“Our garden refuses to die”, just like Emily Dickinson’s

These photos were taken today (Oct. 9) or within past 2-3 days.  “Our garden refuses to die”, just like Emily Dickinson’s.  All the summer flowers are waiting chrysanthemum (菊花) to bloom to say good-bye before they “perish with beautiful reluctance”. 

Blooming chrysanthemum (菊花)

zinnia: standing tall and proud and beautiful

Blooming chrysanthemum (菊花)

Beauty still lingers, yet bounty has arrived

Beauty still lingers, yet bounty has arrived.  Janice and Joy are expert chefs when it comes to cooking the Taiwanese pumpkins, which can be stored for months.  And that solves the problem.  Jo, if you wonder what Christmas gifts you may get this year; here is the not so subtle hint.

The flowers and veggies in Monticello’s garden and in ours: a comparison

The best way to elevate our garden/gardening is to find similarities between Monticello’s garden and ours.  We do not have anything to rival his famous garden book, but I have garden posts in my blog and I use FileMaker (a database program) to keep track our garden activity; a program Jefferson would envy.

We cultivate ethnic Chinese/Taiwanese veggies, such as luffa (絲瓜, 菜瓜), Yin-Tsai or Taiwanese spinach (空心菜), bitter squash (苦瓜), 冬莪 or 茼蒿, and Taiwanese pumpkin (南瓜); the veggies that we grew up with.  Thomas Jefferson did the same thing in his Paris garden; he cultivated the veggies that he grew up with and they were not available in Europe then.

The following photos of flowers or veggies are what we saw at Monticello and that we also cultivate in our garden, so I can unabashedly say we have the same taste, if you allow and forgive my indulgence.

foxglove:

Monticello's foxglove

foxglove in our garden

sweet potato:

Monticello's sweet potato

sweet potato in our garden

hibiscus:

Monticello's hibiscus

hibiscus in our garden

cilantro:

Monticello's cilantro

cilantro in the dinner plate from our garden

black-eyed susan:

Monticello's black-eyed susan

black-eyed susan in our garden

corn:

Monticello's corn

corn in our garden

cone flower:

Monticello's cone flower

cone flower in our garden (flanked by canna)

eggplant:

Monticello's eggplant

eggplant in our garden

four o'clock flower:

Monticello's four o'clock flower

four o'clock flower in our garden

kohlrabi:

Monticello's kohlrabi

 

kohlrabi in our garden

gomphrena:

Monticello's gomphrena

gomphrena in our garden

salvia:

Monticello's salvia

salvia in our garden

watermelon:

Monticello's watermelon

watermelon in our garden

greenbean:

Monticello's bean

green bean in our garden

green onion:

Monticello's green onion

green onion (& garlic chive) in our garden

celosia:

Monticello's pink spiked celosia

celosia in our garden

tomato:

Monticello's tomato

tomato from our garden

pepper:

Monticello's pepper

pepper from our garden