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12 Mar 2013

Eggplants – So many varieties

Before I became a farmer, I was vaguely aware of the a couple varieties of the eggplant.  Now, I find that there are so many varieties and called a few names – eggplant, brinjals, aubergine and guinea squash – and is from the plant family Solanaceae.  As with the varied names, there are also many sizes, shapes and colors.  This plant is a perennial but is often cultivated as an annual in locations which have a climate other than tropical.

This plant is propagated from seeds.The plant can grow quite tall but can be controlled by selective pruning to help shape it.  It produces small purple or white flowers with a yellow stamen.  A healthy plant can produce lots of flowers, beautiful to look at so you might want to consider this for your home garden, both as a landscape feature and food source.  At the farm, it is watered regularly and fornightly organic fertilizing and this seems to result in good quality and quantity of flowers and fruit.  I also water them at least once a week with water from the fish pond so that it can receive the various minerals and nutrients available from this water.  Be careful with terung pipit though as it does have sharp thorns on its branches and stems.

It is difficult to spot the difference between the leaves so I wait until the plant produces the fruit although I can distinguish a couple of the varieties.  The fruits produce can weigh the plant stems down so it is important to stake them to prevent the plant from toppling or the fruits from laying on the gound which can damage it.  At the farm, I use a 1″ pvc pipe of at least 1m long and then I thread “rafia” string along the branches to provide support.  I find that by threading the string, it prevents damage being done to the branches and provides balanced support.

Some varieties taste better than others eaten raw.  Other ways for preparing it include using it in curries, baked either with olive oil or with a cheese topping, dipped in batter and fried, sauteed with a seasoning of your choice, stuffed with cheese, seafood, breadcrumb mixture or whatever you fancy – the options are limited to your culinary imagination.  A special quality of terung pipit is it is often used locally is as a condiment to reduce the bitterness of papaya shoots.

There are probably more varieties so I look forward to more discoveries….

05 Mar 2013

SHL Red Tilapia Asam Pedas

My latest culinary adventure in the SHL Kitchen was to create my own version of the local dish Asam Pedas.  The aim was to use as many ingredients as possible from the farm.  The fish used is fresh red tilapia and with its firmly soft (is that an oxymoron? I guess most of you know what I mean) and ability to absorb flavors, I thought it would be a good fish to use for this dish.  Next I had some bottle gourd which I felt would also be a great vegetable to add to this dish as it can absorb the flavors of the Asam Pedas.  I also used vine-ripened tomatoes to have that slight sweet taste and a touch of sourness.The herbs used in this dish was also available at the farm so the journey began.  The ingredients used were:

  1. Cleaned red tilapia (300gm fish size to make serving much easier
  2. Tamarind juice – add more if you like it really sour and less it you just want to have a subtle taste
  3. Red chillies
  4. Bottle gourd
  5. Vine-ripened tomatoes
  6. Shrimp paste (belacan)
  7. Persicaria odorata or known in English as Vietnamese mint or in Malay as Daun Kesom 
  8. Lemon grass or serai
  9. Red onion
  10. Salt to taste

I do not like to use the blender and prefer to use a mortar and pestle (lesung batu) to create a paste of chillies, belacan and tomatoes.  I also use it to pound the lemon grass to be added.  I brown the sliced red onions in oil and add the chilli-tomato-belacan paste to it.  After a few minutes, allowing the flavors to blend nicely, I added the tamarind juice, lemon grass, daun kesom and additional water to create a gravy.  After it is brought to a boil, the pieces of bottle gourd is added.  When this has become soft and the gravy brought to a boil, the fish is added.  Once the fish is cooked, it is now ready to serve.  It is an easy and quick dish to prepare, all in all taking less than 30 minutes to prepare from cleaning the fish to serving.

05 Mar 2013

SHL Smoked Red Tilapia

One of the things I enjoy is to experiment with ways if preparing whatever we produce.  I began producing smoked red tilapia in November 2012 – in small quantities first to have people try it out.  Based on the positive feedback, I began to make them quite regularly and sell it at the Sunday morning market in Sg. Penchala.  It is a popular item and finishes fast.  Many have asked how it is made so here’s how I process it so maybe whoever is interested can try to make it too.
Starting with fresh red tilapia, preferably those bred in running water ponds (as it tastes tons better), clean off the scales and cut it open from the “back” so that is splits open and remains joined by the “tummy” side.  This will enable the fish to absorb more of the marinate and “dries” faster.  Rinse it well and at the farm, since we have clean, river water, the fish doesn’t get touched by chemicals in our normal water although it may be present in small quantities.  Be sure that the fish is really fresh or the meat of the fish will become “mush”.
Nest step is to prepare the marinate.  The ingredients are:

  1. Lemon grass (serai)
  2. Calamansi (limau kasturi)
  3. Coarse salt

Pound the lemon grass and squeeze in the juice of the calamansi and add salt, mixing these ingredients well.  I also add the calamansi fruit that has been “juiced-out” in the marinate.  Add the fish and mix it well with the marinate and let it marinate for at least 6 hours, keeping it in the fridge the whole time.  I tend to marinate it for at least 24 hours.
The most time-consuming part is the smoking of these fishes.  It is important to have damp firewood that will create the smoke as well as turn into embers to provide the necessary heat to slowly dry the fish.  Be sure not to have flames as this will cook the fish too fast and not allow it to smoke nicely or you will end up with grilled fish and not smoked fish.
Now that you have the smoked fish, what do you do with eat.  There are many ways to prepare them for your meal:

  1. Fry them to create a crispy fish and you can munch on the whole fish.
  2. Cook a sambal with chillies and a touch of shrimp paste (belacan) and tamarind juice (air asam jawa) to create a spicy smoked red tilapia dish.
  3. Cook a coconut-based gravy either with or without chillies, with or without belimbing buloh and add the smoked fish to create a creamy dish or  masak lemak as an accompaniment to your rice.
  4. Chop it up and add to your rice porridge.

If any of you have any other ways of turning it into your meal, I would love to hear about it.  Happy trying 🙂

13 Feb 2013

Marinated Red Tilapia

Starting with a great, fresh fish, there are many ways to prepare red tilapia.  Being very fortunate to have lots of ingredients that I can use as a marinate at the farm, I decided to experiment a bit to see how the flavors will blend.  I enjoyed it so I am sharing it here.  This marinate can be applied to 1-1.5kg of fish.  Ensuring that the fish is fresh and farmed in “running water” makes a difference to the final taste of the dish.

Ingredients for marinate:

  1. 2 stalks of lemon grass (serai)
  2. 1 yellow onion
  3. Fresh tumeric (kunyit)
  4. 3 calamansi (limau kasturi)
  5. Salt to taste

I prefer using a mortar pestle (lesung batu) as opposed to a blender so I placed all the ingredients for the marinate together and pounded them until they became a paste.  I then added some salt and the juice from the calamansi – I added this after the other ingredients were pounded to prevent it from “jumping out” of the pestle.  To speed up this process, I had sliced the lemon grass, onion and tumeric.  Try to use fresh tumeric as it does make a difference to the taste as opposed to using tumeric powder – this will also add better nutrients to the dish.  There are numerous health benefits from the lemon grass, tumeric and calamansi so this is a healthy way to prepare the fish at no expense to the taste.

The marinate was then applied to the fish and left to marinate for 1 hour.  You can marinate it longer if you wish – I was just hungry hence the 1-hour marinate.
This fish can then be grilled, cooked over charcoal or fried.  For a low-calorie option, you might want to avoid deep-frying the fish.  as a note, there is no need to add any flavor enhancers as by using fresh ingredients that bursts with flavor, your palate will enjoy the experience.  In my hurry to eat the fish, I forgot to take pictures of it done 🙂

09 Feb 2013

Toona Sureni – long term plan

It is always amazing what you learn from people who become a part of your life.  In this case, I was introduced to Suren leaves or as people from Kerinci call it: daun suhin or in Malay – daun surian, as a condiment you use in cooking rebung and young bananas as well as other savoury dishes.  It adds a slightly sour taste to the dish.
It’s botanical name is toona sureni or known in English as Indonesian Mahogany.  I am not sure if it can be easily found in Malaysia and the ones that I know of have been brought over by people originating from Kerinci where it is widely planted.

It is planted from tiny seeds that was sprinkled over the ground and lightly covered with soil.  When it was about 10cm tall, we started to transplant them to various locations on the farm.  Depending on the location of the plant, some died, some grew faster than the others.  In general, I found that if it was planted in the ground that had a 50% clay composition it would grow slower that in ground that had a lower clay composition but at the same time had at least 30% organic matter.

The tree produces distinctive stems of leaves from the main trunk and grows straight without any branches.  In the 2 years that I have had this tree seeded and planted, the tallest tree is now over 8m tall and the shortest is about 2m tall.   Traditionally, it has been used as natural insect repellent including for mosquitoes.  The natural aroma from the leaves and tree bark repels these insects.  I have noticed that the immediate area surrounding the location of the tree has fewer insects, including mosquitoes and gnats.

The young leaf shoots are red in color which turns into a dark green as it matures.  Before the leave fully stem of leaves fully matures – where there are still leaves that have a red tinge to it – is when it is used as a condiment.  Hence I categorize this tree as a tree that falls into the edible landscape variety.

This tree can grow to 30m tall with a trunk diameter of up to 2m – this of course will take years.  You can say that this will be for the next generation which by then should make this into a valuable tree.  The lumber produced is prized in the production of quality wooden furniture and window frames.   I am looking forward to observing the growth of this tree and what its fruit will look like.  So if you are selecting a tree to add to your landscape, you might want to consider this tree with its multi-uses.

05 Feb 2013

SHL Trellis Plants Adventure – Part 1

I have always had a fascination of plants growing on a trellis or arbor ever since I saw in real-life grapes growing on an arbor in California.  Somehow, I do not think that grapes will grow well at the farm so I began to experiment with different plants.  There is a multitude of choices so I selected based on what I enjoy eating.

To start with, I selected long green beans and french beans – both versatile vegetables.  Both these plants produce lilac flowers so I wonder if these types of beans produce lilac or purple flowers.  I also noticed that the angle bean (kacang kelisa ) also produces purple flowers.  Both the long beans and green beans does well planted in polybag, just watch the soil level against the root growth.  Should the roots become visible, it is essential to top-up with additional soil to ensure the plant continues to produce good quality and lots of beans.  Periodic removal of mature leaves will encourage production of flowers and new growth.  These two plants share a trellis well as the trailing vines have similar light texture.

Baby cucumbers are also a favorite, with its crisp, sweet, fresh taste.  They also produce nice, small  yellow flowers.  These plant are really sensitive to the water availability as well as vulnerable to insects which tend to eat the leaves as opposed to my other trellis plants.  The leave have a coarse surface texture and can stick to your clothes easily.  I spray them at least once a week with my serai wangi mix.

The bottle gourd or labu air produces medium-sized white flowers  with a yellow center, which unlike most of the other flowers, have petals that open at dusk and through the evening and closes when the sun rises. 

The leaves are similar to the loofah/luffa or petola plant.  The difference between the two, the loofah plant produces yellow flowers and similar to the bottle gourd, it opens at dusk and closes at sunrise.  The bottle gourd, loofah and baby cucumber can share the same trellis as they have heavier trellis so they can support each other.  It is best not to plant these plants on the same trellis as the long bean or green beans as they can weigh down the vines of the beans,

There are several varieties of bitter gourd and they produce white flowers.  The leaves of the bitter gourd appear to be delicate and has a distinctive shape, with lots of details – rather beautiful.  It is also soft to the touch.  It’s tendrils are also delicate and break easily.  The bitter gourd can share the same trellis as the green beans due to their similar lighter vines.

Most times you will find pumpkin grown on the ground, often referred to as a pumpkin patch.  However, these plants can be grown on a trellis, albeit with a little help from “strings” to help support the plant.  Personnally, I prefer the green/yellow speckled pumpkin which you find at supermarkets often labelled as Japanese pumpkins.  It is best to plant the pumpkins on their own trellist as they have heavy vines and much larger leaves.

All these plants are planted in large polybags to ease maintenance as well as ensure maximum fertilization as the fertilizer is placed within the polybag and no wastage.  I can just focus on the weeds that grown in the polybags and use a weed-cutter in the areas surrounding the polybags.  When the plants die off, I just remove the polybag from the trellis and replace with another. 

Being in polybags also mean that I have to monitor the moisture level of the soil more than if it was planted in the ground but the trade-off is worthwhile since it makes preventing it from being overcrowded by weeds much easier.  With all the various colors of flowers and its fancy-shaped leaves, it presents a beautiful trellis to the eyes.  My next addition to the trellises will be honey dew and cantaloupes.  And so the adventure continues……

30 Jan 2013

Armchair Farmer – Leaving a legacy

Farming to me is a passion and it is not limited to just plants and trees but also includes animals.  With the creating of Suria Helang Lui, I am finally realizing a dream. one I have had since a child.  Albeit, I went through the normal life paces – studying, working in a professional field, reaching high level of management – everything that the world now marks as making a success of your life.  To me farming is also about leaving a legacy.  Whilst I have left a legacy for the nation – with all its stengths and weaknesses, pros and cons – in the MyKad project, I now hope to leave a legacy of our natural heritage through the farm.

I have never been one to follow what everyone is doing so my approach to farming is also not what everyone else is doing.  I do not follow fads – whether it is farming Arowana fish because you can make tons of money, planting Cavendish bananas because it is commercially better, using chemical pesticides and fertilizers so you can get beautiful produce which makes it cheaper to produce and easier to sell since it looks good to the eyes, and a whole bunch of other fads.  It is based on my priciples of producing quality, healthy, natural foods maximizing nature’s bounty.  It is also a spiritual journey for me, marvelling everyday at Allah s.w.t.’s gifts.

While commerce has driven the research into producing quantity of food cheaper, it does not mean that it arrives at the table cheap nor does it necessarily mean that it is healty.  I often wonder at the impact of modifying genetics – I do not think that we are clever enough to know what it will be as there is a whole wealth of area that we do not know or comprehend.  There are maxim’s that I live by such as “Don’t mess with Mother Nature”.
I find that with an integrated farm, you can work to create a balance with nature and a natural cycle of life.

Starting with the basics of good natural water, lots of sunshine and commercial checimal pesticide and herbicide free soil, you can strive to produce quality food.  I do not disregard scientific reasearch but I prefer research that is focusses on natural or organic components such as improvements on composting, ensuring retention of clean, natural water, etc.

Growing vegetables without chemical pesticides and herbicides requires more time as there is more effort required.  For example to control weeds, it is easier and faster to just spray chemical herbicides as oppose to pulling the weeds out or turning the soil.  I find that by doing my way, I continue to “feed” the soil and prevent it from being contaminated and ultimately introducing it into the food chain as well as not having to worry if my chickens, fish or even the ever helpful earthworms dying.

Contrary to some who think that you can produce better produce through usage of chemical fertilizers, I find that you can produce equally good fruits and vegetables without it and using organic fertlizers.  Having the benefit of having my own farm and selling it directly, I can decide when I want to harvest and when I want to market.  I harvest it just a few days before taking it to market – at its prime – and do not resort to preservatives or additives to make it last longer before selling.  This to me is key to enable us to savour the great, natural taste and its freshness.

Most people are familar with only Cavendish banana but we are blessed in Malaysia with a wide array of bananas.  At this point, I think I have just about all the types of bananas in Malaysia which gives me a selection of bananas to enjoy – either raw or cooked.  It is an adventure for my taste buds, enjoying the nuances in the sensation of the various flavours of the bananas.  I hope the next generation will know that bananas is not synonymous with Cavendish.

A big no-no in my food preparation is the use of Aji-no-moto, a seasoning that is widely used.  There are many ways to season your food naturally, an abundance in herbs and spices.  Then again, if you start with fresh food, there is no need to add aji-no-moto to make it taste good!  I have also rediscovered the tastiness of fresh tumeric and at the same time can get the enjoy the natural nutritions gained from its consumption.  It is amazing to discover what else these herbs can do for you healthwise.

I love “original” durian and have not developed the passion for the newer varieties such as Musang King, and all those alphabet and number varieties.  At the farm, I have one original tree which is decades old.  After having a great tasting fruit from an “original” tree, I decided to try planting one so insyAllah, in a few more years, I will have healthy durian tembaga trees which will bear quality fruit in the future.  I placed 7 seeds and 6 sprouted.  It looks like I will be able to pls into the ground in a few months.  It would be sad if we lose these varieties in our pursuit of faster growing/producing trees that have been “modified” to produce a flavour that is well-received.  I still firmly belief that the best flavour of durians is still what hasn’t been tampered with.  Buying durian nowadays is turning into something similar to buying packaged drinks – there is no more surprises not nuances in the taste, just the same packaged taste.  My new hobby now is to look for tasty original durian and then try to plant them.  Maybe the next generation will still get to enjoy durian in its natural glory.

Farming has also opened a new door for me – the therapeutic and medicinal properties of these living beauties.  The benefits of misai kucing, durian belanda, ruku, lengkuas, tumeric, ginger torch (bunga kantan), ikan haruan, fresh eggs from ayam kampung and more yet to discover.  I am happy with the direction I am taking now and love to share it with as many people.  I hope when the day comes, I will leave a farm that people can visit and rediscover nature in its full glory – my legacy for the next generation.

22 Jan 2013

Tasty Green Beans (French Beans)

 

I find this vegetable plant makes for a lovely plant to grow on a trellis, with its delicate looking small lilac flowers and I can just hear some of friends say that this is the reason I planted it :). Its botanical name is Phaseolus Vulgaris.  They are rich in Vitamin A and C as well as Calcium and Iron.

Actually, it is one of my favourite bean vegetable.  The green beans, known as kacang buncis in Malay, takes approximately 45 days before it will start producing flowers resulting in tasty green beans in about 1 week. However in my latest experiment, it was ready to harvest in 40 days with the modifications I made from the previous experience.  The difference is:

  1. Higher organic content in the soil – 30% of soil mixture is organic matter
  2. Fertilizer used is vermicompost
  3. Pest control and additional fertilisation with the use of E.M.++ spray.

I planted the plants from store-bought seeds which I sowed in organic-rich soil.  After about 3 days, it began to sprout.  In my previous plantings, I transplanted them in big polybags and placed them outdoors by a trellis when it began to produce its trailers.  This time around, I sowed it directly into the trellis bed.  For my experiment, I planted them in my greenhouse, mainly to prevent my chickens from scratching around the plant and so that I can work with it rain or shine.  The greenhouse roof is clear plastic sheets so it allows the sun in as long as the sun is out.  I find it best to water twice a day and it does well in lots of sunlight, which we a graced with here in Malaysia.  During its inital growth stage, I fertilize it once a week and once it starts to flower, I fertilize it fortnightly.  Once a week, I spray it with an organic pest repellent to keep the insects away,  which in this case is my E.M. spray with citronella (serai wangi).  To encourage growth of new shoots and flowering, I remove the old leaves periodically as well as ensure no leaves rot on the vine which may encourage fungus thus infecting the plants.

The soil mixture that is used is a mix of sand, lots of organic matter and soil.  This allows for good drainage and yet able to have a moist and not soggy soil for the plant to thrive in.  At the farm, the trellis is 2m high.  For your home landscape, you can plant it in a planter box or large pot and place it at a balcony or along a fence and you can have a nice plant to look at whilst at the same time able to harvest a good vegetable for lunch or dinner.  You can get that great satisfaction of harvesting and cooking a self-grown, tasty, healthy vegetable.  For future plantings, I am allowing some beans to mature and dry out on the plant so I can harvest the seeds which is almost black in colour with the skin of the bean being light brown in colour.  Now that I have a better methodology, I have sowed more seeds in our trellis beds in the outdoor vegetable section of the farm.

Some of the ways of preparing this is lightly sauteed in olive oil and garlic, often you can find it fried as a tempura, and added into various vegetable dishes.  It’s subtle tastes makes it great to be cooked into savoury dishes so go ahead and use your imagination when preparing it and getting all the nutritious benefits from it.

Updated: March 18, 2015

17 Jan 2013

Long green beans

Like many vegetables, the long green beans ( Malay name: kacang panjang, Botanical name: Vigna unguiculata subsp. sesquipedalis ) can be eaten raw and are deliciously crisp when fresh.  Personally, I like them when they are a darker shade of green with slight visibility of the pods for eating them raw.  They are a good source of protein, vitamin A, thiamin, riboflavin, iron, phosphorus, and potassium, and a very good source for vitamin C, folate, magnesium, and manganeseAs the fruit matures, it turns to a yellowish green to yellow to brown.

I seed them in small polybags (about 10cm diameter) using store-bought seeds. It takes approximately 3 days for the seeds to sprout and once it has sprouted, with the right soil mixture, it grows rather rapidly.  As with most of my vegetables, the soil mixture contains organic matter as well as some sand within the mixture to allow for good drainage as well as moisture control.  After about 7-10 ten days, they are ready to be transplanted.

At the farm, it is transplanted in polybags before placing them along a trellis to allow better utilization of area, effective fertilization, protection from the farm animals and ease of relocating as well as weeding.
The long beans is a climber and is easily trained.  If you plan to plant it at your house, you can plant it along the fence or by an arbor.  It takes approximately 30 days before beginning to flower which then transforms into the long beans.  During this period, the water content in the soil is very important – do not let it dry out as I find that this will reduce the quality and quantity of the beans produced thereafter.  Conversely, do not let it be in a soggy, wet soil as this will encourage rot which can kill the plant.  I let some of the beans to mature to create a new batch of planting seeds.  I fertilize them fortnightly with organic fertilizer.  The mature leaves are also removed periodically to encourage new growth and flowering as well to prevent leaves from rotting on the vine which can encourage fungus which in turn will affect the plant.

The beans are susceptible to black “aphids”, which will eat the beans and my best friend in this is the kerangga, the natural predator to these pests resulting in me not having to worry about getting rid of these pest.

The young leaf shoots can also be eaten like many other leafy vegetables – cooking it within a stir-fry dish.As with many vegetables, they are so many ways to prepare it and for me, it is a must in pecal and lontong.  Sometime, I chopped it up along with other ulam and mix it with rice for my version of nasi kerabu.  So, have fun experimenting.

17 Jan 2013

Growing Cabbage

I love cabbage – raw or cooked. I find that this vegetable is very versatile. Cabbages are rich in vitamin A and C. and Calcium. It is also a good source of Thiamin, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus and Potassium, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin K, Vitamin B6, Folate and Manganese
Thus I began to experiment planting it from store-bought seeds. I sowed the seeds into 6″ polybags in a rich, organic soil mixture. It took about 3 days for it to begin to sprout. According to the seed package label, it should be transplanted in 3 weeks. I did transplant into bigger polybags in about 3 weeks but it was based on the growth of the seedlings – I transplanted them when the width of the plant was the same as the diameter of the polybag.A moist soil is important for its growth with a regular watering, never letting the soil dry out.  I fertilized it every 10 days with organic fertilizer to ensure continuous supply of nutrients.  To keep pests away, I use organic pest deterrents such as serai wangi mix and I check the leaves often to remove any “creepy crawlies”.  I find the cabbage plant to be beautiful, like a big, green flower. 

For people with limited space, you can plant them in big planters where it can serve a dual purpose – providing a lovely plant to grace your landscape and at the same time, producing a vegetable for your consumption.  Normally, cabbages are planted in rows of soil beds but at the farm, I plant it in polybags to enable me to better care for them and also to prevent the farm animals from damaging them.  It is imperative to ensure that it receives sufficient water so I water it twice a day once it has been transplanted.

To enable a relatively constant supply of this vegetable, I have sown seeds about 1 month apart so I have plants at various stages.  After transplanting, it takes almost 3 months before they are ready for harvest.  Once the head begins to form, I stop fertilizing and just ensure that the plant receives sufficient supply of water.  I place the plants in my greenhouse to help reduce pests attacks.  The plants does well with lots of sunshine so if you are planting it on a balcony, be sure to allow it to receive around 6 hours of sunlight so a east facing balcony is best – allowing maximum sunglight with less heat.
From my experience, it takes almost 4 months for the cabbage to be ready for harvest so I have to exercise patience but I feel that it is well worth the effort.  Being pesticide-free, I enjoy eating the cabbage raw – as an ulam or salad.  You can also make coleslaw, stir-fry it as a vegetable dish, cooked as with spices and/or chili, pickle it, use it as a wrap for baked dishes, an item in sayur lontong – the options are endless.  So try growing it in a pot and enjoy the fruits of your labor :).
Notes – Lessons learnt:

  1. Soil mixture should be “light” and contain high organic content to ensure a moist growing medium and ease for root growth.
  2. Pest repellent are essential to produce beautiful cabbages.
  3. Fertilization during growth stage before formation of the cabbage head is important to ensure a good size cabbage.
  4. Lots of sunshine.
  5. Never let the soil to dry out – water is critical to good growth.  Insufficient water will result in smaller size cabbage heads.