@Lilli Bee, Hello, and I hope you enjoy our small forum, but as you'll see, we have some interesting ideas. You don't say what part of the world you are doing your gardening in, and that can tell us much about any problems your garden could be having. Although, it does sound as if you are quite well so far. Let us know how your garden grows, and I hope to see you weigh in on some of the others subjects. Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, I'm from the Houston, Texas area, and we like to say, "If you don't like the weather now, just wait a day or so, it'll change."
Yes, dragon fruit grows slowly. They develop branches (I'm not sure if my term is correct) in 2 months and sometimes it stops on that particular branch so it will mature and bear buds. From planting, maybe the count starts from when the new branch appears, it takes 1-1/2 years for the dragon plant to bear fruit. Our dragon plant planted in early 2013 was already budding in August 2014. That would have been fast. However, the 2 buds did not prosper, just withered. We are now seeing small fruits since several of the buds have bloomed already. And the first fruit is getting ready for harvest. Our dragon fruit is the purple type. Here it is...
Oh nice! I love fresh spinach! I don't use lettuce for salads, I add it to lasagna, and its my favorite quiche. I can't eat the stuff in the can. I consider that ruined spinach.
There is a typhoon up north but it is affecting us with the heavy rains seemingly being pulled by the typhoon. It has been days of rains and it's not good for our garden. The soil will turn into mud and kill some of the plants. Last year when we had too much rains and the extended garden had no chance to dry, all our crops died maybe of drowning. What worse is that insects breed at night when there is water in the garden. Most of the young leaves of the vegetables are eaten. Here is the cassava crop submerged in 4-inch water. That was taken yesterday and the situation is the same today. If the sun will not dry it, another dead crops probably.
I wish you can send some of that rain this way. My cassava is dieing because it is too dry and you know just how much they can take. Maybe it will take a hurricane before we get some water.
Are you in California? I have read in the newspaper yesterday that California is suffering from a dry season, i.e. no water in the tap. Stories like how they survive were described in that report. We always say that it is all right to have no electricity as long as we have water in the tap. For your cassava, I would suggest that you water it with the recycled water like what you used for washing raw meat or fish. Do not let your cassava wither just like that. Fight for it. I'm sure you can think of a way to save them.
I live on the north coast of the Dominican Republic the south coast gets rain but we don't. They call cassava here yucca and it dose well with little water and if it gets to much it rots.
That picture doesn't look good at all! I've been getting more rain than usual here to, the south eastern US, but it isn't that bad. Its horrible how everybody seems to be getting too much or not enough. I haven't heard anyone say their area is completely normal.
We have moringa which is locally called Malunggay. The leaves are nutritious when mixed in soup dishes. It is prolific so there's no problem when you harvest the leaves once in a while. We normally cook a chicken dish called tinola which has ginger for flavoring in the soup. Malunggay also has fruits that can also be eaten but in a different cooking manner. It has a soup of its own with salt as the only flavoring. But we eat that with matching fried fish. We planted Malunggay for the nutrients.
What sort of flavor does it have before the salt is added? I'm asking because I've never heard of it. I'm also wondering what kind of climate it has to have to grow.
Moringga is a tropical plant that is prolific with leaves during the rainy season. It has a very slight bitter taste. For the fruit, it is long like string beans but has a sturdy skin that is not easy to peel. It has an acrid taste when boiled into soup. The salt is the neutralizer of the acridity otherwise the soup is not good. For more flavoring, we add sweet potatoes for the soup to be more palatable.
I honestly have no idea why, but I want to try that soup, really badly. Your description reminds me of something I've tried and really liked, but I can't remember what.
May I share a photo of our extended garden which is the vacant lot beside our property. We had planted a part of it with camote and gabi tuber. Camote is sweet potato that has nutritious young leaves which are eaten as vegetable while the camote tuber is eaten as fried or boiled for snack food although it can also be mixed with dishes. The Gabi tuber is also a snack food when boiled and eaten with grated coconut and sugar for flavoring or it can also be an ingredient in some dishes. Both plants are easy to grow and water is the only requirement. In photo is the vine of camote and the Gabi with big leaves. Notice the banana, that's imported from Thailand.
I know its because of the climate, and being on opposite sides of the earth , but it's crazy how different our gardens look. Maybe because its different or exotic, but your garden makes me so hungry! I just want to raid it.
@Jennifer Graves, pardon me but what gets in my mind upon seeing your backyard is... Halloween, hahahaaa. I can see the corn crop with flowers and probably are beginning to grow some ears. Do you know that boiled newly-harvested corn on the cob is my favorite? Now, you can raid our garden and I will raid yours, hahahaaa. But wait, I'm really amused with the scarcrow. What is it for, to scare the birds in the traditional way? We have a problem with birds. They regurgitate on the side mirror of our car once in a while (this morning I saw a regurgitation). Regurgitation is half-digested food of the bird that they throw out (vomit) to feed their young. I wonder why they throw out on the side mirror.