Backyard Gardening
Written on Mar 18, 2026
Some people grow flowers and other ornamental plants in gardens. I have 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 do not remember anything else.
Eggplant
I have not figured out the English name for this specific cultivar. I have heard it called both "Chinese eggplant" and "Japanese eggplant". Filipinos call it "talong". All I know is that it is long and thin, shaped somewhat like a cucumber.
I have tried to eat eggplants a few times. I just do not like the taste. Perhaps I need to learn how to cook it to my liking. The way my relatives cook it, it does not agree with me.
Okra
Filipinos call it "okra" as well. Although I have eaten it boiled in the past, it is not the way I prefer it. I like it fried in corn meal. That is the way my mother cooked it when I lived with my parents and siblings.
We cannot 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 do not grow sweet potatoes for the tubers alone. They harvest the leaves multiple times. They do not harvest the sweet potatoes themselves until they get large.
It is usually eaten with rice and sometimes mixed with "alugbati", or "vine spinach" in English. I have eaten it that way myself.
Other Items
They are growing "ampalaya", or "bitter melon" in one area. There are a couple of papaya trees as well. Our back yard is not 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 is not bearing fruit.
Image by Eric Michelat from Pixabay