MORNING FRAGRANCE - COFFEE FLOWERS

What did you feel when you wake up this morning?
So... How do you feel if you being woken by the smell of fragrant?
This morning, fresh fragrant aroma filled the entire room in my house.
Really refreshing my day...

the source

I really familiar with this fragrance.
This is coffee flowers fragrance.
I don't have coffee tree in my garden, but there were three wild coffee in the garden next to my house.
Hmmm.... so fresh...

white stars

first day

Coffee flowers will bloom for three days.
The tree near my front yard was blooming for its third day.
But two trees near my back yard was blooming for their first day.

third day

 Coffee flowers give us their best fragrance in the first day.
 The fragrance would be decrease at the second and third days.

coffee flowers clusters

So I still have two days more to enjoy this fragrance.
I hope you enjoy it with me...

KAMBOJA

This week my front yard had more fragrance.
My red kamboja (Plumeria rubra) is blomming.
Sweet fragrance...
Fresh scent... 
And make my front yard more colorful... of course!

blossom

In Indonesia we usually find this plant in temple yards or parks.
It's also well known as a popular landscape plant.
In the dry season, they will fall their leaves and raise their flower buds.

closer...

Kamboja is well known as red frangipani, red jasmine or temple tree.
Kamboja grows as a spreading shrub or small tree to a height of 2–7 m.
It has a thick succulent trunk and sausage-like blunt branches covered with a thin grey bark. 
The branches are somewhat brittle and when broken, ooze a white latex that can be irritating to the skin. 
The flowers are terminal, appearing at the ends of branches, and strongly fragrant.

Please follow the progress...

The flower cluster two weeks ago

Last week...

Three days ago

Today...

Could you smell the fragrance...?

WEEKLY HARVEST - OCT 4

This week I got more from my garden.
I picked my vegetables every day.
Actually, just a little amount of vegetables for each day, but it made my refrigerator was overload.

From my front yard, there were bilimbi, green globular eggplant, white cabbages and green cabbages.

Averhoa bilimbi

 
From back yard, there were cabbages, kara beans, cauliflowers, green amaranth, red amaranth, three variety of red long chilli, little hot chilli (cabe rawit), sweet corn, leunca (Solanum nigrum), tomatoes, celery and green onion.

From terrace garden, there were tomatoes, green onion, green chives, red lettuce, green lettuce, hot pepper, and green cabbage.

The rain began to fall this week, so... the weather cooler than before.
Next week I hope better weather.

TERRACE GARDEN UPDATE - OCTOBER

This is the newest condition of my terrace garden.
The weather made me reduce the variety of vegetables that I should plant.
The concrete deck made the temperature on this garden hotter and drier than the conditions surrounding. 
Mouse and caterpillars attack really destroyed.
Only 25 variety of vegetables that I could plant here right now.
Here they are...  

View from balcony (eastern corner)

View from balcony (western corner)

western corners closer

Green chive, green lettuce, red lettuce and green onion

Western rack

Western rack : closer

Caisin and red lettuce : united

Caisin and green onion

Green mustards for seed combined with eggplants

Red lettuce plot

Little island : Sweet basil pot surrounded by lettuces

Southern rack

Tomato lot on the southern rack

The caisin stay on tomato pot

Tomato plot : closer

Kecipir vine (Psophocarpus tetragonolobus): Where I had to climb???

Northeastern corner

Northern rack

Northern rack closer

NEW RED AGLAONEMA

Yesterday, my husband attended his friend wedding reception in different town.
He went home at the afternoon and he gave me some gifts.
He brought me a pot of red Aglaonema and two variety of roses.

This Aglaonema is a hybrid type, but I haven't know the name.
It's look like 'Happiness' variety, but I'm not sure, cause the pattern sometime change.
It's still have an open leaf and a rolled young leaf.
This is the Aglaonema...

Overall appearance

First leaf

Pink splash with white shade

the young leaf

VEGETABLE OF THE WEEK - KARA BEANS

This week, I get a lot of young pods and young leaves from kara beans (Phaseolus lunatus).
In Indonesia it's also called kara legi, kratok, kekara or kacang jawa.
It's look like lima bean or butter bean.
But I'm not sure that they are same beans.

 As a member of the legume family, kara have a capability of "fixing" their own nitrogen from the air.
So... they do not need nitrogen fertilizer. 
Adding nitrogen to the soil will likely result in more vegetative growth and fewer bean pods. 

 a bunches of flowers

Kara (Phaseolus lunatus) are twining vines or herbaceous bushes, perennial in nature, but usually grown as annuals.
It can climb more than 4 m up a trellis or bean teepee. 
The leaves have three leaflets, each 5-13 cm long. 
The flowers are white to yellowish and quite small, usually less than 2.5 cm in length. 
The pods can be 5-15 cm long and 2-3 cm wide. 

Kara will grow well at full sun area but adaptable on part shady area.
This plant also able to grow on the barren land.
But need a fairy moist soil for their best growth.

Bunches of pods

 In central Java, It is commonly known as vegetables that grown for that pods and seeds.
Young pods are cooked and eaten as vegetables.
In Central Java, the young leaves also cooked as a greens. 
Old leaves are used as fodder, food coloring, dye and home remedy for stomach ache.
Green color is obtained from the squeezed leaves.
Seeds from old pods sometimes poisonous if eaten raw.
It needs to be cooked, to eliminate the poison.

young pods

Kara, like many other legumes, are a good source of dietary fiber, and a virtually fat-free source of high quality protein.
Kara contain both soluble fiber, which helps regulate blood sugar levels and lowers cholesterol, and insoluble fiber, which aids in the prevention of constipation, and digestive disorders

The high fiber content in Kara beans prevents blood sugar levels.

Soluble fiber make the cholesterol level is lowered. 
They may help to prevent heart disease. 

Kara beans also provide iron, folate and magnesium. 

Kara beans are a very good source of the mineral manganese, and help enzymes for energy production and antioxidant defense.

So this is a really useful plant...
Actually I got the seed by way of exchange with my neighbor.
The cheaper way to get various seeds.