My Thriving Backyard Kebun!

In this post, I dreamt about having my own herb garden.

Well, my backyard is no longer a herb garden... it is actually a full blown kebun! My family and neighbours have been constantly contributing to the patch, hence we now have quite a diverse variety of plants. Before I delve into the various plants, let me explain how my backyard kebun looks like.

Here's a super old post about my love-hate relationship with the pencawang elektrik, affectionately known as the PE. My house was meant to be a corner semi-d, but I guess the PE 'bungalow' ruined the whole idea. So instead of being the last house on the street, the PE beat us to it. However, we decided to look at the bright side of things - technically the land behind the PE (beside our house) becomes ours, lah kan?

So here's how our adopted land currently looks like:

We lined every wall/fence available with plants.

Even the walkway wasn't spared - we planted pokok buah on this patch. Also we divided our pokok buluh (from before we revamped our garden) into small shrubs and planted them all along the walkway to provide shade to the house.

From left to right - petai, nanas, kelapa, pucuk ubi, daun kunyit, serai, limau kasturi, belimbing buluh, daun limat purut, kari, cili, daun kaduk. As for the fence on the right (not seen in picture) - daun kesum, kuchai, pegaga, daun ketumbar, daun pandan and pisang.

Let's start with my pride and joy, courtesy of my aunt's garden. When I first planted this pucuk ubi (with red stems), it was just an inch tall.

Look at how it is thriving... even taller than Ian now! Endless supply for my favourite tempoyak daun kayu! The daun kunyit looks good too!

Another key ingredient for tempoyak daun kayu- daun kaduk! On the left was when we first started. On the right was about a month ago.

Now's it's starting to spread out!

When we first bought the bendi plant, it was small and then attacked by bugs. But surprisingly, we've managed to reap three rounds of bendi so far! Usually they end up in my curry dishes. Picture on the right is the latest picture, check out that cute baby bendi hiding beside the fully grown one!

On the left, freshly planted pokok cili. On the right - we now have at least 10 biji cili, just waiting to be picked.

A close up - here's a stupid question. How do you know if it's pokok cili merah or hijau??

On the left, leftover kepala nanas from the sweetest pineapples I have ever tasted, courtesy of my in-laws. On the right, look at how big they have grown. In the right corner of the picture, is my petite pokok petai. Berapa tahun lagi la nak dapat hasil tuh...

Limau kasturi. On the right, fresh new leaves have began to emerge. By its side, more pucuk ubi... but this one has white stems (instead of the earlier red stems). Anyone knows the difference?

Pokok belimbing buluh, my daun limau purut that keeps being attacked by belalang, and my legendary pokok kari.

See how much our daun kesum and pegaga have grown? I actually had to plant the daun pegaga in the flower bed to prevent it from taking over the ground. However, the daun ketumbar had to be moved into the garden shade cos it was too hot outside.

Pretty kuchai flowers. But these things are taking ages to grow!

Daun pandan and pokok pisang, from before we revamped our garden.

Our fruit trees - ciku and mangga.

Anyway, I am still looking for bunga kantan, ulam raja and pucuk pegaga (the one that can be eaten... the one I currently have is for making juice). Anyone knows where I can get these?

My barefoot mini gardener, who loves to accompany me while I tend to my kebun.