Oxheart tomato: Our heart is as big as the oxheart ??

When we share the oxheart tomatoes with our friends, it goes with a label saying “Our heart is as big as the oxheart”.  Admittedly this is not entirely true, as we kept the largest ones for ourselves; not that we’re not generous enough, but that we’re collecting the seeds from the best and the largest ones for next season.  We gardeners always think about tomorrow or next season.

Too much rain took its toll on the tomatoes this season; it has been more than five weeks since we last watered the garden; the heavy rain this past Saturday flooded certain not-well drained areas again.  Some tomatoes fell off, including several oxheart ones.

 

 

Vines in our garden and in Shakespeare’s play/poem

Shakespeare must be an avid or seasoned gardener; he mentions hundreds of flowers or veggies in his plays/poems.

In his speech when Elizabeth I’s was born, Thomas Cranmer (the Archbishop of Canterbury during Henry VIII’s reign), mentions “Under his own vine, what he plants;”  The speech  talks about weighty stuff, as this is the birth of a future queen, about governing a country; this is about “治國平天下”

In her days every man shall eat in safety,
Under his own vine, what he plants; and sing
The merry songs of peace to all his neighbours:

We also read the ‘vine’ in his poem of The Rape of Lucrece,

“What win I, if I gain the thing I seek?
A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy.
Who buys a minute's mirth to wail a week?
Or sells eternity to get a toy?
For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy?
Or what fond beggar, but to touch the crown,
Would with the sceptre straight be strucken down?”

And these are the vines in our garden.

 

 

 

 



Canna: the tropical splendor and resurrection in our garden

7/21/13

Our garden teacher, good friends of us, gave us two canna rhizomes (tuberous roots) two years ago (some of the residents in our garden come from a distinguished family); I hope you have seen their glory last year.  Their rhizomes are frost tender and may rot when the bitter freezing winter comes, so we dig them out; they spent the winter in our garage; now we have more than a dozen cannas, some of them are in vibrant blossom on tall stems with large lush leaves.

 

“Did you ever know that a flower, once withered & freshened again, became an immortal flower,--that is, that it rises again?  I think resurrections here [in her garden] are sweeter, it may be, than the longer and lasting one.” in a letter Emily Dickinson wrote at the age of 21.

 

Imitating Emily Dickinson, we treat flowers as metaphors and religious emblems, so we see resurrection in the life story of canna.  No wonder Dickinson said we’re “closer to God in a garden than anyplace on this earth.”

 

7/27/13

 

/7/27/13

7/27/13



7/25/13



Glorious gladioli

Glorious gladioli

7/22/2013 (taken by mini iPad)

How did Shakespeare celebrate the royal birth?

In the frenzy of royal birth and among all the news the one I like best is the royal crier proclaiming the birth of the royal baby outside St. Mary’s Hospital, accompanied by all the pomp and circumstance of  “this sceptered Isle” that boasts Shakespeare.

It would have been much better had the Archbishop of Canterbury visited just like Thomas Cranmer (the Archbishop of Canterbury during Henry VIII’s reign) did when Queen Elizabeth I (the daughter of Henry VIII and Ann Boleyn) was born.

We read this in Act V Scene 5 of Henry VIII,

CRANMER

[Kneeling] And to your royal grace, and the good queen,
My noble partners, and myself, thus pray:
All comfort, joy, in this most gracious lady,
Heaven ever laid up to make parents happy,
May hourly fall upon ye!

KING HENRY VIII kisses the child
With this kiss take my blessing: God protect thee!
Into whose hand I give thy life.

CRANMER
Let me speak, sir,
For heaven now bids me; and the words I utter
Let none think flattery, for they'll find 'em truth.
This royal infant--heaven still move about her!--
Though in her cradle, yet now promises
Upon this land a thousand thousand blessings,
Which time shall bring to ripeness: she shall be--
But few now living can behold that goodness--
A pattern to all princes living with her,
And all that shall succeed: Saba was never
More covetous of wisdom and fair virtue
Than this pure soul shall be: all princely graces,
That mould up such a mighty piece as this is,
With all the virtues that attend the good,
Shall still be doubled on her: truth shall nurse her,
Holy and heavenly thoughts still counsel her:
She shall be loved and fear'd: her own shall bless her;
Her foes shake like a field of beaten corn,
And hang their heads with sorrow: good grows with her:
In her days every man shall eat in safety,
Under his own vine, what he plants; and sing
The merry songs of peace to all his neighbours:
God shall be truly known; and those about her
From her shall read the perfect ways of honour,
And by those claim their greatness, not by blood.
Nor shall this peace sleep with her: but as when
The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix,
Her ashes new create another heir,
As great in admiration as herself;
So shall she leave her blessedness to one,
When heaven shall call her from this cloud of darkness,
Who from the sacred ashes of her honour
Shall star-like rise, as great in fame as she was,
And so stand fix'd: peace, plenty, love, truth, terror,
That were the servants to this chosen infant,
Shall then be his, and like a vine grow to him:
Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine,
His honour and the greatness of his name
Shall be, and make new nations: he shall flourish,
And, like a mountain cedar, reach his branches
To all the plains about him: our children's children
Shall see this, and bless heaven.

KING HENRY VIII
Thou speakest wonders

Timing the garden visit is as elusive as timing the market

When Yu-Ting was visiting our garden, there was hardly a tomato (except the cherry tomatoes) ripe and red enough to be picked; no sooner had he left around noon yesterday (July 21), than many of them  turned red.  These two photos are what we harvested yesterday and today.  Yu-Ting, timing a garden visit is as elusive as timing the market.



7/21/2013

7/22/2013

canna in glory

We have visitor (Yu-Ting) came to our garden to pick the peaches.  Katy said the people in the photo are too small.  Little did she know that she was just a ‘background’ for the canna in glory; even the coneflowers have to resign to be the background.

canna in glory

coneflower

four-color gladioli for 40th wedding anniversary

As I said before that gladiolus is the flower for 40^th wedding anniversary; ours is coming up in December.  Our gladioli have four colors; one for each decade of marriage.

 

7/21/2013

 

 

 

 

Bumpy and spiny Taiwanese cucumber: the evolution at work?

The surface of the Taiwanese cucumber (小黃瓜) is bumpy and spiny.  Is this God’s design or evolution at work?  This design can prevent from being eaten by animals.  The first bumpy/spiny ones might be created by mutation and became the only survivors to produce as the smooth ones were all eaten.  I wrote the following letter-to-the-editor to Newsweek nearly 20 years ago.

There shouldn’t be a conflict between creation and evolution theory.  God is a responsible and tireless creator; a perfectionist.  Through evolution He makes sure all living things He created can adapt to the ever changing environment.  A God’s work is never done!

O! Taiwanese cucumber or gherkin (小黃瓜)

O! Taiwanese cucumber or gherkin (小黃瓜)

Garden friends and foes: companion planting

There is a review of “Garden friends and foes” in this weekend edition (July 13-14) of the Wall Street Journal, talking about the companion planting.  It begins with “Relationship can be tricky in the garden world, too.  Some plants thrive in each other’s company; some just don’t get along. . . .”

It also reports that “Marigolds are a garden workhorse, keeping away pests like microscopic nematodes, major enemies of tomatoes, potatoes, peas and peppers.”

Like many gardeners we have been planting tomatoes and basils together, but some say this is just an old wives tale and there is no protective effect to tomatoes, nor do basils make tomatoes sweeter as many claim.

I already have some idea of how tomatoes will be planted next season; we’ve learned from our experience, which according to Oscar Wilde, is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.  Taking care of so many living  and growing things in the garden is not an easy task.


basils and tomatoes



tomatoes and basils

peach galore and peach-colored face

Shakespeare never mentioned peach (tree or its fruit) in his plays, but used peach-colored twice. 

Once in the second part of Henry IV, “To take note how many pair of silk stockings thou hast, namely these, and those that were thy peach-coloured ones!”

The other is in Measure for Measure,

“Then is there here one Master Caper, at the suit of
Master Three-pile the mercer , for some four suits of peach-coloured satin,
Which now peaches him a beggar.”

桃花面 (peach-colored face) in Chinese is reserved for a young woman whose beautiful face having a make up just like the peaches in our garden.

We planted this peach tree 2 years ago and harvested 2 peaches last year; this year hundreds.  Katy has removed hundreds of the young ones, so the remaining will grow to ripen.

Gladiolus: Preparing for the fortieth wedding anniversary

We planted the gladiolus bulbs along the fence (beside the snow peas which are now gone) at the end of May; chain-link fences provide the needed support for the lengthy slender leaves.  These gladioli will greet you once you walk into the garden from the back porch. 

For a while all we saw was the sword-shaped green leaves.  I am glad that gladioli have finally begun to bloom; the pink ones blossom and the yellow ones are not far behind. 

Gladioli are the flowers for the fortieth wedding anniversary; ours is coming up in December; who says I am not preparing?

Bitter melon (苦瓜): the bitterer the better

We introduced ethnic Taiwanese vegetables to our garden just like Thomas Jefferson did from Europe in the Revolutionary Garden at his beloved Monticello—“A Rich Spot of Earth” (a book by Peter Hatch).

Bitter melon (苦瓜) is another example.  I am not the big fan of it, but many Taiwanese indulge in it; the bitterer [it is probably more appropriate to say “more bitter”] the better.  Katy says ours is a variety of apple bitter melon (蘋果苦瓜), the two more artistic photos of bitter melon are taken by Katy.

Ethnic Taiwanese cucumber: following Thomas Jefferson’s footstep

We introduced ethnic Taiwanese vegetables to our garden just like Thomas Jefferson did from Europe in the Revolutionary Garden at his beloved Monticello—“A Rich Spot of Earth” (a book by Peter Hatch).

We read an entry of “March 20.  Purple hyacinth begins to bloom” in his Garden Book in 1766 and that was 60 years before his death in 1826.  You may see our purple hyacinth bloom in my blog (April 11, 2013); hyacinth blossoms earlier in Virginia than in Pennsylvania obviously.

I’ll begin to introduce ethnic Taiwanese veggies; here is Taiwanese cucumber or gherkin (小黃瓜).  They are side by side with luffa (絲瓜 or 菜瓜).  We got the seeds from China Town in Boston.