Visiting Our Garden 3 – Bayabas, Papaya, Lagundi at Kangkong

I thought of sharing today about our front yard, there’s not really a garden that I’ve put much effort into. When we arrived here last year, there were already some trees like the malunggay and the atis (but this one died because of the Habagat flood last year).

This guava or bayabas tree (pictured below) was already there also but it’s only in the past month that it had fruits on it. Our neighbors kept asking for some when they see them and we give them also. I’ve tasted it and it’s good. I’m not really fond of guavas but I would eat it primarily for the benefit of getting a natural dose of vitamin C.

Guava and Papaya Trees

Freshly Picked Guavas

Aside from eating the fruit, we also use the leaves for healing purposes. There had been occasions that my husband and son had burns/wounds on their legs because of touching the motorcycle exhaust pipe. We boil the leaves and use the boiled water to wash the wounds. It helps the wound to heal faster.

Boiled Guava Leaves - for the fast healing of open wounds

If you notice the papaya tree pictured beside the guava tree, here are the fruits from that tree. We did not plant that, it just blossomed and it had plenty of fruits perhaps more than 20. However, this one is short lived. After producing fruits, it slowly dried up.  Sayang. Anyway, we gave many of the fruits to our in-laws and neighbors and we had the chance to cook some in Tinolang manok as well as ginisang papaya with sardines.

Green Papaya Fruit

The plant below is the lagundi plant. I’ve already mentioned it in a previous post when I talked about the garden in our parent’s house. I really wanted to have this plant in our home as well so when we last visited my parents, I asked for a pot with soil and my father inserted into the soil a freshly cut branch of lagundi from their plant.

New blossoming Lagundi Plant

I really hoped that we could make it grow. The only instruction my father gave is to put it in a shady area and of course water it. Initially, all the leaves of the branch dried up, so I thought, it won’t grow anymore. But I still told my children to talk to the plant so that it would grow. One day, I was so glad to see budding leaves from the branch. It’s been about 3 months since and this is how it looks now.

I actually use the dried leaves to make lagundi tea. I could boil the leaves for about 5 minutes and then I either add honey or a bit of juice powder so that my kids will drink it. It’s good for treating their cough and loosening the phlegm. Sometimes, I also just boil water, add a 2-3 leaves and cover it for 5 minutes. After removing the leaves, I can drink it or add honey or juice.

Lagundi Tea- homemade from dried leaves

Lastly, this is where I get the kangkong leaves when we cook sinigang. I used to buy kangkong from the market but I thought of planting instead to save money. I just gathered the stem of some of the kangkong I bought and immersed them in water. When they had roots, I transferred them to the soil and it started growing. The more you harvest the leaves, the more they would grow. What we have is not really much but enough to give us kangkong to cook once or twice a week.

Kangkong plants

These are what I harvested yesterday and cooked for sinigang. I didn’t know that kangkong had lots of health benefits aside from adding fiber to the diet. It actually provides amino acids, iron, calcium, vitamin B and C. It can also be used for treating fever, skin diseases, liver disease and diabetes. You can read about that here.

Talbos ng Kangkong

Do you have fruit trees or vegetable plants in your front or backyard? Aside from helping to give fresh air, they are good sources of healthy food. It helps to save some cash too.