Sustainable Living: Treasures From My Backyard Part 4

Hello and good morning! I’m up early to check on my darlings (animals and plants), enjoying the sound of chirping birds this cool February Tuesday.

Over the last weeks we’ve had a short tour of what I consider treasures from my backyard: from the fruit bearing trees like mulberry, papaya, rambutan, coconut, lime, to our vegetable crops like eggplant, and ginger. We also had a look at my aloe vera, a medicinal herb, and lastly I introduced you to my four lovely hens that grace us with our organic eggs.

This morning let me show you 2 of our very reliable trees. They’re self sufficient, in fact they just grew at our backyard, much to our pleasant surprise. They’re also quite easy to maintain, don’t require much.

Banana

First up is our banana tree. It’s yielded several bunches of fruit already. I love having banana for breakfast. Sometimes, I add a fruit to my smoothies as a source of natural sweetness. The leaves also serve multiple purposes. We use these as wrapper for suman, a sticky rice snack. We also use this to wrap bibingka, a sweet rice cake that is a Filipino favorite during the cooler months.

As you can see the fruits are due to be ripe soon. And with this much fruit we are sure to share them with our neighbors. This is what I like about our community, people sharing garden produce every so often.

Malunggay

Next one’s our malunggay tree. In english it’s called moringa. We use the leaves as ingredients to home cooked meals like tinola or diningding. There are many health benefits from malunggay, in fact I have seen kiosks in the supermarket selling malunggay tea.

Our tree generously produces leaves. Every fortnight, before heading out to the market, my aunt would harvest bunches of its leaves and brings them to the early morning market vendors to trade with other crops like corn. I’m so happy when she does this – isn’t it how it used to be done ages ago? She gets approximately a good 100 pesos’ worth of crops in exchange for the bunches of malunggay stalks and leaves. It’s always a treat when I wake up to sweet freshly cooked corn on the cob – a trade she made for the leaves. 

Have you ever experienced trading your home grown produce in the market, or sharing it with the community?

I hope you liked our short tour. Next week I’d show you two tropical fruit bearing trees: kamias and atis.

See you soon!