Wednesday, December 08, 2010

kangkung or otherwise known as water convulvulus and more pictures from the balcony garden

 These are very good for making pressed flowers as they're nice and flat, and the more you cut them off the plant, the more buds will grow!
 Above, kangkung stalks, also known as water convulvulus, water spinach or kangkong. They're one of my favourite vegetables, most Malaysians would known this one quite well. It's widely eaten in Sri Lanka and the Philipines as well I think. I just love dark leafy greens [like spinach, rocket, silverbeet, choy sum] and this one is especially good stir fried. But, because it's not widely eaten here it was hard to find, and when we finally found it at an asian shop, it set us back $7 for a bunch! [you could buy a kilo of a pork leg and have change leftover!] A bit of research on the internet showed that it grows like a weed, and is indeed a weed in some places in the US, so I thought it couldn't be too hard to grow. So we saved some stalks from our $7 bunch and instead of eating them, we put them in potting mix and flooded them with water.
 In just a day of soaking in water, tiny roots appeared at the nodes, and now, after 2 1/2 weeks, they've grown some leaves! i do hope they'll grow enough for us to harvest after a month or so!
They weren't too expensive in Melbourne, I rmbr seeing them sold at Preston Market for $2.50 a bunch. But still, there's that thrill of growing something and seeing something appear out of nothing. It's like a miracle!

More of the pansy shots. I just couldn't help myself. :) hehe

1 comment:

Gina E. said...

The dear little pansies - I've got exactly the same ones in our garden. The poor things have been struggling among all the mulch, but they've survived and multiplied, due largely to the rain we've had!