Backyard Gardening
Written on Mar 18, 2026
Some people grow flowers and other ornamental plants in gardens. I've been fortunate to live around more pragmatic people most of my life. I should probably call it "backard farming".
My parents owned a home on two city lots. When I was young, my mother and her mother planted "okra" on one lot and in our back yard. They may have planted other things, but I was young, and I don't remember anything else.
Eggplant
I haven't figured out the English name for this specific cultivar. I've heard it called both "Chinese eggplant" and "Japanese eggplant". Filipinos call it "talong". All I know is that it's long and thin, shaped somewhat like a cucumber.
I've tried to eat eggplants a few times. I just don't like the taste. Perhaps I need to learn how to cook it to my liking. The way my relatives cook it, it doesn't agree with me.
Okra
Filipinos call it "okra" as well. Although I've eaten it boiled in the past, that isn't the way I prefer it. I like it fried in corn meal. That's the way my mother cooked it when I lived with my parents and siblings.
We can't find corn meal in the Philippines. We have some now, but only because I shipped it with other things from the United States.
Sweet Potatoes
They like to eat "talbos ng kamote". The closest thing in English is "sweet potato leaves". They don't grow sweet potatoes for the tubers alone. They harvest the leaves multiple times. They don't harvest the sweet potatoes themselves until they get large.
It's usually eaten with rice and sometimes mixed with "alugbati", or "vine spinach" in English. I've eaten it that way myself.
Other Items
They're growing "ampalaya", or "bitter melon" in one area. There are a couple of papaya trees as well. Our back yard isn't that big, but they seem to have learned to grow certain things side by side. At one time we had a "guyabano" ("soursop") tree and we still have a "kalamansi" (a type of small "lime") tree that isn't bearing fruit.
Image by Eric Michelat from Pixabay