Friday, April 8, 2011

BLOOMING FRIDAY : eye candy

To us malaysians, bunga is flower. The plural is bunga-bunga. There aren't many bunga-bunga in our little Tanah Merah garden. Always, flower is Kakdah's delight especially her hanging orchids. For today's post, I wish to explore flowers among the vegetables here. The most exciting understandably is lady's fingers / okra / bendi / kacang meo. I find the word kacang meo interesting because it is used only among Kelantanese. I will not venture into its origin. Kakdah jokingly mentioned about miang as the root word for meo, since her hands get very itchy whenever she got to harvest okra.

lady's finger flower
okra/bendi/kacang meo

lady's finger flower
okra/bendi/kacang meo



Malabar spinach

malabar spinach young flower
malabar spinach, young fruits

malabar spinach ripe fruits



Selom

selom flower
selom flower








selom flower
selom flower








 selom flower
Oenanthe javanica in the family of  water dropwort 

 Flowers or bunga-bunga are beautiful and treasured here, whereas in some other parts of the world, the word bunga bunga has different meaning which  Silvio Berlusconi (click here for more : Italy in suspense as 'bunga bunga' trial is poised to lift lid...) had made famous in  Italy last year,
and  in a century old  incident
happening on British Navy battleship H.M.S. Dreadnought in 1910, later known as   Dreadnought Hoax. (click here for more:  Dreadnought hoax)



More bloomings over at Katarina Katarina: Roses and stuff

bangchik and kakdah

at

15 comments:

  1. AnonymousApril 08, 2011 1:28 AM

    Beautiful vegetable flowers!

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  2. MalarApril 08, 2011 8:07 AM

    Pretty flower of selom!
    Can we eat the malabar spinach fruit? they look like mulberry to me!

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  3. AndreaApril 08, 2011 9:17 AM

    The cleaning guy here in the office utilized some space around the building for his vegetable garden, and his okra are all fruiting now. The bitter gourd have started to climb the trellis, while the tomatoes are already starting to ripen. It was a sight to behold every morning i pass by it. Certainly those okra flowers are so beautiful, always. I love its 'bunga' too. We have here a whitish variety with branches and longer life span than the green. We have the same 'bunga' term but we include a prefix to denote plurality. Haaaay, i want to harvest fruits, maybe like Kakdah!

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  4. miruku April 08, 2011 9:47 AM

    The malabar spinach ripe fruits look like mulberries. Look yummy but can eat? Detective Sue sent you an email without a tittle ops.. hope it didn't go into your junk box.

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  5. Bangchik and KakdahApril 08, 2011 12:57 PM

    .....Theanne and Baron
    Thanks. yeap, vegetable has flowers as exciting as roses..., less colourful though.

    .....Malar
    I dare not try malabar spinach seeds, i will let it stay longer to save seeds.

    .....Andrea
    We are compiling words with similar meaning now, malay and filipina (tagalog right?) Last time was ubi and now bunga. I have not seen the whitish okra here, but i have seen creamy one.

    .....milka
    Kakdah pick malabar spinach leaves and shoots. Not too bad. The fruits, so far not yet. Tak Berani, takut sakit perut. There is rather large seed inside. I have replied the email...... a Porsche milka?

    ~bangchik and kakdah
    Tanah Merah, Kelantan

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  6. WandernutApril 08, 2011 2:29 PM

    Beautiful!! :)

    Status report: I've freshened up the soil in my vege patch and fixed a trellis on my backyard wall. Some vege seeds have been put into mini pots. They should be sprouting in a few days. Kacang bendi is one of them! Woohooo! I want to plant Malabar spinach too but I can't find the seeds anywhere. Can they grow with cuttings too?

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  7. Bangchik and KakdahApril 08, 2011 3:29 PM

    Wandernut
    I am glad you come up with status report. So you grow bendi too... that would be very nice! About malabar spinach, wait until I have collected enough seeds.., then those interested will get angpau with malabar seeds in.

    Cheers,
    ~bangchik

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  8. Ann, Chen Jie Xue 陈洁雪April 08, 2011 7:56 PM

    there is a white flower weed which smells bad, do you know the name. Looks a little like your photo.

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  9. Bangchik and KakdahApril 08, 2011 8:35 PM

    .... Ann
    I am not sure which one you are referring to, but this selom is edible, always taken raw as ULAM.

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  10. AnonymousApril 09, 2011 9:18 AM

    Pretty flowers and all from vegetables.

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  11. WendyApril 09, 2011 11:29 AM

    pretty photos. I did not know that about bunga and it's plural bunga-bunga. what a fun way to pluralize a word.

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  12. Bangchik and KakdahApril 09, 2011 1:05 PM

    ....greenapplesgarden.com
    Thanks.... vegetable is like any other exotic plants as far as flowers is concerned, only that vegetable is edible.

    ....Wendy
    English will put s at the end for plural, in our case, repeating the word will make it plural. There are exceptions for some words just like English. Thanks.

    Cheers, have a great weekend
    ~bangchik and kakdah
    Tanah Merah, Kelantan.

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  13. UnknownApril 09, 2011 3:51 PM

    A great favourite is the okra flower. Bright and bold.

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  14. Bangchik and KakdahApril 09, 2011 4:42 PM

    Keats The Sunshine Girl
    Yes, Okra flower is the best.., just a head of roselle.

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  15. AnonymousMarch 09, 2013 10:09 AM

    The flowers of selom really look like Queen Anne's lace.

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