Fresh photography

Cempedak and Rambutan freshly plucked for the fun of photography.

Delcious Cempedak fruits

It is only when you live in a fruit garden that you are able to pluck the fruits fresh from the trees and take your time having the shots of your life.  This I call fresh photography.  I enjoy photographing the fresh fruits in the garden this year.  This year the seasonal fruits that do well are the Rambutan and Jering.  Other fruit trees  that produce low harvest are the Cempedak and Lumok.  Anyway, from the photography angle all of the fruits were marvellous.

Juicy and sweet Rambutan fruits

Mouth watering Cempedak fruits

Highlights today at the park - 5 Sept'15

Just google "Ong Lumok"

 The Ong Lumok is my kind of fruit.  It is pulpy sweet.  Very sweet indeed that I can finish three big fruits in one session.  I have written a fair bit on this fruit and to prove it just google "Ong Lumok" and you'll see most of the pictures and write-up on this fruit online  is from the Kambatik Park.  It is a seasonal fruit, known by Malays as "Terap" but the Bintulu Melanaus call it "Ong Lumok" or fruit of the Lumok tree.  "Ong" in Bintulu Melanau means fruit.  The Ong Lumok is a basic tree that is well-integrated into the agro-forestry practice at Kambatik Park.  The reason is obvious.  The fruits are edible to humans and wildlife and their seasonal fruiting makes the park an added attraction to all sorts of wildlife, birds, insects, butterflies and a myriad variety of flies.  Count the Ong Lumok as one fruit you must taste before you die!!  Long live the Ong Lumok.

Ong Lumok (Bintulu Melanau) - Terap (Malay)
Artocarpus odoratissimus
Location: Zone C

A fruity harvest

The Jering fruits

 What is living without fruits?  What is life without plants?  Don't think about it, you'll die!  So to feel alive we decided to bring along the bamboo pole and see what's there to be collected.  This morning the weather was fine, a good day for plucking fruits.  However, the seasonal fruits are becoming less and very soon their season will be over.  The remaining fruits collected this morning were the Ong Lumok, Cempedak, Jering and Rambutan.  Bintulu is blessed with many unique tropical fruits.  Checkout the many fruits of Sarawak or Bintulu for that matter in my other blog here ....>>>>http://mysarawak2.blogspot.com/p/unique-fruits.html

Can you recognize the fruits? ... Discover which is Jering, Rambutan, Cempedak and Lumok

Plucking the Ong Lumok and in-flight serving

Bamboo pole with fork used to snap the soft fruit stalk

Ong Lumok - the brownish one is over-ripe

 We were collecting Ong Lumok ( Artocarpus odoratissimus) fruits this morning.  The Ong Lumok tree is tall with broad maple-like leaves.  The fruits look like canon balls and out of the ancient world.  Its sweet pulpy fruits are one of my favourite seasonal fruits.  The season of the Ong Lumok is almost over now but there are still fruits hanging on the tree for the plucking.  To reach them I used a long bamboo pole with a fork at the tip.  A firm twist will do as the fruit stalk is soft.  Once detached from the main branch bring the pole slowly down so as not to drop the fruit.  If dropped the fruit can easily be smashed into pieces.  The Ong Lumok fruit attracts plenty of wildlife e.g. squirrels, tree lizards, birds etc.. However today was time for in-flight serving.  The  Yellow -vented Bulbul hoovered close to the very ripe fruit to enjoy the pulpy flesh ...Check out the pictures below....

Sweet and delicious.  Best eaten immediately after plucking...Oh, tropical paradise!

Yellow-vented Bulbul enjoying in-flight serving

The Artocarpus fruit trees

Cempedak - Artocarpus champeden
Alt: Artocarpus integer
Zone G: Cempedak Hill

There are four species of the 'bread fruit' genera (Artocarpus) that are planted for posterity and production purposes at the park.  The most unique among them to me is the 'Ong Lumok' (Bintulu Melanau) which is also called as 'Terap' in Malay.  Others in the line up are the 'Cempedak' (Artocarpus integer), 'Nangka' or Jackruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) and the 'Sukun' or Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis).  Artocarpus belong to the fig family (Moraceae).  The genus 'Artocarpus' is named after the Greek word; artos = bread, karpos = fruit.  For many people of the Pacific islands the popularity of the breadfruit as the 'staff of life' has been recognised over generations being their staple food, like rice for orientals.    Artocarpus trees tend to be cauliflory whereby  many in the genus bear flowers and fruits on trunks or branches.  All Artocarpus trees have a  peculiar form of flower head which resembles a bur on a stalk.  This structure bears flowers so small that they have to be dissected under a microscope.  For more images of Sarawak's unique fruits, check them out in another blog of mine here ...>>>http://mysarawak2.blogspot.com/p/unique-fruits.html

Ong Lumok - Artocarpus odoratissimus

Nangka - Artocarpus heterophyllus

Leaves of the Sukun or Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis)

Ong Lumok fruit

Unripe fruits of 'Terap' (Malay) - Artocarpus odoratissimus

 The Ong Lumok trees (Artocarpus odoratissimus )  at the park are showing promise.  They are bearing fruits.  In Malay it is called 'Terap'.  It is a unique fruit found mainly on Borneo island.  "Ong" in Bintulu Melanau means fruit, thus the Lumok fruit.  There are a handful of very old Lumok trees at the park, planted more than 50 years ago and still bearing fruits.  The picture above shows unripe fruits from a tree grown just about 5 years ago.  In about a month's time the fruits will be ripe for the taking.

Ong Lumok tree at the foreground
Location : Zone F

70 years old Cempedak tree fruiting

Location: Cempedak Hill, Zone G

Cempedak ( Artocarpus integer)

 It is a huge tree and has been planted here before I was born.  The 'Cempedak' tree (Artocarpus integer) is fruiting extremely well.  It belongs to the same family of the more well-known Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis), Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) and Terap (Artocarpus odoratissimus).  The fruits of Artocarpus range from the size of a tennis ball to a punching bag.  They have latex in the bark, leaves and other living tissues.

Note how the fruits are borne on the main tree trunk and branches rather than end of branchlets as in the Breadfruit and Terap.

The Chempedak fruit

Artocarpus is a significant genus of edible fruits in Sarawak - Artocarpus integer or 'Chempedak' in Malay is consumed in many ways..e.g. fritters, seeds are boiled to make porridge or smoked as in 'Likeng'

 This year the Chempedak trees are not fuiting profusely but there again a dozen of these trees at the farm collectively ensures many fruits to share and giveaway.  The big trees at the park have been planted before I was born that is more than 60 years ago.  However those original exotic trees have been preserved for posterity though I managed to add more trees over the years.  The Chempedak is easily mistaken for the Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus)  which is obviously much larger in size. In another blog  I have written a fair bit about the fruit especially the art of smoking it....checkout the story here ..

The original Chempedak trees planted more than 60 years ago are still standing and growing....as seen towering above the oil palm trees or Sawit in Malay.
Oil palm trees are an added crop, well-integrated into the existing landscape and agro-forestry practices at the eco-farm..

Like most trees of the fig family (Moraceae), the Chempedak has white latex to its bark, leaves and skin of the fruit.

Fruits of the 'Ong Lumok' are in season at the park

Oil palm planted together with exotic fruit trees.....a signature idea in the Kambatik park

This month the 'Terap' trees (Artocarpus odoratissimus) or ' Ong Lumok' as called by the Bintulu Melanaus are bearing fruits.  They are seasonal fruits and this season seems to be bountiful.  The concept of oil palm cultivation integrated into existing or newly introduced exotic tree planting is a signature idea in the Kambatik park. In the top picture the over topping tree is the Balem fruit tree and below it the Terap tree.  The oil palm or 'Sawit' in Malay is at the bottom of the picture. Today I gathered a few of the half ripe fruits and will keep them for a day or two for ripening purposes.  The ripe fruits are very soft, sweet and tasty.  Checkout more stories of the many ways to eat the fruit in my blog here ...>>> my Kambatik world...

Fruits of the 'Terap' or Ong Lumok (Melanau) - Artocarpus odoratissimus

What's fruiting at the park?

"Terap" (Artocarpus odoratissumus)

The Terap trees at the park have started to produce their seasonal fruits since last month.   A few more  trees will show up their fruits gradually but will not be in large quantities.  Checkout more stories about this sweet tasting native fruit of Bintulu in my other blog here ....>>>http://mykambatikworld.blogspot.com/2009/06/white-and-sweet-terap-fruit.html

What's fruiting at the park?

Young fruits of the "Cempedak" (Artocarpus champeden), borne on a tree planted more than 60 years ago.

 Coming towards the end of the year there would be a series of local fruits that will come in season.  At the park right now are many Cempedak trees that are gradually bearing small fruits.  These unripe fruits can be eaten as vegetables but better leave them maturing on the branches and trunks to enjoy their sweet and juicy pulp later.  At the park there are about a dozen of these fruit trees that have been planted more than 60 years ago.  I do plant many more since about 5 years ago to add to the collection and many among them also start to bear fruits.  In another blog I wrote about 'smoking' the cempedak fruits....go here to learn how it is done...>>>>http://myussop.blogspot.com/2009/11/smoking-cempedak-fruit.html

At the background on the right hand corner  are the tall Cempedak trees.