Vegetable gardening - August 2009

I tried to venture into vegetable gardening last month. My first taste of veggie gardening was when I was still a kid. I cultivated a tomato plant before. And when it grew to about 2 feet tall, I clumsily hit it with a ball. It died eventually of course. :(

Then last month, I decided to give veggie gardening a shot again. Our barangay (local barrio) gave out free seedlings of 5 different vegetable plants. I only knew 2 of them by looking at the leaves: ampalaya (bitter gourd) and Chinese kangkong (a variety of water spinach). The other 3 seedlings is a toss up among eggplant, green beans and cucumber (I guess). Funny, the barangay guy didn't know them too. :(

Some pictures I have taken since I transplanted them into bigger pots:

Ampalaya (bitter gourd) with make-shift trellis:



Chinese kangkong (water spinach variety):



Could this be green beans? Anybody who would know?


I don't know what's this (yet):

*Edited to add: This looks like a young Okra upon thorough research.

Appreciate who would know these plants. Thanks! :)

There are still others left to be transplanted. Hopefully I can find some time and good soil.

Mushrooms

Mom bought a home-growing edible mushrooms from a food expo last month at World Trade Center. She got it quite cheap for only Php20 each! Each one can grow mushrooms quite a bountiful of times based on our experience.

Before watering (I know, my phone camera sucks!):



Sprouting stage:


Ready-for-consumption stage:



It takes normally less than a week from sprouting before it can reach full maturity. It's tasteless in my opinion. So you need to season to taste. It's a wonderful experience to be able to harvest our own food from our backyard. I'm trying to do some vegetable growing this time. Hopefully it'll work. :)