Harvesting @ Melaka

Spot the boys.

First harvest of the day, millipedes

I wandered off to the bananas and left the boys to themselves, leaving Fai in charge.

Kongkong had been harvesting since 8am and was now cutting the bananas into combs.

Packing the bananas

Pesticide free okra

JY at work picking out the fat, long ones.

I went to check on the boys as they were rather quiet. I expected Ean to start looking for me after 5 minutes.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that they were not only contented where they were but they had also set up a harvesting system.
Fai and Ean would scout around for ripe pumpkins.

Then hand them to Han

Han would pile the pumpkins up

And brush away mud and dirt

JY's okra

The boys' pile of pumpkins. They kept asking me how much they earned that day.
Han is tending to his millipedes.

Pumpkin Harvest @ Melaka

PohPoh and KongKong got a call at 8am from the middleman "I will be coming to collect the pumpkins at 5pm today!"

So we rushed down to Melaka to experience pumpkin harvesting.

By the time we arrived, the pumpkins had already been placed in piles along the dirt road.

Ean helping to put the pumpkin into a bag. For ease of weighing and collection, the pumpkins were put into sacks.

Fai found parts of a male and female flower.

Fai collecting plants to plant at home

This plant caught Han's fancy. He dug it out and placed in a black planting bag.

Fai's pet millipedes

Pumpkins that were ready for harvest had a dull orange hue.

Unripe pumpkin was green and had a shiny sheen.

The boys could easily identify ripe pumpkins by the end of the day.

Something interesting there, boys?

PohPoh bonding with Ean over pumpkins

Pumpkins ready for collection

The pumpkins were weighed and thrown to the back of a lorry.

Watermelon Farm @Melaka 1stMay2011

My brother's foray into farming.

He started with bananas and is now trying out watermelon.

Our first time seeing watermelons growing.

Ean with a tiny watermelon.

Han helping KongKong with a heavy watermelon.

It will take another 2 weeks before the watermelons are ready to be harvested. By then the leaves will turn yellow and dry up.

My brother will cease planting watermelons after this as he found that the work involved is much too intense - each flower had to be manually pollinated.

And a lot of pesticide is required for each stage of development - the moment the seed germinates, pesticides are sprayed.

However, it took only 2 months from germination to harvest. I guess he likes planting bananas more.

One interesting fact:

The flower from the yellow watermelon is used to pollinate the flower of the red watermelons. Yellow watermelons are a byproduct when red watermelons planted.