Good Morning Garden!

11 years ago

Good morning to you all! I hope everyone of you having pleasant and beautiful morning in the garden (sipping coffee on the patio) after over night rain. Fall garden is finally happy with fresh showers from mother nature, we got about 1.25" rain.

Workload from office, fall teaching, new research proposals and 3 restless kiddos kept me too busy then few domestic travels, then had camping and boating at Lake Taxon last weekend. With all that we still managed to tender fall garden.

Things kept me off from GW texting. I wish Garden Web will bring an app for iPhone as will like facebook, it will be much easier to access and text while watching TV.

Overall things are going much better, we have been continuously harvesting fresh produce from the all those drought tollarant plants such as gourds, cluster beans, pole beans/hyacinths beans, okra, cucumbers, eggplants, etc ... now falls produce such as spinach, mustard greens, cilantro, fenugreek. All kinds of chillies. Spinach and edible amaranth are growing superb! picking tons of the spinach, truckload of the edible gourds almost every other day. I remove few rows of tomatoes as there are tons of the green tomatoes, i guess all will not ripe before cold hit. So I yanked two beds to make room for garlic.

Flowers: roses are bounced back and blooming beautifully, same with other natives flowers and vines. Hummers seems to left bit early this time. All bugs are gone finally. expect some lady bugs and crickets and few grass hopes here and there. One think very interesting to note is, I am seeing lot of praying mantis this year, i never seem that many before. Pond become beautiful and sweet potato vines growing crazing around the pond.

Overall its not bad year as I expected! I am planing few more things this saturday, then heading to India trip for 2 weeks.

Have a happy fall gardening.

Cheers -Chandra

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden Pics

Comments (7)

merrybookwyrm
11 years ago
Chandra, you and others on this forum amaze me, with your energy and enthusiasm. Thank you for posting. Have a wonderful time in India!
ezzirah011
11 years ago
Just beautiful! I don't know how you do it with all the traveling and work you do!

Have a good trip! Make sure to check in when you come back!
susanlynne48
11 years ago
Ah, yes, Chandra, have a wonderful trip! Wish I could join you. Have always wanted to visit India. Fascinated by the Hindu religion - all religions for that matter.

Your garden is stunning as always - beautiful fruits and flowers. I'm sure you work very hard to maintain it and deserve all thst it gives you in return.

Did you get lots of Gulf Fritillary larvae on your Passiflora caerulea?

Susan
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
11 years ago
Chandra,

Your garden looks magnificent as always and I do enjoy looking at your photos. It is nice to see the family members looking so well and so happy. The children are growing so fast! It must be all those good organic veggies and fruits they're eating.

Have fun planting tomorrow and I have you have a great trip to India.

We miss you when you're too busy to post, but with everything that you do, I don't know how you have time to work in the garden or take and post the photos. I've decided that you must not sleep very much. : )

Dawn
biradarcm
Original Author
11 years ago
Thanks you all for you kind words and wishes! those magical wishes bring me tons of energy to accomplish all I wish! Another great joy we are having is when you donate those fresh vegetables to friends, neighbors and colleagues, you see glove and happiness in their eye's -that makes us even more happy! I feel gardening is another of kind of charity, I call it a 'Green charity', Indeed my contribution is nothing as compared huge and noteworthy gardeners in this forum!

I have habit of walking in the garden early morning and/or when i come back from the office. without looking at the garden for a day i feel i am missing something. about an hour per, that is all I can spend my quality time with garden.

Susan, you are a awesome butterfly lady! by just looking at one single pic of the passion flower, you predicted what it has been hosting. Yes I see lots of those red larvae on the passion flower vine. I have been thinking what are those for some time, thanks for ID as Gulf Fritillary! i just googled, you are right! By the way, you are welcome to join my trips!

dawn, thanks, yes their growing faster and having great with their lovely grand parents!!! but going to miss them each other from next week, my parents are going back to India. I do sleep well, but in powernap, I am rapid and deep sleeper. You all know kind of sleep you have after working in the garden!

Cheers -Chandra
soonergrandmom
11 years ago
Chandra, Tell your parents we enjoyed meeting them and look forward to seeing them again. I'm sorry we couldn't make our schedules match this month, but maybe we can the next time they visit the USA. Have fun in India.
susanlynne48
11 years ago
Chandra, I am the one who is so impressed. Thank you for your kind words. You are doing so much to encourage our beautiful, winged creatures, providing them with food, nectar, a safe habitat, etc. Sometimes I do wonder if anyone takes any of my pleas to carve out a niche in the garden for the butterflies, to heart. I know you do, and others, like Dawn, do. I don't know what it would be like NOT to see them on a daily basis any more.

Right now I am raising some Variegated Frits, who eat Passiflora incarnata, or Maypops, as well as the Gulf Frits. The Variegated Frits will only eat incarnata, not any other kind of passion vine, or certain species of violets. Also I am raising Gulf Frits and Black Swallowtails. The Monarchs have already pupated and headed South to Mexico.

The Gulf Frits may look dangerous to the touch, with their spines, but the spines are very soft, in case you were worried about your daughters touching them. Same for Variegated Frits. It is good always to check out something before handling it, though, because there are many "stinging" caterpillars around the garden.

So funny, I, too, go every morning to stroll through the garden as soon as it it light outside. Always good to observe, clear my thoughts, and gives me a good perspective on what is really important in life.

Susan