Taiwanese cucumber (小黃瓜): 大器晚成?

fresh, sweet and crunchy

It pays off that we began the indoor gardening earlier this year; we’re harvesting the fresh, sweet and crunchy Taiwanese cucumber (小黃瓜) already, and the summer is still very young; it is not even July 4^th yet.

Esther gave us two plants of Taiwanese cucumbers (小黃瓜) that are from Japan.  The bigger one has grown vigorously; it is up to my shoulder; twice as tall as our own.  But they haven’t borne any fruit (小黃瓜) yet.  Let’s hope it is 大器晚成.

The similar idioms for 大器晚成 are: “Great mind matures slowly” or “It takes a long time to make a big pot”, or “Rome was not built in one day".

the one from Esther

This 蔡園 (Tsai’s garden) is not a 菜園 (vegetable garden) after all

Tong-how or Don-Erh

You may or may not notice that our garden is not really a vegetable garden, but a garden of predominately vines and flowers.  Almost every thing we planted are vines, the likes of luffa (菜瓜, 絲瓜), Taiwanese cucumber (小黃瓜), bitter melon (苦瓜), Taiwanese pumpkin (台灣南瓜), Italian squash (義大利瓜), 葫蘆瓜, snow pea and green bean.

A few exceptions are tong-how (Dong-Erh), kale and Chinese spinach (空心菜).  We do have a lot of various tomatoes and have been eating some of them.

kale

Seeing 楊家, 范家 and 梁家的 “綠油油的青菜” (photos below), 我好生羨慕.  It is time to learn how to grow vegetable next season.  No lacking pro instructors.

“綠油油” (“green oil oil” or “oily green”) means lush green that comes from vegetables growing luxuriantly.  I wonder why using “油” (oil) to describe “green”, I guess it is because “oily” is shining with luster.

察言觀色 nay, 察顏觀色

Like Dr. Liang, the first thing I do getting out of bed early in the morning is to make rounds in the garden to make sure all is well.

I pay particular attention to the color of their leaves, especially that of tomatoes.  They looked pale or light green due to lack of sunshine when they’re indoors. When the leaves turn healthy dark green after venturing out to the garden, indicating they survive and will thrive.

察言觀色   nay, 察顏觀色 is what I do making rounds in the garden.

Cicada: The unexpected “predator” of luffa (菜瓜, 絲瓜)

Cultivating luffa (菜瓜, 絲瓜) in western Pennsylvania is against all odds.  It is not native here; it grows ever so slowly, requiring 150-200 warm days to mature, a luxury that western Pennsylvania cannot offer.  The tropical luffa fruits met an untimely demise when the first frost comes in the fall.

They met another unexpected predator this year—cicada that emerged every 17 years.  They eat quite indiscriminately, sucking the saps of all kinds of trees, shrubs, vines, including luffa.  The young stem may wither had their water-delivery system been damaged.  So far so good; no major damage yet. 

Cicada uses 人海戰術, so do we by planting so many luffa plants.  In a hot day cicada can be rampant; by having so many luffa plants we can afford having some of the stems withered.

Let’s hope they will not become more rampant and voracious than they have been.  I read one article reporting its “season” may be over by the end of June.

This luffa garden is a bit over two weeks old; it is not lush yet, but grow they will.  Gardening is a way to show one believes in tomorrow.

Collective beauty: 春色滿園關不住 (the garden can no longer contain the lusty colors)

The flowers I select for our garden are for their colors and luster and better yet bloom all summer.

I showed these photos to our friends, saying “work in progress”.  Mei-Yu said, “百花齊放，萬紫千紅，正是賞花時！Work in progress?”  They may be beautiful individually, but my ultimate aim is collective beauty or 春色滿園關不住 (the garden can no longer contain the lusty colors) or to paraphrase from a song of Spring in Love’s Labour’s Lost, “All the flowers paint our garden with delight.”

Paying tribute to “those that leave their valiant bones in France” on June 6 D-Day

Today (June 6 D-Day) is the day to pay tribute to “those that leave their valiant bones in France” and a good time to re-read the story of the Battle of Agincourt, before which Henry V made the famous Crispin’s Day speech to rally his outnumbered (5 to 1) troops.  We read the lines in Shakespeare’s Henry V (Act 4, Scene 3)

And those that leave their valiant bones in France,

Dying like men, . . . .

They shall be famed; for there the sun shall greet them,

And drew their honors reeking up to heaven.

Knneth Branagh playing Henry V

Shakespeare’s line made Henry V all the more glorious.  This always reminds me of the General Patton’s speech to the Third Army on the eve of D-Day, even though they didn’t participate the June 6 D-Day invasion, they played a pivotal role in the Battle of the Bulge...

In this Youtube one can see Henry V’s speech, played by the famous Shakespearian actor, Kenneth Branagh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-yZNMWFqvM

What's he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin:
If we are marked to die, we are enough
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more, methinks, would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.

This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Beauty is in the making

I cannot call it a beautiful garden yet; but beauty is in the making.

Like a beautiful mind, beauty in the garden also needs to be cultivated.

Temple Garden: Roses are in glory

In Part 1 Henry VI Act 2 Scene 4, the contending factions gather at the Temple Garden, plucking red or white roses to choose sides.  The king maker, Earl of Warwick, dominated this conflict, and fittingly has the last lines of this famous scene.

Will I upon the party wear this rose,

And here I prophesy: this brawl to-day,

Grown to this faction in the Temple Garden,

Shall send between the red rose and the white.

A thousand souls to death and deadly night.

I saw this painting (see photo below) in East Corridor of Westminster Hall (Parliament), next to the Great Hall, depicting a scene of plucking red and white roses in the Temple Garden. TheTemple Garden scene was created by Shakespeare; most historians doubted that is actually happened.

The red roses have been in glory.  I always lamented that I cannot call it Temple Garden for lack of having white rose.  Sensing my keen desire to call it Temple Garden one of the knock-out red roses mutated to white one.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Temple Garden.

Our “close” friends: the hatching robin in our back porch

In the back porch we have a rack to put garden tools and stuff.  A smart robin having “happiness” in her body (有喜 meaning pregnant—this is how Lin Yutang translated in Moment in Peking) made a nest upon the rack.  This was the time before the garden season began in earnest.

We initially saw two eggs and 3 or 4 days later two more eggs added.  In the beginning no sooner had we opened the door out to the garden, than the hatching mother would fly away.  She made urgent calls as she flew away and the husband/father would show up in no time and they both stayed nearby keeping a vigilant eye upon the nest.

Our daughters asked us to put some bread clumps for the devoting mother-to-be, but she never ate them; the worms brought in by her loving “husband” is particularly sweet.

A few days later the mother didn’t bother to leave upon our opening the door; she must have figured out that we are friends, not foes.

I cannot boast that we’re now intimate friends, but we have become very “close” friends.  The photos showed I brought the small cup of water in front of her bill; she turned away, not appreciating my kindness.  She wide opened her bills, making loud squeaky call when I used the cup to touch her nest; she was visibly not happy about it.

I often wave my hand about an inch away from her; she never nods her head acknowledging it.  But the motion of my hand never scared her away.