Ikesha's garden

Pakcik Hassan from Al-Manar wanted to find out about the lovely Aloe Vera. That reminded me that I haven't posted about my favourite pastime after reading and writing. Gardening gives so much pleasure and enhances our meals, always a special treat when we include some greens and appetisers, ulam like bunga kantan, pegaga and bunga lengkuas. And ulam raja. My grandmothers both left me with this legacy and I always think of them when I am here planting, weeding or watering. Ikesha and Inas are my green fingered daughters.

Ikesha loves flowers. Here is her arrangement of bunga kantan, misai kucing and what we call the red flower...

This is for Ikesha when she comes home from the kindergarten. A half bowl of cherries we picked from the hugh tree behind the house. We only pick from the bottom of the tree. I tell the girls the rest are for thhe birds...

Ikesha helped me plant this pomegranate tree. We have three more at the back of the house. This is the first fruit from Ikesha's tree.

This is our bunga kantan or a type of wild ginger flower. It is lovely when cooked with fish dishes, and exotic when eaten raw as an appetiser with rice. We slice it real fine (julienne). As we say, sedap!

Some fruits from our garden, ciku and nona. We also have kedundung, mangoes and longan. I only have space for small trees about 5' to 8' tall. Except for the cherry tree which is now 3 years old and 12' tall. We used to have passionfruit over our fence, I am trying to regrow them.

Here I introduce the red flower comes from...surrounded by bunga melur a type of jasmine which sends a beautiful fragrance throughout the open lawn. I use white flowered plants for this purpose, we have kasidang, jasmine and fragrant white orchids ...

This is Ilena stepping out. She looks tired, the girl is fasting. Photo taken by Ikesha. For a five year old (in about a month's time), she is quite a talented girl!