Monday, August 01, 2011

Me no vege mon today!

Hello! First of all selamat berpuasa to my Muslim friends. Hope you guys are blessed abundantly during this holy month.

This week I am not going to be blogging about my vegetable patch as I am not in Selangor but in my hometown of Butterworth, Penang. In turn if you like it or don't, I am going to blog about my mom's garden instead. Her garden is one of my inspirations for my own patch.

Although my mom's garden is not particularly only vegetables but it includes some flowers as well. All of her plants are grown in pots like mine and they do bear fruit.

Some of the plants include indian herbs such as "karpura valli" or Oregano as it is known in English. There is also "Thulasi" also known as Holy Basil. These plants come in handy especially when you are having a flu or if you need to rid your chest of phlegm. They don't taste great especially oregano which is pungent and chewing on a leaf is pretty beneficial flu or not. They grow easily and look like a shrub.

There are also a number of plants that can't be eaten and if you insist may kill you. A very good example is oleander. It is a beautiful flowering plant and often used for landscaping but beauty comes with a heavy price!

Here are some of the pictures.







An overview of the garden.







Oregano - good for curing flu symptoms.







Japanese Rose - beautiful flowers and used for landscaping as well. Don't know of it is edible and I do not want to take the risk of eating it ;)







What I believe is pineapple but never seen it fruit!







Some ornamental bamboo and I have known this plant ever since I can remember which could put this plants age at about 27 years old because moved to Butterworth when I was 3.







This pot holds two plants Pegaga (not lady gaga, no! It is used as Ulam in Malay cuisines. It is also known as Pennywort in English) and also tomato. The tomato plant is still not mature enough to bear fruit.







This fellow right here is the infamous oleander. This lil' mufacka has the potential to kill by ingesting just 1 leaf. I told my mom to throw it as we occasionally have kids in the house and you never know what they put in their mouths.







Some palm which I am not so fond of. I hate palm (except maybe for coconut) and I think I am prejudice towards palm as I do not believe they serve any purpose. One of the reasons could be because it destroyed the estate where my parents are from! It was a rubber estate until they wiped it out to make way for palm oil... Sheesh! Okay, it is not the palms' fault but hey I need some plants to blame!







Pandan, beybee! I love the smell. Also know as daun chendol. No fancy English name.







"Pasalai keerai" or also known as Indian spinach. "Keerai" in Tamil generally refers to vegetables.







"Thulasi" or holy basil. Just placing some of these leaves in a cup of water may do you some good. Hence why it is used in holy water (for Hindus)







Money plant. I love these guys. Very hardy plants. There was once when I moved to my new place and did not water it for a week and there was no rain either, but the dude survived despite having looking dried but with some water afterwards, my money plant is doing well.







And last but not least is the Feng Shui plant. These guys are lush and when they flower, they churn out a flower that looks like a mini tumbleweed. I think it looks cool.

So there you have it. A walk through my mom's garden. I have not asked her any permission to publish this so please don't tell her. I mean it. Some of my cousins do read this blog! Save me a beating :P

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