Harvesting luffa ceremony and taste of friendship

Emily Dickinson’s aim for a garden is “rich confusion” and “no stiffness, no ceremony”, but harvesting the first luffa is no small matter, and call for a ribbon-cutting ceremony, celebrating the hard work and perseverance.  Cultivating the tropical luffa in western Pennsylvania, one needs to overcome many hurdles that I have mentioned previously.

Emily Dickinson also said we’re “closer to God in a garden than any place else on this earth,” and we give Thanks with a grateful heart and we give Thanks to the Holy One.

We harvested five luffas on August 24.  No word (in English or in Chinese or in Taiwanese) can describe the heavenly sweet (not the sugar sweet) of the luffa.  We distributed four of them to our good friends in Pittsburgh next day.  I am hoping the taste of our friendship is as “heavenly sweet” as that of our luffa.

(The following is my response to the comments from our small email group.  If they were something untranslatable; this is it.)

看來絲瓜 inspires us; 讓我們詩興大發，文思不斷。絲瓜又是詩瓜，又是書瓜，又是思瓜。先來絲瓜情，又來絲瓜味。幸好今年絲瓜還算爭氣，若像苦瓜一樣，那就 "苦沒了" 了。那絲瓜要改名叫輸瓜了。

Design garden vs. chaotic beauty revisited

After my last post of “rampant growth of celosia: design garden vs. chaotic beauty”, one friend said he prefers chaotic beauty to design garden as the latter is “too neat, orderly like military parade.”  He must be in the camp of Emily Dickinson whose aim of a garden is “rich confusion” and “no stiffness, no ceremony”.

Martha Dickinson (Emily's niece) remembered her aunt's garden “rich confusion was its aim. . . . you want to come upon mignonette in unexpected places, and to find sprays of heliotrope in close consultation with roses . . . No stiffness, no ceremony. . . This kind of garden--asparagus waving near phlox, roses entangled with peonies.”

A chaotic garden extrudes the beauty through its unrestrained, undisciplined and natural flourishing and exuberance.

However, we have been conditioned to perceive a beautiful garden is a neat one, vibrant and vivacious though it may be.  These photos show our attempt to make a “chaotic garden” into a semi-design one, a compromise, so to speak.  These celosias are all volunteer come-backs, but I did move them around.

Many of our founding fathers are gardeners; we always stride to make a patriotic garden, even a symbolic one.

Rampant growth of celosia—my ‘old flame’ and chaotic beauty

The beauty of a garden comes from diversity of colors arranged in an artistic and coherent way by design.  In this sense our garden is a failure this year, thanks to the “rampant” growth of celosia.  I have to parenthesize “rampant” as my “old flames” protested the word rampant is reserved for weeds only; they prefer the word “flourish”.

I am showing you two photos of an exquisite design garden in front of a home of one of our friends.  That is also what we aim, but fail to achieve.

We used a variety of flowers with diverse colors, the likes of petunia, geranium, begonia, salvia, and celosia.  In the late spring we noticed the volunteer celosia began to emerge; we plan to move them around, but never got time to do it soon enough.  Their steady growth in size and number eventually replaced most what I have planted by design in late May or early June. 

In natural selection, one cannot compete with Nature; those volunteer come-back celosias are Nature, what I planted are man-made.  I am hesitated to say 劣幣驅良幣 (the bad money replaces the good one; the bad edges out the good), lest my ‘old flames’ would complain again.  Flamboyant (I bet this word comes from the flame-like celosia) and vivacious as they are, they have every right to complain.  These photos can attest to it.

Too busy though it may be, this is a chaotic beauty, if there is such a thing.

Minority flowers or underdog flowers in our garden

These flowers rarely graced the pages of this blog.  They’re not strong in numbers; they’re so-called minority flowers in our garden.  Charles said he would call them underdog flowers; he always rooted for underdogs.  They may not be flashy or gaudy, but humble and graceful still.  They prefer 一枝独秀 (one branch of tree is particularly thriving and flourishing, outshining others) rather than 百花争艶 (beauty contest among hundreds of flowers).

Cardinal flowers

This cardinal flower was intimidated by the vivacious hollyhock blossom.  It must have felt safe to bloom only when the hollyhock flowers were almost spent; it tries to avoid head-to-head competition.

Hibiscus

Our hibiscus inside and outside the garden has been in opulent blossom.  There was an article in 1998 NY Times called “Oh, That Brazen, Raucous, and Glorious Hibiscus”, in which it said hibiscus is “antithesis of inconspicuous.”  The size of hibiscus flowers is bigger than Katy’s hand, commanding attention, affection and reverence.  The slogan of our hibiscus is “Big is Beautiful”.

Hydrangea

“Even in the smallest and humblest garden, a sturdy hydrangea at once proclaims the place as the abode of a real gardener rather than a mere purchaser of plants to cover the landscape.”—Washington Park Arboretum Bulletin, 2006.  I am showing the hydrangea in glory to prove we’re real gardeners.

Hydrangea elicits emotion; it did on Carl Sandburg; please refer to this post in September 2012.

http://doctorjytsai.blogspot.com/2012/09/white-hydrangeas-turn-rust-with-line-of.html

Bell flower

This bell flower came from Jo’s home a few years ago. It comes with single and double petals.  It withered in winter and comes back in spring faithfully.

Unknown flower

This unknown flower grew in the area next to hibiscus. Although outside the garden, they’re in a nice neighborhood of fig, hydrangea and zinnia.  Like the soldiers of the unknown, it commands respect, appreciation and admiration.

Quantum Physics for Poets: Why a medicine man talking about quantum physics?

I constantly search for scientists who write well and who can convey the esoteric knowledge in their highly specialized field to the general readers.  Leon Lederman was the one I discovered and read the past few years.  He was the one led me to read particle physics through his books of The God Particle and Beyond the God Particle.

I couldn’t find anything to buy on Amazon’s Prime Day last month, but I felt compelled to buy something, lest Prime Day might be “wasted”, so I picked Lederman’s Quantum Physics for Poets, a book I once checked out from Carnegie Library, but never finished it.  This is the best book to understand quantum physics for a non-physicist, admittedly one need to have some basic understanding of quantum physics to digest and absorb this book.  Come to think about it Beyond the God Particle was also the Prime Day book two years ago. 

Quantum physics is to classic physics what molecular biology is to biology; there will be no molecular biology in 1950s had quantum physics not be born in 1920s.  About ten years ago I wrote a lengthy article with a theme along this line.  I obviously couldn’t handle the complexity and multitude of the topic, the writing became so convoluted and complicated that I was at loss to rationalize and justify what I tried to say.  I dare not to revisit this topic.  I recall Janice was trying to help me out by rewriting several paragraphs to make it more readable. 

After retirement from the Director of the Fermilab in 1990, Lederman (who was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1988 for the discovery of muon neutrino) taught a class of quantum physics for the non-science majored undergraduates in the University of Chicago. A New York Times article wrote, “The university lists the course as ‘Quantum Mechanics and the Structure of Matter,’ but the students call it ‘Physics for Poets’.”

I am positive the title of “Quantum Physics for Poets” comes from students’ “Physics for Poets”, however, this was not acknowledged in the book.

All University of Chicago students are required to take one year of physical science and one year of biological science.  How great the University of Chicago is! I bought a 54-volume set of Great Books of the Western World nearly 40 years ago.  The project came from University of Chicago.

Many physicists greatly contributed to the advancement of life science.  There is a category of “in praise of physicists” in my blog talking about these scientists; unfortunately, I have only three entries so far.

I personally consider Max Delbruck the father of molecular biology.  He is a theoretical physicist by training and shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine with Salvador Luria in 1969 for the elucidation of the genetic structure of viruses.  Luria was the one sent James Watson to Cambridge, England and the rest is history.  Watson had a touching eulogy speech on Delbruck’s memorial service.

Why a medicine man talking about quantum physics?  Because it is the origin of the ‘quantum leap’ of the modern medicine, which was propelled by the advance of molecular biology.  Without quantum physics, there will be no molecular biology.

A garden too big to fail

Growing vines in our garden this season has the worst outcome in years, thanks to the incessant rains the past 6 or 7 weeks.  We have set up an elaborate irrigation system, using more than a dozen hoses; but 英雄無用武之地 (having talents, but no chance to use), we haven’t done any watering for at least 6 weeks until yesterday.  There were many flooded areas here and in the neighboring Washington County about two weeks ago.  

Many veggies, tomatoes and some flowers have little tolerance for excessive water.  A rain day is usually cloudy or overcast, depriving the plants and flowers of the precious and needed sun lights.  Weeds love rain; they grow rampantly.  Weeding is exceedingly difficult when the soil is constantly and continuously wet.  We have seen the natural selection at work and the fittest (the weeds, of course) survived and thrived.

Katy said the excessive stink bugs are also the culprits.  Invaded (sucked) by stink bugs, many vines withered.

This is what Chinese/Taiwanese call 看天田 (we are at the mercy of the God Almighty). We can always water when there was a drought, but we’re helpless facing too much rain.  Constructing a well-drained or better-drained garden is the way to go as Katy suggested.  Gardening is a way of showing you believe in tomorrow.  We gardeners resign to the mercy of God Almighty, but never give up.  If too much rain contributed to the failure of many vines, then the “hydrophilic” (water-loving) luffa (菜瓜, 絲瓜) and Chinese water spinach (空心菜) should do well; indeed they do.

Luffa had a late start this year, as the seed germination of the first batch failed, losing a couple of weeks in early March.  They have been growing slowly but steadily in three different areas of the garden; being a cautious optimistic gardener, I may even say they’re flourishing.  We have seen at least a dozen luffa fruits.  We keep our fingers crossed, keep our hope high and keep our unfailing faith.

Chinese water spinach has been on our dinner table many times.  About ten days ago we even had two garden helpers (Ben and Gabby) helping the harvest of Chinese water spinach.  Kales (甘藍菜) also have a vigorous growth.

Without much success of the vines, apart from luffa, we turn our focus to the veggies.  Arugula season is behind us.  Some like it hot, but not 小白菜 (Bok-Choy) or edible chrysanthemum or tóng hāo (茼蒿); they prefer cool weather; so we plant them in spring and fall when the hot summer is leaving us.

This is a story of a garden too big to fail as some say a company is too big to fail.  I can write the same story for the flowers, but that will be another post.