A BUSY AUGUST; PART 5

SHORT COURSE FOR GARDENING COMMUNITIES : GARDENING SKILL

The third day of this course, we improved our gardening skill.
We learned about making potting mix, planting, weeding, fertilizing, and many more.
Lovely outdoor activity....

A BUSY AUGUST; PART 4

SHORT COURSE FOR GARDENING COMMUNITY : FOOD PROCESSING

August 7-9, three tiring days... 

We held a short course for women gardening communities.. 

Here, we sharing about urban farming, gardening and also food processing.

First day we were discussing about urban farming and gardening.

And the second day we were practicing about food processing.

We processed food from so many ingredients that mostly found in our home garden.

Look... these were that we cook on that day.

Steamed cake from cassava, Peanut cookies and pudding from sweet potato and coconut milk.

'Nagasari' is a  kind of pudding made of cassava flour and banana.

'Abon Ikan' or Fried-Shredded fish from cat fish, great eaten with warm rice.

The participants were making 'Bola-bola Talas' or colocasia root ball with shredded fish inside.

That's all really funny experience...

A BUSY AUGUST; PART 3

DISTRIBUTING THE GRANT OF PEPPER PLANTS

August 2, our gardening community got  grant from local government.

About 300 pepper plants that we have gotten.

All plant had to distributed to the member of our community as soon as possible.

These were curly long pepper.

The pepper plants looked so poor, a tiring shipping.

Soon I contacted the members to took some of pepper plants to be grown in their own garden.

We needed four days on distributing these plants.

Now, most of these plants are growing so happy and have shown the little fruits.

Thank you...

A BUSY AUGUST; PART 2

COMPETITION ON ARRANGING FLOWER FROM WASTED MATERIALS

August 1, The same day and same place with Making Drink Competition, there was another competition.

Yes... Arranging flower from wasted material.

That was an interesting competition.

Seeing and meeting creative persons!

So various artificial flowers made by creative person, from unusual materials.

Look... this flowers below made of plastic bag.

The red 'dahlia' was made of plastic bottle.
And the white flowers behind were made of both or plastic bag and bread paper.
The pot was made plastic cups.

Look... the participants look enthusiastic.

Lots of lesson here...

This was the flower arrangement made by our team...

An artificial orchid...

Daisies...

And the vase made from soft drink bottle.

The flowers that haven't arranged yet.

They were so beautiful...
Beauty from wasted material.

A BUSY AUGUST; PART 1

COMPETITION ON MAKING DRINKS

This is the first post from a serial about our activities during August.

August 1, we started with a competition on making drinks.

That was about creation and innovation.

We have to use local product for these drinks.

Fruit, vegetable, cereal, grain, spices, herbs and many more be a great ingredient.

We only had a limited time to take a discussion what should we make in this competition.

There were seventy seven participants here.

All drink that preserved here was looked awesome and yummy too.

Looks so interesting...

So colorful...

Finally, we made a decision optimizing all that we have.

So, we used mostly fresh ingredients from our home garden.

Traditional spices that mostly used in Indonesian dishes.

Red ginger root, pandan leaves, mint, lemon grass, clove, sappan wood (Caesalpinia sappan), cardamomum fruit and palm sugar.  

We boiled the ingredients, then put it on the crockery pot for hot drink, and put in to the bottle for cool drink.

The aroma was so good... so spicy...!

I made the drink and my friend did presentation about this drink.

My friend did presentation to the judges very well.

Although we weren't a winner but we were so happy cause we got lots of lesson and experience here.

NEGLECTED GARDEN

Finally, I can do blogging for a while. 

More than a month I couldn't do that.

So many reason... we had an poor internet connection and also I had enough time.

August was a very busy month in every single year.

So many special events in our country is in August.

Of course we used to spend more time for these events.

I will share you about our activities during August in a serial next.

Busy days and of course tiring days.

Only limited time to do gardening chores.

So... our garden was neglected.

Drought and caterpillar be serious problems in our garden during August.

I have to "steal" time although only for a while to watering our poor garden.

These pictures were taken in the middle of August.

Some spaces were empty, and another were full of weed.

The only bed that in good looking was broccoli patch.

This bed was in part shady area, so that was a bit avoided from drought and heat problem.

Long green pepper was growing happily here.

Plumeria flower buds were appearing from the stack of wasted plumeria branches. 

Tidying the garden is a must...

FRUITY FRIDAY : DELIMA AKA POMEGRANATE

A view from our southern balcony...

This was our Delima or pomegranate bush.

A bit messy, but something that made us happy.

Three big fruits were hanging on the slim branches.

I thought they have already ripe.

Several weeks ago some unripe fruits have fallen onto the ground.

It might caused by extreme weather several weeks ago.

Lots of heavy rains then very dry days for several days later.

Then I picked all the fruits.

Look... they were fairly big. 

But all fruits were cracked.

This one was the most cracked...

The cracked area was dry and blackish.

But when we opened and removed the dried part, we found the fresh fleshy seeds.

Look... my little one really enjoy the reddish flesh.

Sweet and slightly sour taste and of course... juicy...

Thanks GOD...