by simply could not stop raving about it – even the day after!

Marrow II may not have lived as long as Mighty Marrow, but definitely fulfilled its life purpose – it grew to fruition and was enjoyed by many…

The joke about this harvest was that we didn't realize there was a young lizard on the marrow until after this picture was taken and it jumped onto my arm!

The joke about this photo was that we didn’t realize there was a young lizard on the marrow until after this picture was taken and it jumped onto my arm! It must have panicked when the fruit was taken away from the leafy trellis…

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