Sowing Timun Tikus seeds (Zehneria)

How many times bank slips, address on a piece of paper, dollar notes, and seeds tucked in pocket ended in washing machine and spoiled. I reminded Fauzi, a friend staying in a gorgeous an acre property in Tanah Merah, as he was about to leave the house with roselle seeds in his pocket. Fauzi is an old friend since the days of late 80's.

I came back from a meeting 3 weeks ago at Swiss Garden Resort some 20 km away from Pantai Remis with seeds in my pocket. Some are taken from Rosiah garden, my younger sister, some from Mother in Law's garden and some are collected from flowering plants as we stopped along the highway.  The seeds were germinated right away. Timun tikus has to be the special one for months to come.

Timun tikus seedling.

I have known about timun tikus, the miniature cucumber but never actually seen one growing. It is a rare opportunity indeed to actually grow them with seeds given by MIL. After googling, I think this will describe timun tikus best:.........

Zehneria, 

 monoecious or dioecious climbing annual or perennial herbs. Tendrils simple. Leaves simple, dentate, usually palmately lobed. Male inflorescence an axillary raceme, sometimes paniculate by leaf reduction, or cluster or rarely flowers solitary. Male flowers: hypanthium campanulate; calyx 5-lobed; corolla 5-lobed; stamens 3, inserted about middle of hypanthium; connective broad, papillose; anthers 2-locular. Female inflorescence an axillary raceme or cluster or flowers solitary. Female flowers: perianth similar to male; staminodes 3; ovary usually globose or ovoid; ovules few to many, horizontal; stigma usually 3-lobed. Fruit fleshy, usually globose or ellipsoidal, indehiscent, few to many-seeded. Seeds obovate, compressed, smooth. 

A genus of c. 35 species of Africa, SE Asia to the SW Pacific including N and E Australia; 2 species in Australia; 1 species on Christmas Is. Included in trib. Melothrieae. ( Refer here : "Zehneria". Flora of Australia Online. Australian Biological Resources Study. 1993. http://www.anbg.gov.au/abrs/online-resources/flora/stddisplay.xsql?pnid=6787. Retrieved 2010-11-20.)

Two timun tikus seedlings ready to be moved to the ground

The raised bed for these seedlings had been prepared, and in fact I was terribly lavish, putting in cocopeat, rice husk, organic fertiliser and sand, mixed them well and watered. The two seedlings will set foot or rather roots on the ground in a day or two. I do hope they will grow healthy and produce numerous little cucumbers like these.

timun tikus, from mforum.cari.com 

bangchik and kakdah

Tanah Merah Kelantan
MALAYSIA

Hibernation of banana plants.

Hibernation.

Seeds do hibernate. Seeds must have encoded chemicals in them signaling not to germinate until the condition is favourable. The essentials for such condition includes water, sunlight, nutrients etc.. Some seeds found in the Arctic grew after an estimated 10,000 years. Some pine cones require extreme heat as in bush fire to crack open the hard seed coats. Only then seeds can germinate, otherwise they continue hibernating..

Seedlings too display such characteristic. Our extra banana seedlings are still behaving like babies and stay small whereas their friends in the open are enjoying the space and the sun, and never afraid of height.

 two big banana plants,

bitter gourds on the left are yellowing.

Small banana plants, remain as seedlings and look healthy. 
They are of the same age as those two in the first photo.
These are extra seedlings, kept just in case their friends in the open fail.

bangchik 

Seeds from Rockville Maryland

What a way to celebrate the first blogiversary by Wendy in a post dated 17th of July 2010. A high school counselor by day and a landscape architect by night in her dreams as she describes herself, Wendy did a  1st blogiversary giveaway! .

I received the giveaway seeds recently and never thought it is going to be that many. Out of the 20 seed types, three are grown for flowers and the rest are fairly standard vegetables. I googled and paste the relevant link for future use and others to learn as well. It definitely become handy when we get on with it.....

1. French Summer Thyme [Thyme 'French Summer]
2. Giant of Italy Parsley  [Grow fresh parsley]
3. Cilantro [Growing Cilantro]
4. Chinese Long Bean
5. Luffa Gourd (sponge) 2 pcts  [ Growing Luffa Sponges at Luffa]
6. Luffa Gourd (angled)
7. Wax Gourd  [Wax Gourd]
8. Marketmore 76 cuke
9. Butternut Squash [HOW TO GROW BUTTERNUT SQUASH FROM SEED]
10. Malabar Spinach [How to Grow Malabar Spinach]
11. Heirloom Acres Lettuce
12. Charentais melon [Growing Charentais melon]
13. Asian sweet melon (2 packets) [Grow Juicy Sweet Watermelons]
14. Calabrese green sprouting brocoli  [ Organic Green Sprouting Calabrese Broccoli]
15. Thai eggplant
16. Carrot kuroda long
17. Thai Burapa Hot Pepper 
18. Cleome [How to Grow Spider Flower Plant]
19. Marigold  
20. Imperial Star Antichoke [Artichoke Plant 'Imperial Star']

We thought, trying out Thyme first will be a good idea. After going through the information available, growing thyme is not going to be an easy one. First, it will take 3 weeks at least for thyme to germinate. Somehow that will coincide with Hari Raya celebration which requires us to be away for a few days. We don't want baby seedlings to cry and die hungry. Knowing that thyme have excellent fragrance and antibacterial elements, the adventure should be worthwhile...

 Wendy, Cheers!

bangchik and kakdah, PUTRAJAYA Malaysia

Seeds, all the way from India

Kalyani Nandukar send me 2 packets of seeds, all the way from India. The seeds are clitoria ternatea (also known as Gokorna meaning cow's ears in her language) and bright yellow lily (she does not know the real name). Those are thank you seeds as a reply to roselle seeds I sent earlier. I googled for some early information on the seeds.

clitoria ternatea

Clitoria ternatea, is a scientific name in the family of Fabaceae  for a plant known as kacang telang (Malaysia) or butterfly pea (Australia) , Kordofan pea (the Sudan), campanilla (Panama), zapatillo de la reina (El Salvador), papito, bejuco de conchitas (Puerto Rico), pokindang (the Philippines).   It is also known as bunga nasi kerabu because it can be used as colouring in a local delicacy nasi kerabu. Clitoria ternatea is summer-growing perennial climber with a woody base, can climb tall grasses and crops. Leaves with 5-7 leaflets elliptic to narrowly lanceolate 3-5 cm long, shortly pubescent underneath. Flowers solitary, attractive, deep blue, occasionally pure white, very shortly pedicellate, 4 to 5 cm long. Pod flat, linear, beaked, about 10 cm long, slightly pubescent. About 20 % hard seeds. (Andrews, 1952). Autogamous, 2 n = 16. Growing season 60-80 days. Refer here: Clitoria ternatea  

clitoria ternatea

from google

 And for the bright yellow lily, I really have to wait for the seeds to germinate and see for myself how they look like.  So, clitoria ternatea and bright yellow lily will be the new addition to the garden soon (provided they germinate).

Seeds do travel far...

 bangchik

Collecting our own tomato seeds

Through experience, I notice seeds collected from plants grown in our little garden has been prepared well by their mother to grow and survive in our garden. Its a hint of the principle, survival of the fittest. The second generation plants grow better. Sunflowers had shown that. So is the winged bean.

I just imagine, it's the responsibility of the mother plant to prepare its seeds with enough coded information of growing parameters, soil conditions, weather, pest harassment, positive and negative contributing factors by the gardeners (Bangchik and Kakdah), the severity of stare by onlookers and passersby walking up and down the public pedestrian walkway. We humans prepare the future of our children through proper upbringing. Plants and vegetables don't last long to really see their own babies. I guess experience and knowledge on survival has to been handed down through some coded info within the seeds. It's just what I think, with no sound scientific treatment. Just a hunch... haha.

So this is what I do to collect seeds from tomato:-

Cut the ripe tomato into halves.  

Normally I  use tomato

from the second harvest.

Now seeds are very much visible

Scoop out the fleshy part, 

and then put it into coffee strainer 

and wash through. 

The residue is the seeds. 

Let them dry for a couple of days, 

then they are ready 

to be germinated.

Are you collecting seeds from tomato plants you grow this way?

bangchik

Putrajaya, Malaysia

Keeping seeds

 

 seeds container

  

seeds container

Most gardeners I imagine are guilty of having far too many seeds than needed. Then comes the issue of storing them. The box has been with us for almost two years. I bought a box of chocolates on the way home from overseas trip. Kakdah and the children love chocolates so much, that the whole box was emptied in no time. 

That box is reused  to keep seed packets safe and in an almost airtight condition. 

Age is catching up, 

and the box begin to rust.

where do you keep your seeds?

~ bangchik

Putrajaya, Malaysia