Letting your plants go seed

When I was a teenager, I can remember waiting in the doctors office and perusing a hunting magazine. I had no interesting in hunting, but it was the only thing to read in the days well before iPhones. Between the articles of using store bought fox urine versus to the real deal for God only knows what, I came across an article that has apparently stayed with me for years. It was a first hand account of a man who successfully tracked down a prized deer, but couldn’t bring himself to shoot it because he was in awe of the beauty and strength of this animal.

As my plants in my garden are maturing, I haven’t been able to pick some of them for very much the same reasons as the hunter above. Watching something grow from seed since nascency, then becoming ripe and the flowering, then seeding, then dying is a beautiful process to watch. It is hauntingly a fast forward preview of our own cycle of existence in this embodiment, and in mankind itself.

I knew I was too late picking my freckled lettuce when I snapped off a leaf and chewed it, only to have an extremely bitter taste in my mouth. I have developed great respect for lettuce plants a they are some of the most disease resistant, insect resistant, drought resistant, and delicious plants that can be grown. When they are mature, they go right into seed making mode and grow a crown on top reminiscent of something truly Royal.

It is odd growing plants in Hawai’i, a place where you can plant any time of year and produce. As this past week was the first day of Spring, many of my plants are behaving like its Fall and either harvesting or going to seed. Rather than greedily picking them all, I am letting some continue their short life cycle on this earth with hope that they will produce more offspring with their withering.

On a bright note, I did harvest my first pumpkin. It was small and beautiful and made my mother in law very happy. I plan to take it on “tour” to show all my students, coworkers, friends, and clients with whom I was showing weekly pictures of progress like some deranged parent. Who knows, I might just eat it one day 🙂

Patience paying off: garden starting to show its bounty

What a wonderful week in gardening! The romaine lettuce seen in the featured image is just one of the main attractions that has come from the soil this week. After successfully pollinating my pumpkin flowers using a paintbrush, a small Kabocha is starting forming (see below). It is growing about twice its size daily. A few fairly heavy showers have been a boon to the dry soil and many magical things are starting to happen.

A cucumber vine (below) is now is sprouting four fruits at the same time, when I was lucky to get one from the first plant that grew which recently died off. You can see a young cucumber here which start off prickly until they mature into succulent morsels.

A home made trellis made of three bamboo sticks and twine has made this bitter melon  a happy plant. I am using materials found around the house to use as “props” for my plants. It seems as though my Iyengar training is staring to “cross pollinate” into other areas of my life. You can see the clovers below that add fertilizer by fixing nitrogen into the soil.

Below you can see a daikon which started to flower with a long stalk and small lavender colored petals. For those with a botany background taking a second look a the plant, is shows that the daikon, a carrot, and burdock all came from the same seed ball and are occupying the same space. I will let this daikon flower produce seeds so I can replant more next season.

And making a rare cameo, your’s truly holding a recently harvested daikon. Remember how small my last one was from my post about the chisai (small) harvest? Well this one is full size and more than a handful.

And to attract bees and other beneficial insects, I am adding sunflowers to the garden. I transplanted this beauty a few days ago. It also provides shade and wind protection.

Like a hungry serpent, below the creepy crawly pumpkin vine ventures well past the garden searching for more space. This is about 15 feet long now, but I have heard these could grow up to 50 feet. If I blink, this plant will probably wind up in my neighbor’s yard. Perhaps I’ll offer him a pumpkin 🙂