Mom, your sunflower bloomed!

And this is the first of many. Thank you!
1. This of course, leads the six things that I will be sharing this Saturday. Here she is, attracting one of our honeybees and a iridescent little thing.

This is 'Autumn Beauty', and another one is waiting in the wings. Is it not beautiful even when unfurled?

 All these seeds were given by Mian's lovely mum, which explains the title and also my delight.

2. The lilies are blooming, with their most intoxicating scent. They are a little battered by the rain, but I cannot complain considering how lush the garden has become.

3. Most of it anyway. Remember this rose?

This is what it looks like now.

A vine weevil grub got to it, and I had to cut it back after ejecting the grub. (and feeding it to the chickens, which makes for sweet revenge)

4. But that gave me space to try planting a second lot of sweetpeas.

 

5. I had read somewhere that a weigela is a one-trick pony. A short flush of flowers and the show is over for the rest of the year. Not true. How can one discount the impact of these gorgeous berries- like limpid rubies?

6. I probably should have swept before taking this photo, but we are all friends here. I have encouraged the evening primrose to self-sow in the cracks of the steps leading down from the house. It's looking rather well, is it not? I am so happy with it. 

Please do head on over to The Propagator's blog for more garden round-ups!

Don't look at the weeds!

Is there a trigger warning for weeds? There should be. Anyway, if you are the sort of gardener who begins to twitch when she sees a weed in a field, please do go on to the next post. This is linked to Six-on-Saturday, which means there will be lots of impeccable gardens on Mr. Propagator's blog. This is not for you. If however, you consider a weed to be a flower that has sown itself, please do continue.

1. An oxalis field! Actually, no. I just thought I'd get the weediest photo out of the way first. What this is, is an onion bed edged with french beans. I don't consider oxalis too 'bad' a weed- It does not strangle or overwhelm the other plants, it makes a fine chutney, and the insects love the flowers. Nevertheless, I do keep this bed weeded because the onion seeds were given to me by my Mian's mum, and the onions are special for that reason. I will do this soon.

 

 2. From an edging of french beans to a whole bed of them. These seeds were distributed by the horticultural department in our village. They apparently had a lot of these seeds and a distribution target. We gladly accepted a couple of handfuls. And they are good! We have a french-bean dinner every other day and are happy.

 

3. My poor curry-leaf plant. In the south, where I grew up, one only needed to stick a kadipatta twig into the ground for  it to grow. In our frosty mountains, kadipatta needs much more coddling. Amma and I planted our Kadipatta at the same time about four years ago. Her plant in the Western Ghats is now as big as a truck. Mine..well, just look.

We celebrated this year because the runt had finally put out two branches.
And then the rooster broke them. The plant is now patched up with some clay and sticking plaster. It has been a week now- let's hope the graft 'takes'.

 4. Mian and I had gone to a dear friend's house for tea. On our way back, we stopped to chat with her gardener and I noticed some plants I had not seen before. "What's that?" I asked. "I don't know what they are called, the root is spicy" he replied, scratching a root and offering it to us to smell. Mian took one sniff and -in a lust-filled, throaty voice I had thought was private- whispered "Horseradish!". Manu-the gardener- took one look at Mian's face and silently uprooted a plant. "For you, Madam." I brought the plant home and planted it where it promptly got eaten by a porcupine. Now it is recovering in a twiggy cage and I have plans to take root cuttings this monsoon

5.  And then there is the squash. I goofed while preparing the beds this year. I got a hole dug, filled it with chicken litter, and then covered the hole back up. The Delicata Squash I had planted (seeds given by Mian's mum!) seemed very unappreciative.

It is only after reading Weaver, John Ernest, and William Edward Bruner. "Root development of field crops." (1926) with its lovely root diagrams that I realised what I had done wrong. Apparently, the roots of squash and pumpkin do not go far into the soil at all, preferring to spread themselves along the top. Here is a picture from the book, available here.

Humph. I do hope it works, because I want to do Mum's seeds justice..

6. Finally, the celery. We use celery a lot to flavour stocks and braises. Which is why we were happy to buy the french celery on a visit to Montpellier two years ago. The celery did well, overwintered, and self-seeded so that I now may actually have a 'perennial' celery patch! I noticed this scorch on the leaves though..does anyone know what it is?

Also, I do feel compelled to explain myself- while I am never an immaculate gardener, my beds are usually not as bad as this. I sprained my ankle nearly three weeks ago and have not been able to go out into the garden till the last few days. And even now, I cannot squat or even get on my knees to properly garden. So there.

Of friends and dusting

Bless all young nieces who enthusiastically rescue their frazzled aunts.

My bookshelf had ceased to become a refuge and had become a source of tension to me. For nearly two years, it had become a dumping ground for books that were gifted, purchased at conferences and meetings, and worst of all the-books-that-we-SHOULD-read. Rather than address the issue, I tried to neglect it. There it sat, a dusty judgemental lump.

I could not do it myself and so approached D's daughter who had come home for the holidays. 'All the books you want to carry home are yours' I said, in hopes of offering a bribe. The bribe was not needed, 'It will be fun' she said.

And she made it fun. I loved being with her as she diligently (for five hours!) dusted, sorted, and arranged. Not part of the plan, but she took a rag and dishsoap to clean the covers of the more 'loved' books. She used cellotape to mend the torn books.

Here's an example. My much-loved, much used copy of Thangam Phillip's book.
Before:

and after:

And at the end of it, I had a bookshelf that was clean, nice-smelling, logically arranged, and full of the books that Mian and I turn to frequently.

I was overwhelmed with gratitude as she set off on her long walk home- down 'our' hill, up the other, and across the ridge in the face of an approaching storm. This is a child who gladly gave up a summer day to sit and work. That was not all. A sms from her father revealed that she had given up a trek that her friends had gone on to dust my bookshelves.

We are blessed.