my youngest child has been showing great interest in the little details of the things around him eversince a toddler.. these are his very own artworks using his newly-bought magnetic toys..

i love gardening and i love eating raw vegetables (ulam), hence, been planting & growing some local ulams near my kitchens for daily and occasional consumption… the idea of having easy and immediate access to such freshly-picked home-grown ulams whilst cooking & preparing meals had been in my head since small, and i remember trying (unsuccessfully!!) to grow watermelons in my parents 10×10feet porch-garden, mmm…

ok, ok, watermelons are not really considered an ulam, yes?? but still, this ‘edible-garden’ interest has been long nurtured, and now happily & passionately shared with my sparring-partner-in-life..

some of the ulams that have been thriving in our edible-garden are these kacang panjang, which have been fruiting well recently, without much fuss, interruptions and infections from the snails, insects, butterflies, giant-red-ants and the rest of my ‘fellow’ ulam-lovers.. and just yesterday, we managed to pick 2 handfuls of them to last us a week!! simple pleasures like these can promote healthy aging, eh..??

but aside from giving me simple-pleasures, do they really have any health-benefits?? i googled ‘khasiat kacang panjang’ yesterday, and these benefits were mentioned & listed:

1. reduces diabetic, hypertension & hypoglycemia conditions..
2. reduces fat in blood, cholesterol..
3. cleanses/enhances liver & pancreas functions..
4. increases bowel movements..
5. increases red-blood cells..
6. and some other benefits which were beyond my simple-comprehension and brief-googling..

but as always, any good things taken excessively must have some not-so-good-benefits in return, huh??

this grapevine-plans of ours were mooted eversince we had some extra spaces to play around with, and our first set of grape-trees were planted along the side garden in-between our 2 side-verandahs approximately 3-years ago.. a total length of 12-feet steel climber-fence was purposely/vertically put-up to cater to the growth of our grape trees, not knowing that once the grape-shoots climbed up to the top of the fence, they’d hover on and grow around the top of the fence only, leaving the rest of the vertical-fence bare..

hence our vertical climber design was proven not to be perfectly suitable for grape-vines afterall, but we tried to make the best of the situation by constantly and manually guiding downwards the growth/movements of new shoots.. the colours and shapes of the grape-leaves were appealing to our eyes and the fact that the trees would start fruiting whenever we talked about getting rid of them, have made us decide to just let them be where they are and let them continue being a part of our garden-scapes..

on the upside of things, the sour grapes (above-photos) that they’d kept bearing over the past one year could actually make excellent substitutes for ‘belimbing besi’ in my cooking and ‘masak lemak kuning’ dishes, eh..?? mmm..

so 3-years passed by, and our grape-vines are still not some nice-looking vines at all.. ;(

so 3-years passed by, and another grapevine-idea was mooted a few months ago.. ahh yes, why not try again and grow another set of grape-trees on the rooftop garden instead..?? and this time around, instead of vertical climber-fencing, we should build horizontal flat-climbers all around the toproof gazebo, so that the grapevines would grow all around the gazebo-roof horizontally, looking like extensions of the roof..?? and when they’d start fruiting, the grapes would be dangling down for easy pickings as we passed by under the climbers to sit underneath the gazebo..?? mmm, that sounds really really nice…

so another set of steel-structures were commissioned and constructed within the next few weeks.. flat horizontal steel-climbers on 3-sides of our toproof gazebo would be strong enough to hold another set of grape-trees for many many years to come.. and we envisioned how beautiful the gazebo would look like with grape-shoots, vines and fruits growing wild, branching out and dangling down.. and we can grow, pick and eat our own fresh homegrown grapes!! heavenly eh..??

but how do we get grapes that would taste sweet?? do we just buy seedlings/trees from any garden-nurseries around town?? what type of soils should we use?? any special fertilisers needed?? what type of weather conditions should we observe..?? this is our second grapevine-attempt, therefore we must strive to be more prepared and informed, to get better and sweeter results..

so we asked around among friends, relatives and strangers.. and eventually the trees that i got over the weekend were courtesy of our weekend pasar-tani-trader abang-musa hailing all the way from perlis.. who bought them from some handicapped grape grower residing in grape-growing-state-of-perlis..

our current grape-journey in photos soon, in next posting..

entertaining friends at home has been our new passion the past 3-4 years, eversince moving to bukit beruntung for good.. mmm, maybe the extra dining & lepaking spaces around the house contributed highly to the development and nurturing of this new passion..

now that both events were already almost 2-weeks ago, i’d just instead post some of the photos i took.. not so much of my guests but of my table-settings, in the hope that some of my handmade ceramic tablewares & decorative items are ‘accidentally’ featured in the snapshots..!!!!