mangosteen from Pahang

Last month I went back to my home town in Pahang.

POKOK PENAGA

Today, I took a drive to Putra Jaya to Taman Botani, or popularly known in English as Putra Jaya Botanical Garden. The main mission is the ride the bicycle. My daughter loves to ride, by riding on the road is dangerous. The infamous Malaysian are known for bad driving habits. A normal friendly people turns to driving monster when they are on the wheel.

The mission failed. There was just too many people and there are no more bicycles. However, I manage to snap a few photographs of the trees in the garden. One of them is pokok penaga.

Approaching Putra Jaya Botanical Garden on the left. A big blue sign.

A big blue sign says -Taman Botani

The pokok penaga laut, giving a wide shade. 

The leaves are thick with parallel veins.

The skins or bark of penaga laut is thick

The names of the tree is Penaga Laut or Bintangor Laut

A nearby tree with about similar features, known as penaga lilin

galangal langkuas

galangal is a rhizome of plant and used extensively for cooking by the people in South Asia. In cooking like the tom yam from Thiland, Soto from Indonesia, galangal is extensively used.

The rhizome can easily purchased from the the wet market. The powdered bottled galangal is not widely used by the local.

Planting is easy. The rhizome can be planted and if you want to plant in a pot, you need a big one. The plant can go as high as 6 feet. The normal planting in the house garden can grow to 3 or 4 feet. You need more than a year to harvest the rhizome.

Commercial farming can be done, planting space is 4feet by 4 feet. This is not a difficult plant to talk care, After 1 year, the caring is minimum. No watering is required.

Harvesting is done manually and cleaning is done by high pressure hose.

The failed Dragon Fruit plantation

I has seen a number of dragon fruit plantations were abandoned in Malaysia. I always thought it it is a viable business, the price of the fruit in the market is quite high, the maintenance cost is rather reasonable. I just wonder what made it a failure.

Kuala Lipis..This is another plantation near Kuala Lipis. It must had been abandoned for more than 1 year. The whole area had already engulfed by other trees. Soon the dragon tree will die.

Raub Plantation

The photo on the left is a plantation in Pahang Malaysia, near a little town of Raub.

Every time I went to visit my parents, I was too happy to stop and check on the fruits.

They seem to be doing well, I could see each tree has fruit, some can bear about 5 to 10. If they can sell each fruit for $2, there will be a rather high income.

I known that the initial investment to start the plantation is high. The seedlings alone is costly. The concrete pillars easily cost abou $20 each. You add the cost of labor, then it can easily reach $50.00 per plant.

It is sad to see the failed dragon fruit plantation, when the customers demand has started to pick up.

yellow rambutan

This year 10 Nov 2012, the fruits are ripe. It is not fruiting well, I think it is at about 20% of it capability. Even with the low yield, it is more than our requirements. We brought back to Pahang.

Fruit- ripe on 10 Nov 2012 - nice and sweet

The yellow rambutan behind my house has started to flower about a month ago. At first I did not notice until my daughter point it out to me.

I cannot wait for the fruit to get ripe. It will take another 2 months. The fruit will be the yellow variety, one of the best that I come across. It is not to juicy and watery, it is sweet with the firm flesh.

Rambutan tree is one of the fruit bearing tropical trees. It will take about two years to start bearing fruit.

The tree does not grow too big. Mine is about 30 feet, but it can get bigger if you plant is from the seed.

The rambutan tree bears fruits every two years. However sometime you can have it every year, but it will not be too many fruits.

We always thought that the fruit is from Malaysian origin, because the name rambutan is a Malay word, come from the root word rambut means hairs. The fruit is full with hairy appearance.

Well I may be wrong, it actually takes three months for my yellow rambutan to ripe. Now on 30 Oct, three months after the flowering, the fruits are starting to turn yellow. It is not really fully ready, but I had tasted a few, they taste good. I may take another few weeks before they are fully ready.

Not all the fruit are yellow, some rambutan are still in it green color. They are still growing in size. When fully ripe, it will be more juicy.

The Jack of All Fruits

The jack fruit is special, it is crunchy and sweet. It can easily grow in tropical climate.

 Ripe fruits on sale on the roadside stall. The price can varies, and in certain area, can be around RM5 per kg.

 The ready to be eaten fruit is a better bid, At least you can view before you buy the product.

The Magic mangosteen