Daddy green fingers

My dad has green fingers. During weekends, you'll find him tending to the fruit trees in the garden. Like the way he cares for the family, he feeds his plants with organic fertilisers and mulches the garden bed regularly.

Here are some fruits of his labour.

Dad's friend gave him some pitaya (dragon fruit) cactus. After taking care of the plants diligently, a large flower bud appeared one day.

The white large fragrant flower of the pitaya opens only at night, hence it is sometimes called moonflower or queen of the night.

The flower develops into a green fruit with leathery skin covered with scales.

It turns pinkish as it develops. The fruit can weigh from 150-600 grams and the flesh, which is eaten raw, is mildly sweet and rich in fiber and minerals. Some of the fruits have white flesh with tiny black crunchy seeds like the kiwi fruit. Our dragon fruit has red flesh with black seeds.

I bought this soursop plant from the nursery for YK to breed a particular type of butterfly. From a small plant, it has grown into a tall fruit tree. Though it flowers continuously throughout the year, we've not seen any fruit. After my dad started fertilising the plant, we're beginning to see more flowers and even a little spiky fruit. I can't wait to taste the sweet succulent pulp.

My kids love passionfruit. When I was young, we could find them growing in the wild but you can hardly find them around these days. So when I saw this plant at the nursery, laden with fruits, I bought it even though it cost $45 (US$32). It's a good buy because it keeps producing fruits. Now that we have 4 passionfruit plants at home, dad has built a new flower bed around the plants and added more top soil.

Papa's pride and joy. He grows the papaya plants from seeds.

Our lime plants at home are always laden with fruits. I use the limes for making salad dressing. I also make a dip using lime, garlic and chilli padi which goes very well with steamed fish.

The broad leaves belong to our grape vine which refuses to produce any grapes. In the past, we've had some grapes but they were even more sour than the lime.

Our jackfruit tree produces too many fruits until it is now leaning on one side. It grew from a seed that I brought home about 10 years ago after I ate a piece of jackfruit from the fruit stall. It produces huge fruits with lots of sweet yellow flesh and hard round seeds inside. It's a pity we leave the fruits on the tree until they rot away.