We are very lucky to have this sansho（山椒）or Japanese pepper growing in the wild in our property…
It is related to the Szechuan pepper (if I am not mistaken, one of the ingredients for the five spice powder), but they are said to taste differently…
This plant belongs to the citrus fruit family…
Each tree can take on only one sex, that is, either male or female…
Funny thing is, I see only one plant in our property, but we have seeds…
So, I imagine there must some secret male lover-tree in the neighborhood…
Autumn is the season when the seeds turn pinkish…
I just harvested the seeds and my sweeto-haato is going preserve them by boiling them lightly, and we shall keep them in the fridge as we consume them bit by bit…
The young leaves can be eaten with a variety of dishes such as unagi (eel) or tofu…
This leaf specimen, however, is too ‘old’ to consume as such, but we sometimes use them as we do with curry leaves…
Autumn is also the season when we harvest the peanuts…
I often say that it is a big privilege to be able to eat vegetables that we can grow from the field…
But peanuts, oh peanuts… urrrrmmm…
I love growing long beans (or yard beans)…
This vegetable reminds me a lot of my mum…
When we were living in the village, she used to grow these long beans, and come harvest time, every meal would be long beans and long beans…
And what do kids do in these situations?
They complain and complain… duh!
The above picture shows just the beans that I removed from the pods…
This year, our potager suffered more damage compared to previous years…
We had several typhoons coming at us, and the wild boars must have had ransacked our garden at least a dozen times… grrrrr…
The typhoon-winds tore down the trellises, and the boars dug deep into the roots…
Still, we are lucky to be able to harvest about six of these delicious butter scotch pumpkins…
And finally, the lovely loofah…
As with the pumpkin, the loofah suffered the same fate…
The saving grace was their resilience…
Despite being practically mutilated by the forces of nature, they rebounded and continued to give fruit…
This fruit is the last of the harvest for the season…
Potager Y @ Japan 
I love stopping by + as always, I learn about a new food plant I have never seen before!
I feel the same way about one of my fruit trees. It needs a cross + I am certain there is another one some where for it always is producing fruit-yeah!
Your peanuts are so beautiful + oh, how I wish I could eat them but I am allergic. I always say, ” I wish I were allergic to something else for I would love to have the protein + staple of peanuts in my life. They look amazing to grow!
Are the butterscotch pumpkins a Cucurbita moschata + orange inside? They have a long neck that is interesting.
I have to say “wild boars” scare me for I saw a documentary on them in the USA which were quite large.
Your garden looks lovely. I am so excited, I believe the Egyptian Spinach ( I have a hard time saying the other name-lol) seeds you gave me have pods on them + I am so excited to harvest seed. Do I have to wait until they are dark brown? Can I pick them dark green and let them dry in the house. I was lucky to get some pods-so excited!!!! I am growing it in containers next year so I can take better care of it and keep it weeded better.
Hi Robbie… many thanks for dropping by… yes, the butter scotch pumpkin is orange inside… the taste is really good… I love eating is as a cream soup… as for the Egyptian spinach, yes, it is much better to wait for the seeds to turn brown and dry… if the pods are harvested dark green, the seeds inside may not mature well enough for them to germinate… yes, I think you can grow them in containers too…
I love finding new gardening blogs that teach me about the world. Just went hunting for that Sancho and found that is is called Zanthoxylum piperitum. and is a host for several kinds of local butterflies. When Stevie-boy and I were studying horticulture back in 2009 we had to learn 80 plants inside out including spelling their botanical names correctly. I am REALLY glad our lecturer didn’t choose sancho as one of them! 😉 I love that your plant has a secret long distance male lover. How exciting!
I bet peanuts harvested fresh are delicious. Those beans are really lovely. I am a vegan and eat a lot of dried beans etc. and am just about to expand our enclosed growing area so that I can grow a lot more beans to dry and eat through the winter period.
Those pumpkins are magnificent and elegant. I love pumpkin and eat it with just about every meal. I love that it will store for a very long time. Have you ever tried growing gourds to make containers out of? My mum grew some one year and made little pots out of them. They were very warty and lopsided but that added to their charm 🙂
Do you ever leave loufah fruits to ripen and use them as a bathroom scrub? If they are resilient I might have to give them a go. Thank you for another most enlightening and lovely blog post about plants that I probably will never see. I love learning from other people 🙂
Thank you very much for coming by…
Yes, the biological name for Sansho is quite a mouthful for me… and yes, this plant plays host to some butterflies… we see many caterpillars chewing on the leaves… we are almost vegetarians as our meals are about 80 to 90 percent veggies… and we take a lot of beans too…
The butter scotch pumpkin is indeed a pretty looking veggie… and yes, they do store for a long time… about making containers from gourds, no, I have not tried doing it… but I have tried drying out the loofah to use as scrubs…
You have some very exciting vegetables in your garden and I have really enjoyed seeing them on your blog posts 🙂
Your gardne vegetables are survivors! They have survive well and produce good harvest! I have face same experience with long beans while young….but planted by myself! hahahha….
Good to hear that you are having fun with your gardening… 🙂
I always wondered what a loofah plant looked like! I love your photo of the Japanese pepper leaves!
Thank you, Jo, for coming by, and also for your kind comments… on the loofah plant, think cucumber… they are both climbers…
I’m jealous of your sansho pepper plant, wish I have couple of them here, but our climate might be too arid for it to be happy.
Yeap, it is really nice to have this plant in our garden… 🙂
Just beautiful! I wish I have a garden like yours! Unfortunately, I have a good neighbour who did all the gardening outside our houses so we benefit a bit from there:D
It is good to have a neighbor like yours too, who can share some of the produce…
Will be looking up and learning about sansho and butter scotch pumpkins, 2 crops that are new to me. the skin color of the butter scotch pumpkins is so unusual and pretty. My luffa was bitter this year, not sure what the reason is.
Fantastic harvest! Both your Butterscotch pumpkins and loofah are fantastic! Japanese pepper is new to me, great that you can harvest your own pepper! Despite all the setback, you still have some fantastic harvest.