The Epsilon's Garden

Sunday, May 6, 2012

The only person I know other than my son who is more passionate about gardening was my mother. She, cultivated plants and trees from cuttings and seeds; nursing ailing plants, manually pollenating flowers, grafting... My son does the same. He has portable seedling nursery beds. Last year's drought destroyed a lot of the hedges and bushes, plants and flowers I had in my manicured garden. My son uprooted all the dead plants and converted our yard and garden into a vegetable garden. He also planted several vegetables in containers. He uses every available container he can find, including plastic containers from the pho restaurant. He is so dedicated, studying each plant's cultivation and maintenance, dutifully taking care of each of them and trying to make use of every planting space available. I am so thrilled. I love seeing something not just beautiful and pretty in the garden but useful and edible. It is all organic. He keeps the vegetables and plant the caterpillars and bugs without chemicals. So far we had a taste of the tomatoes, sweet peas, bok choy, lettuce, kale and peppers. I enjoy spending the evenings and weekends inspecting his garden with him and his sister. This evening I am making vegetable stir-fry with bok choy from his garden.

My son told me that a pumpkin flower only opens for a few hours during the day and then closes because of the heat. He thought that the nectar-drunk bee on the right may have been trapped. We went outside to look at the flower. It had indeed closed (see the photo next to my stalker, the frog further below). I tried to open the flower and found the bee inside. It died from the heat. See what happens when you have too much of anything?