My First Harvest: Red Spinach and Bok Choy

Oh how excited I was that day!

It’s been a while since I’ve written about my gardening journey [honestly it’s been a while since I’ve written here at all]. But today I want to share how my first harvest went. I’ve been meaning to write this for a month ago, as these veggies are actually from February and early March. Can you believe we’re already in June again now, where did half of this year actually went? aigooo

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Anyway, when I first wrote in this community, I shared what I'd purchased as a beginner. The funny thing is, I tried planting most of the seeds I bought even though I didn’t know if I’d consume them or not, lol. I was just loved watching these plants grow bigger and bigger every day. Red spinach is one of those plants that grows pretty fast. It’s almost like I can see the different in their heights every single morning when I check on them.

I was almost shocked to find out that it didn't even take a month for them to get into those sizes. But I forgot how many weeks it took when I finally harvest them for the first time. That was a problem in its own lol, because I didn’t know what to do with them.

My mother said, “if you make soup with it, it’ll look like blood. That’s why I never cook red spinach myself, what are you going to do with them?” of course, I have no idea. But I harvested them anyway, put them in a basket and thought that I’d find some simple recipes or should I just do an experiment by mixing them with glass noodles or something.

But my mom threw it away>< aigooo I can’t even remember how many hours I left it so probably wilted and looked bad or something. After that, I reconsidered to plant red spinach again (omg this sound like a super serious concern🤣), and decided that I wouldn’t plant them again, at least for now. Even though I always excited seeing them grow, I still don’t know what to do after harvesting them, so it would be a waste right?

By the way, there were other leaves popping out of the ground. It’s not like they just suddenly appeared without us planting them, but really only God knows what were there. From my mom’s lime leaves that grew with completely different leaves🤣 to my water spinach that's scattered all over the pot, and a random melon leaves. Yes, my mom, instead of planting them properly, she just poured a BOUNCH of melon seeds and they grew so messy because our space isn’t big anyway.

Another plant is this arbei that my father got from a random kiosk owner where he bought coffee. He asked the owner if she could give him some to plant it himself, and she did (probably because he had bought coffee LOL). And it actually did bear some fruits. When that pink fruit appeared, I was so excited. Like, finally we have a plant that actually bears real fruit??

But it was grew until the color turned purple almost black, fell from its tree, and didn’t bear any fruit again. When the fruit fell, I tasted it and it was bland (not sweet, not sour, not bitter). So I somehow forget about it because now the plant is growing taller but only the leaves with no fruit.

Last but not least, look at those bok choy :”) unfortunately, I wasn't the one who planted them. My father randomly planted them in a cement pot across from our house (it’s like a “neighbor’s pot”) but there was an empty space at the time, that’s why my father planted some bok choy.

IT GREW HEALTHIER than the ones I planted myself in the regular round pots. We even managed to harvest three of them, all of which were pretty decent sizes. Even though it’s not like the ones we usually find at the market, but we finally able to use our own harvest bok choy to cook some meals.

I currently do not really consistent about my gardening journey, but writing about it now definitely makes me want to go back to it, taking care of the plants and learning more about them every day.

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Thanks for reading as always, I’ll see you when I have another gardening story hehe. How about yours, by the way? Have you had a vegetable harvest recently?