The reports of our luffa failure are greatly exaggerated

Luffa is the center piece of our garden; the success of the garden will not be complete unless there is also success of the luffa.

We have a small group of friends, about 5 or 6 couples, mostly seasoned or retired gardeners, were initially attracted to each other because of the shared love of gardening.  When we’re not together, we, as Katy said, we E 來 E 去, talking about everything under the sun, including Chinese and Western literature, history and language; we also ventured into science or medicine.  We tried to find the “truth” and enjoy the “beauty”.  Our friendship grows along the way.  What else can one expect?

Once a year the group would visit our garden, measuring up or grading our garden.  This year the day was August 20, they came and expected to be awed and inspired by the luffa fruits to write poems, like they did last year.  Little did they know it happened to be during the deep of the three-week slump, during which no luffa fruit produced.  All they saw were several withered luffas of hot dog-sized or the female flowers died in infancy.

September 3 was marked as the day of recovery.  That day we first saw six or seven blooming female luffa flowers; we pollinated them with delight and excitement (it was literally “the joy of sex”) before leaving for Michigan; we went to Michigan to see our daughter’s family emptied handed with no luffa.  However, we made two trips to Boston in late September and early October, in a car loaded with our garden produce and of course, luffa galore, more than our two daughters and one niece can handle.  It was quite a sight of 草地人進城.

August was supposed to be the fast growing time for luffa and yet that was the most crucial and precious time we lost.  We’ve made up several theories of why that happened; that would be another post.  We’re disappointed as we’re unable to give luffas to our friends intended, although we did make up to some extent of late.

Thanks to the “Indian summer” we’re enjoying; our luffas continue to produce.  Katy harvested nearly 30 of them today, not all of them are presentable to be gifts.  We’re watching the temperature very closely.  If the temperature will dip into low thirties during the night, we would wrap the luffa to keep warm (see photo above).  The “gift label” says “Grow with love by Katy & Jer-Yuan”; it was not an exaggeration.

So the luffa season was not an entire failure, let me paraphrase Mark Twain, the reports of our luffa failure are greatly exaggerated.

This one is being saved for seeds

Luffa vs Taiwanese pumpkins

These photos of the Taiwanese pumpkins and luffas are to be distributed to our good friends.  The garden season is winding down, the luffas are getting ever more rare and precious.

The label for the luffa is “Grown with love by Katy and Jer-Yuan”, which we dare not to use for the Taiwanese pumpkins, lest they would protest, saying it was not true.

We have paid meticulous attention to the luffa, even pamper them, and that may not be to their best interest.  For the Taiwanese pumpkin, we at times 視而不見 (look but not see, turn a blind eye to), or even skipped the watering to them when we’re busy.

However, Taiwanese pumpkins, like many of our Taiwanese friends, they quietly do their job growing and flourishing, they don’t whine or complaint, asking no special favor or attention; they are content and are pleased to have a chance to grow in the Grand Garden.

Thanks to our daughters’ thoughtfulness, they prepare different labels for us; a label of “From the Grand Garden of Katy and Jer-Yuan” will do.

Don’t see the obvious: Luffa cannot run, but they can hide or they don’t even have to hide

Each year several luffas were too “old” when they’re first discovered hiding among the dense lush leaves.  We are determined not to repeat the history this year.  Before our recent two trips to Boston, we looked and inspected so thoroughly, leaving no leaves unturned, only to discover these two huge luffas hiding in pair among the dense leaves on top of the peach tree when we came back.  

Fortunately, one of them was well matured, but not too “old”, the other has passed the stage of being “edible”; we will save it for its seeds.

Well matured though it may be, it is still edible

We also saw this luffa (see photos below) for the first time today; it sat comfortably between a post and the wall behind an old satellite DISH.  There were not even leaves around it, let alone hiding it.  Sometime we just don’t see the obvious.

Our luffas are only human

Our luffas are only human, some are chubby or what Trump would call “Miss Piggy”, the others are slender and curvy.

Our garden refuses to die: Greeting chrysanthemum (菊花) with mixed emotion

It is always with mixed emotion when we see chrysanthemum (菊花) blooming, saying good-bye to all the “summer glories” which will soon “perish with beautiful reluctance”.  These photos were taken two days ago, “our garden refuses to die” as Emily Dickinson said of hers.  Let’s hope it will be a long good-bye.

blooming chrysanthemum

blooming chrysanthemum

What is beauty?

Looking at the photos below, one may say the celosia is beautiful.  But for a gardener, I may see things in different perspective. Looking at the 綠油油的 arugula and 大陸妹, I say they are healthy and pretty.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder after all.

Francis Bacon said, “The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.”  Beauty is in the thing that which we see, perceive and feel.

Thanks to Dr. Liang’s seedlings, we get to enjoy the beauty of arugula and 大陸妹 and also indulge the best salad on the dinner table.

A designed garden: Diversity and variety is the key

Walking into the garden, one will be greeted by a sea of flowers, but mostly celosia.  Colorful though it may be, this is not what I envisioned or designed at the beginning of the season.  Almost all the celosias are “volunteers” coming back on their own.  They gradually took over, dominating whatever I planted nearby, the likes of petunia, salvia, or even marigold, most of which have since faded away.  One may imitate nature, but cannot compete or beat nature.

Like many things in life, diversity and variety of a garden is key to success, enhancing the overall survival or avoiding the total failure.  Variety also adds to beauty.  America’s strength lies in her diverse populations.  I wrote a very short letter-to-the-editor, extolling the virtue of diversity two years ago.

http://doctorjytsai.blogspot.com/2014/05/my-letter-to-editor-diversity-is-key-to.html

Come to think about it, variety is also key to good English writing, or Chinese writing or any language for that matter.  It is difficult to illustrate or expound my point without giving the actual examples; that is not the scope of this writing.

I am showing several photos of celosia, variety of colors makes it all the more captivating and appealing, or more photogenic if you will.

Petunia of 2015

Cutting ceremony: Cutting luffa is like cutting ribbon

Katy discovered another two luffas today (it was actually one as she saw one of them a few days ago; it was just a “little one” then); harvesting luffa is for sure not a daily occurrence but a rare event nowadays.  I may go too far to have the pomp and circumstance, nevertheless, it calls for a celebration, sort of 剪彩 (cutting the ribbon).

We’ve been disappointed that  絲瓜不爭氣 (luffa has not performed well) so far, it is still enough for us two to indulge (夠我們兩個人吃).  But, one doesn’t cultivate thirty some luffa plants to satisfy only two of us.  We’ll not call it a success unless we can generously share with our good friends, especially the  “E來E去” group, and first and foremost the one who “immortalizes” our luffas by writing beautiful poems, which elevate our luffa, rendering them more refined and cultivated.

The well-hidden luffa fruit: 只在此樹中, 葉深不知處

Can you see the luffa fruit?

With our encouragement, several luffa plants climbed over the peach tree, and that made the luffa fruit even easier to hide.  I did search and inspect the trees before my brother and sister-in-law left, but came up empty handed.  Yesterday Katy discovered this luffa fruit only after pulling away the leaves of the peach tree and luffa plant.  只在此樹中, 葉深不知處.

Taking a closer look, we notice the stem of this luffa fruit is very long or as long as that of a male flower.  This may be the reason why it survived its infancy by exposing to the sunlight, thanks to its long stem.

We have designated this well-hidden luffa to Jean and Charles, lest Charles’ “mid-summer dream” would become 白日夢.

Since it was picked yesterday, this luffa will not be “fresh from the garden” when they come, but 聊勝於無.

每屆仲夏日，正是瓜熟時，

遙念賓州友，能享絲瓜無？    聊勝於無!

菜園在不遠遊 , 菜園在不看球

It was a disappointment as far as the luffa harvest is concerned.  My brother and sister arrived on August 12 and flew back to Boston where their daughter lives on August 16.  We could only come up with five luffas (one barely made it in term of the maturity), which were certainly not enough for our niece and two daughters in Boston.

Worse yet is almost nothing is coming up except a few; we lost the confidence about their chance of growing up.

We analyze the possible reason for the scarcity of luffa fruits and came to the conclusion that we failed to remove the leaves (疏葉) to let the sun light reach the female flowers buried under the leaves.  Without the light the female flowers wither, sort of like dying during the infancy, never got the chance to grow and bloom and got pollinated.  結果母花都被埋在好幾層的葉子下面沒有陽光不見天日而枯萎死了. 

The stems of the male flowers are very tall; they pierce through layers of leaves, soaking up all the sun light.  This is also why all we see (from upstairs) are male flowers.  It is not that we don’t have female flowers; we just don’t see them.

female flower dies in infancy

Francis Bacon said, “God’s first creature, which was light,” of course, this is another way of saying “Let there be light, and there was light.”  Without light, without life.

A week before my brother came, Katy went to Washington (PA) to cover the PONY League baseball for four days in a row (The team from Taiwan was the champion again); I went three days.  We also went to Washington, D.C. this past weekend.  The garden was long neglected.  We’re in the process of making amend (現在正搶救中), hopefully it will not be too late.

Then again we gardeners believe in tomorrow; they will always be tomorrow.

the healthy female flower