The Aussie long bean

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The first bean logged in at about 40cm long. It is the bean that the successive ones will be measured against!

Not too long ago, The Weeds shared some of the seeds that Grandpa Weed brought from his garden Down Under. The okra plant has already made its debut, and today, the long bean plant gets the spotlight.

It’s been interesting seeing the seeds of the different kinds of long bean that we’ve grown here – some have been brown, others cream, and now, black.

For some reason, I haven’t had the best luck germinating them. Only one plant grew, and because I was waiting to see if the others would germinate, this one plant got bigger and took root in a planting tray I had on a ledge, and grew so fast that we decided to just leave it there instead of shock it by breaking the roots. The plant managed to grow high enough to reach a hanging pot of kangkong, and it used that as a foothold and kept growing up from there…

The first bean has grown and been harvested, and was more than respectable in that the bean was thick and fleshy, and a decent 40cm long. More baby beans are growing, and I’m wishing we had a few plants producing simultaneously. I’ve sown more seeds and hope they grow fast to catch up with the first!

Thanks go again to The Weeds for sharing the seeds! ;)

© 2012 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.


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Gen2 winter melon starts fruiting!

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The first female flower on our oldest Gen2 winter melon plant!

I’ve finally spotted the first female winter melon flower, and it’s on the oldest Gen2 vine.

I have three plants growing at the trellis right now. The first was germinated and grown in a pot, before being transplanted to the ground when it was about 2 metres long. The other two were germinated at the same time: one was planted directly into the ground when it was just a little sprout while the other was nurtured, and still is, in a pot. I was interested to see how they would each perform, and to my surprise, the second one planted directly when it was a sprout is growing the worst! It is still floundering at ground level, but could just be biding its time before getting a growth spurt.

So, the attention is on the two bigger vines. Unsurprisingly, the oldest vine has been thriving – branching and blooming quite happily, but of course, they were only male flowers. Also unsurprisingly, the female flower made her debut when I stopped my daily scanning for female flowers…

The second-best vine has grown from its pot and just made it to the top of the trellis this week, where it’s beginning to get acquainted with the oldest vine. Who knows, maybe some cross-pollination will help in the coming months?

If things go as they usually do, this flower won’t set fruit just yet – cucurbitaceaes always seem to have to “practise” a few times before the female flowers finally develop into fruits. It’s a shame, though, because the miniature fruit on this female flower is a decent size of almost 2cm long, and it’s perfectly positioned along the strong metal bar of the trellis. Anyway the important thing is that the vine has finally reached maturity, and will keep on tantalizing us with the possibility of fruits…

© 2012 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.


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The gourd plant that won’t go away

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The snake gourd plant niftily climbing up the rough wall.

My green snake gourd plant looked like it was coming to the end of its growing season. Branches of it were dying off and fruits weren’t forming completely. So, I decided to start pruning the dead and dying stems to see if anything would be salvageable. It didn’t look like it, although I’ll wait to see if the thick main stem will sprout anything new now that the weak stems have been removed.

The funny thing is, after clearing the trellis, I discovered a new plant that had sprouted from one of the fruits that I had left to decompose next to the trellis. The vine was already over a metre long, and was climbing its way up the wall. I had no idea that vines with tendrils could be such efficient rock-climbers!

The only problem with this is that when it reaches the top of the wall, the fence with our neighbours begins, and they don’t appreciate this plant growing there. I don’t blame them because the first vine was quite intrusive and climbed all over their plants, almost smothering some. Since I don’t want to let this new plant go to waste, I think I’ll transplant it to elsewhere in the garden. It’s funny that the snake gourd didn’t want to give up its presence here!

© 2012 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.


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Multiple winter melon buds!

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The first male flower (top right) has bloomed and there are already two new buds forming at the same leaf juncture!

I must be doing something right, because the winter melon plant – the current oldest one, anyway – is exceeding the growth of its predecessor. The plant has produced a few offshoot stems, which the first plant didn’t, and now instead of seeing just one male flower per leaf juncture, I’ve noticed several buds starting to form in the wake of the first flowers!

This is the first time I’ve seen this happen with the winter melon plant – which is not surprising since this is only my second growing season with the plant.

The first plant simply grew a single main vine and had just one flower at each leaf juncture until it set fruit, after which, it eventually died off. With this second plant, I wanted to do better, so I did more planning and preparation. This plant began its life in a flower pot before I changed my mind and decided to plant it directly in the ground. Before transplanting it, I prepared the ground with a lot of matured compost. I guess it worked, because the plant is showing its appreciation now!

To be perfectly honest, the plant isn’t completely without problems. What plant ever is? :| Powdery mildew affects some of the leaves, and some stems sort of run out of steam – the leaves don’t grow too big and curl up into themselves. I’ve found that aphids like those curled leaves, so I’ve learnt to be a little ruthless and remove those not-so-healthy stems.

That probably gives the plant the boost it needs to focus energy on developing the more healthy stems, so this has been a lesson well learnt. Has it contributed to the multiple buds? Maybe. Or maybe the plant is supposed to have bloomed like this but the first plant wasn’t strong enough to do this. I guess I’ll have to grow more winter melon plants to find out!

© 2012 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.


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