Achuete (Bixa orellana)

The achuete, achiote (the latter being the Nauhatl term, used in the warmer Americas) or annatto is one of my favorite plants. I say this because it is all-around an interesting specimen, with a beautiful flower, a strange-looking fruit, and some great culinary and home-dyeing applications. It is safe to say that though we encounter the seed's coloration in some of our most famous dishes (kare-kare and pansit luglug), we rarely bump into the living specimen anymore.



With soft red spines in the young pods, the fruit looks like a small, heart-shaped rambutan (which is, in fact, what most people think it is when they see it). If that couldn't be endearing enough, break it open and you will find supple, moist red seeds, just ready to be used as lipstick or writing on friends' faces. Which is what I do sometimes, without a mirror, while gardening, and have only yesterday been met with "what's that on your lip?".

The young leaves begin brown, like the mango tree, and proceed to form a fat, shiny heart shape. My tree began flowering at such a low height, it was surprising. The blooms are pretty, pinkish, with the petals curving inward. These give way to a round berry-like thing, which is the full fruit waiting to happen.



Slowly these begin to grow the little hairs or spines that the plant is famous for.





The specimen above is actually abnormal, with few hairs but actually not quite mature. It's my garden's little, less aesthetically pleasing excuse for an achuete, but inside it actually had pretty fat, supple, pulpy seeds.

When the pods dry, they open up, begging you to take custody and propagate them. Their somewhat genital appearance reinforces the fact in your mind that they are usedas a "female aphrodisiac" in the Amazon.



Aside from the myriad of medicinal uses, the achuete's obvious strength in human use is its natural, red-orange color. It is used to safely give some life to pale food products such as cheese, spreads, and oils. This is because of the high amount of carotenoids in the plant, which is said to keep people healthy.



One particular indigenous use in Ecuador is the most interesting, for me. The men from the Tsachila indigenous group form a brilliant paste of achuete and grease and apply this to their hair. As they shave the sides of their head and keep a "crown" that is strikingly colored, they look like slick, beautiful birds (see photo above, taken from here). The achuete is supposed to represent strength to them, as well . A most curious fact is that the Tsachila only began wearing their hair like this after the Spanish arrived, supposedly to protect themselves from disease brought by the conquistadores. Below is a video showing the coloration process:



I dunno about you, but this gives me ideas for Halloween costumes or boring-day activities. The possibilities are endless, but my time today is not, so I'll end this post with a photo of a coat of mine, made with pineapple leaves and local cotton, then dyed with annatto seeds:

What Kind of Shit is That?!

While I was gone from my room, it seems to have been peppered with fat grains of white-tipped poo, which have been identified as lizard or butiki poo. Apparently they get brash when there is no activity in a place, and I am thankful to them for consuming any crawlies or biters in my absence (and they seem to have eaten a lot!)

Meanwhile, something slightly too massive for our chickens' digestive systems showed up on the (sealed) tops of what will soon be one of my water catchment barrels.



With a smell too mild to be cat poop (but still too offensive for too-close examination), this presents yet another mystery to me. There were bits of seeds and also what seemed like little larvae. Seems like chicken or avian poo, but as large as my wrist. Really.



I flicked it off with the bamboo coin bank I was hacking in half. As a side note, it came from an uncle's farm and I had carved some plant onto it, and I put some varnish on it from homemade resin distillate, but it was time.

Home

I'm back home. It feels wonderful. Before I go back to posting stuff I'm gonna cavort a bit in the garden and lay in my bed.

Buha, The Coconut Cotyledon

Oh man. I found something out about coconuts today. It feels like finding out your longtime best friend has twelve toes. I feel pretty stupid, but beyond that, amused.



So the mature coconuts fallen in our garden are collected regularly for their milk. Awhile ago one was cracked open for lunch (stewed vegetables), and there was a strange formation inside. Apparently, this coconut was ready to shoot some leaves out, and this thing-- called buwa or buha (Ilonggo)-- is an edible, soft predecessor.



It feels like and tastes like coconut-flavored foam. I couldn't finish it, but everyone else was munching away. The spongy balls can be cut into slices, and their flesh feels like a super firm frozen brazo de mercedes.



This part is actually the coconut cotyledon, sometimes called the "coconut embryo" or "coconut apple", is actually suspended in germination. It is named uto in the Cook Islands, o'o in Samoa, and manzanas de coco (coconut's apples) in the Americas. Check this video out for a low-tech but interesting compilation of what must be all existing photos of the coconut cotyledon on the internet, plus some marginal medicinal information.

There are few resources and accounts on it. Here, according to personal interviews, it is eaten raw in the province, especially by those preparing copra. In Micronesia, there are accounts of a soup containing it with arrowroot (uraro) flour. This person speaks of a Chinese-Malaysian who taught them how to eat it. This South Indian tells us that it may sometimes be caramelized. I hope to gather more stories in my free time.

This short search also led me to discussions of the "coconut pearl", which are intriguing and funny to me.

General Overview Thing

It's good when your garden is resilient against manager-busy-ness. Things are still growing, and fast. Some parts of the garden are now more chaotic ("organized chaos") than ever, but hey, look at the false roselle:



It is not the "real" roselle, but a good substitute with sour leaves. I nicked this one from seeds in Nueva Ecija.



The evil-spirit-protection tuber (gabi-like) is finally peeking out of the betel leaves.



The patch of kamantigue came up nicely after the rains:



My collection of gingers is growing. Here's a langkawas I am about to transfer to a better place:



Large mushrooms from the rains:



And the most excellent bit of news: my achuete tree-ling, though barely up to my knee, is flowering and fruiting!





Some beans growing beside:

The Two Gabis, All Grown Up

After about a month and a half, the two gabis I purchased from the market are grown up and ready for transplanting.



On the left is puti bilog (the rounder corm with white flesh underneath) and on the right is pula haba (elongated with pinkish tone of flesh). Same goes for the photo of the corms pre-planting, below. Explanation and direct translation of the names are available in the first post.



I suppose now I will go all proper noun on you and capitalize.

Puti Bilog produced a relatively light-colored leaf, with the undersides almost the color of aphids.





The stalks were also very pale.



Pula Haba had similar-shaped leaves.



However, its stalks had strips of purple.





The undersides also had a tinge of purple, not darkly colored veins, but kind of like a light crayon shading.



You probably can't even see that, huh?

Well, I was sort of hoping the leaves would be differently shaped, but there you go. I can't wait til the taste-test of the corms and leaves.

Toys, Refused

After the anahaw straw post, I've decided to attempt to document the stuff I find hurled over the wall that is between my garden and the children running around all day in the street. This is the "toy and toy part" bunch of late.

Sometimes I am able to toss a ball back over a few hours after it lands on my plants, but other times the elements have their way and it all ends up looking like a Tim Burton movie.

Deep Greens and Purples

I've been away from the garden due to work, but I've been snapping photos of the gardens I come across. During this rainy season, leaves turn deep green (or yellow, if they drown). The dark purple on many tropical plants is more pronounced. It is a great, mosquito-filled time to walk around.





























Starting aratiles and guava seedlings:


Patola, hanging gourds:

I've been away from the garden due to work, but I've been snapping photos of the gardens I come across.

Open Source Seeds

Vandana Shiva discusses savings seeds, sharing knowledge, and open source software. (Via Bifurcated Carrots.)

I've been having a lot of discussions regarding seeds and seed saving recently, with people who are "not the type. This is quite fascinating when you consider how unpopular the topic of seeds was just a couple of years ago.

(Pause)

Look at my laptop. Productivity plummets. I just go along with the world. Perhaps shall resume soon.

Two More Gabis

I asked the lady at the market store what the difference between her two gabi were, and she just muttered something along the lines of (translated): "Aaaah, they are different, one is a bit more slippery, I'm not sure which one, but they are different, but kind of the same."



She peeled them off and rubbed with her finger, but could not tell the difference. I bought a whole bunch to propagate, and add to the growing population of gabi in the garden.



There were longer ones (on the right) and short, round ones (below, beside some turmeric). I bought about seven pieces of each.



Upon examining at home, I found that the longer variety actually was pinkish underneath the skin.



And came out with more apparent dots than the round one when sliced.



Planted in underneath this seedling rack, so that excess water will drip onto them. You may notice that they are labeled with broken pieces of clay pots ("Pula haba" or "red long" and "Puti bilog" or "white round", together with their planting dates. Note that the Filipino language really has no common word for pink, so that to say pink you must say mapula or somewhat reddish, veering towards red, in the red family.). Further observation in the following weeks.

Updates! Transplants, Weather, Skull

(Found a rodent jaw^) Okay! I need to do these "dump them in the bag" updates because I like to look back at past months and track progress and changes.



I recently transplanted a chico seedling (above) that I bought at the AANI market. I planted it among the weeds and grass, so I first put a kaing in place and mulched the bottom heavily with paper, stuffed with leaves (like this), and stuck the tree in. The dried coconut is there so that the chickens won't have the urge to jump in and mess it up.

I did the same for the cacao, only this time I put the bark of palm trees to deter chickens.



Our first marigolds are blooming! My dad used to think we had them, but we actually had cosmos flowers. They smell so good in a rank way, kind of like being cute-ugly, perhaps.



I just remembered my gisol or lesser galangal. I stuck it under the cotton plant way back and just sort of forgot about it. I transferred two small plants into pots until they recover from being weak and I will plant them out and propagate.



And it has been a ginger week indeed, as I have received two other kinds of plants from the family, and have found the identity of luyang itim. Another celebration resulting in breaking the root apart and transplanting them with room to grow, by the turmeric (larger one in the back) and the kamias tree. More on the identity later, that's it for now.