OTG : My terrace painted red all over again..

Tomato chutney with onions in making :) 3 days back.

More tomatoes and a few chillies yesterday..

OTG Diaries : Gongura ..

Last week : Gongura leaves freshly plucked from terrace garden getting ready for chutney..

OTG diaries : Daal+Tamatar (tomato pappu) today

Plucked some tomatoes (Noticed two nice tomatoes were tasted by a squirrel? :-( ) anyways.

21/09/2015 - Straight from Terrace Garden.

Today's produce from my OTG..  I will make daal+palak (palakoora pappu), tomato chutney and bhindi+beans chaaru (rasam) for lunch.. :)

Brahma kamal /Saussurea_obvallata in my frontyard...

Brahmakamal 6/27 in my frontyard..

(More on Brahmakamal : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saussurea_obvallata

Flower basket from my front yard..

I love Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice.. I must have read it like a dozen times. I am among those millions of darcified people in the world. And then every year, at least once I go and watch those 1995 BBC episodes, and that has an effect on me for a month or so..

I tend to use British expressions in English at work, and the breakfast at home is slightly English, and I go pluck flowers from front yard like Bennet sisters ..

Here is a flower basket sourced by my front yard.. A relaxing evening with friends, and we had this basket at our corner table,  

spanish moss/ bird nest

Been to M&M Nursery in October with family just to check for a particular plant 'Jhumki'   As my sister was shopping for cacti, I was looking around, just checking out the greenhouse they had setup, flower beds, garden accessories. Was amused particularly about the snake catcher stick. Never seen it before.

I got a couple of hibiscus varieties, knowing very well that I don't have any more space, was trying to 'control' myself by looking way and  this beautiful moss being hung by a hook attracted our attention.

Apparently this 'air plant' is called Spanish moss, it comes from south eastern United states, (Argentina, Hawaii.. even Australia)

[The plant consists of a slender stem bearing alternate thin, curved or curly, heavily scaled leaves 2–6 cm (0.79–2.4 in) long and 1 mm (0.039 in) broad, that grow vegetatively in chain-like fashion (pendant) to form hanging structures up to 6 m (240 in)[3] in length. The plant has no aerial roots [3] and its flowers are tiny and inconspicuous. It propagates both by seed and vegetatively by fragments that blow on the wind and stick to tree limbs, or are carried by birds as nesting material] -From Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_moss

I got these candle holder from IKEA, Paloalto a couple of years back. used it to hang this one in our car port. Check it out..

Been so so lazy to update the blog..

My garden sometimes goes thru utmost attention, the plants are touched and talked to, they become my constant tea time companions... and sometimes, they go thru gross neglect, not that they are not watered or starved.. But no touching, mending or tea times with them.

Once my mother visits for a few weeks, they are happy.. they get their company back. They are all happy these days, flowering, fruiting, swinging with fresh leaves..

A couple of months back, I got these aluminium pots with hooks for the grill. I added some soil and planted some crotons, and frequent watering made them look dull with stains of miTTi, marks of salty water. One holiday to my hometown, and all the plants dried up.

After the first term exams, and one week break from school,  my elder daughter was behind me..'I need some project..I want to do something...'

Here is what she did to them.. Check them out..

They all look so bright. I took the advice of my friend, used the rasgulla matkaas and curd Dabbas to plant these crotons, and put them inside these colorful container/pots..

More later, hopefully real soon..

Early rains.. and Rama baaNaalu in full bloom..

https://picasaweb.google.com/101213175198546960791/Jun102011?authkey=Gv1sRgCIaB387xo92GuQE#

When I came back from a month long vacation in May, I expected the garden to be dry (Even though I gave 500 Rs to the layout gardener to water them daily...)

I closed my eyes as taxi reached home and slowwwwly opened to be pleasantly surprised. Apparently there were too many rains.. Garden is lush green. I am particularly happy about the Rama BaaNaalu..

I planted two varieties (4+ years back).. one in a combination of Orangish red and pale yellow and another one in baby pink color, on both sides of the french window to denote my laving daughters Dhatri and Maitri.


Check them out ...

Was away for the weekend, and see the beauty.. Mograaz .. Today 's on the plant.. Yesterday's on grass and floor and the scooter, white in color.. and the day before yesterday' s flowers on the floor turning in to brown....

Custurd apples.. getting ready..

Been a while since I have updated this blog. Between Kids exams, my work deadlines,.. and my laziness to charge the digital camera,... hardly had to time to come back to this blog. But then, Last weekend was the time, when I actually went out to take a few pictures from my cell phone camera.. and thought, let me upload ..

Baby Custurd apples.. What a pleasure to watch little green flowers turning in to baby fruits.. I have seen that most of the flowers turn in to fruits..

.

Pomergrantes getting ready.. The tree has like 30 of them..

I am ready too.. Only I want to bloom looking at Sun ...

A pink hibiscus ready to bloom.. in my front yard..

All ready..

Mandaara makaranda maadhuryamuna dElu...

My mom simply adores Hibiscus.. Her garden is filled with lines of bright showy flowers and still she is always in search of new varieties. Obviously I have inherited the love of for these plants from her..

I have over a dozen different hibiscus plants in my tiny front yard,..
I had uploaded the pictures of most of the flowers for the slide show.
(I was waiting for a fresh half-white double layered hibiscus and the blood red button hibiscus to bloom..) so that the collection can be complete.

But then I realize.. it can never be complete!
There are over 600 varieties of hibiscus, and I need acres of land to cultivate all of them..

As and when I get the good pictures of fresh flowers, .. I would add/update the slide show..

-beekay

Toor daal plant and sugarcane in my garden..

Pratibha, kids' nanny got the seeds for Toordaal/Bengalgram?/kandipappu from Kolar, on Jan 4th. The first working day of the year...

Time was 8.45am.. Kids were still eating their breakfast, before they took the 9am school bus. And I still had to pack their lunches.. But I took 2 minutes and rushed to the backyard.. quickly planted sugarcane and the toordal seed and ran back to the routine..

What a nice way to start the year!!! I have today 3 4 inch long tiny plants, which Dhatri, my daughter protected by three bricks so that,.. no one stepped over it.
I will post the pictures this weekend..

More pictures.. from garden..

No new post in 2009...

The first half of 2009 was probably the busiest year in my life.. Handling two projects at work, Children's studies, extra curricular activities, a hindustani musical program with kids for our Guruji, US,UK trip in summer, three vacations in Hyderabad. Second half with new academic year bringing in more challeges for younger daughter, health issues, YSR's tragic death, floods in AP, Karnataka,.. Telangana issue.. summarized 2009.

Garden went through changes too.. After giving 170 delicious fruits, Papaya took farewell from us.. How I miss watching the Papaya tree with at least half a dozen ripe fruit, and another dozen getting ready ..every single morning.. thinking of who I can give the fruit this time to...

My uncle saw that Pomergranate tree requires a push to start fruiting.. He pulled the branch tips from the barbed wires of the 10 ft compound wall, and set the tree free.. And within a month, it had new leaves all over, with pomergranates popping from some bright orange flowers..

Mango tree growing taller, flowering in summer, lush green bean creepers, delivering short wild beans.. and Indian spinach (Bacchali) giving dark thick green leaves in thousands every week, for daal.. serving several friends, family, relatives,..

This year also saw new additions on kids birthdays.. the hybrid chikoo plant, the amla/gooseberry and lime plant to the backyard. Thanks to our neighbours Lata, I tried turmeric, and it gave good crop, recently we have had raw turmeric salad with lemon,and green chillies..

15 Guavas.. from our *delicate* guava plant,..delicate because, once it was be-headed due to a tight knot I had mistakenly left behind and another time, blown down by a strong wind and heavy rain.. still it withstood the damages... supported by ropes made of coconut fibre..

Elder one planted chikoo plant on her birthday and the younger one chose to plant red rose creeper..in the front yard. Another greenish thing we had done was to give away rose saplings as return gifts to the guests on my second one's birthday.. Array of red,yellow,white,orange and pink button roses...

daily turns in to weekly quickly..

Like every other week, the last week was hectic due to work, music,gardening,getting ready for weekend get-together. But this week, I showed the pictures from my blog to some friends and took their advice on photography,page layout and the content in general. Some neighbors noticed that I am now taking pictures of garden, and showed interest in taking a look at them.

We visited mysore bird sanctury in saturday. Very serence, thousands of birds, Only felt sad that one part of the sanctury was filled with plastic wastes. Definitely it is one of the most serene greenary I have seen in the past few years.

The most surprising thing for me this weekend was a friend, who was not one of those plant experts in my opinion. She saw the pictures and corrected the names of several flowers from my garden. She identified those un-named flowers. I searched the web with those names and got the pictures of my flowers! I will update the picture titles soon.

We plucked brinjals, tindolas (donDakai), indian spinach (bacchali) and cherry tomatoes, for my sisters from our garden. Before our family left on sunday evening, I added loads of lemon grass to hot tea for everybody.

More later,..

Signing off for the day..

I have uploaded most of the flowers from my garden and am signing off for the day.
All these pictures are taken over the weekend, I realized during this weekend that, I should have taken pictures of these flowers when the plants were filled with loads of healthy flowers.

Also, several other varieties of flowers were not there this weekend. Now that I have started blogging, I would update the site with those pictures.

I would introduce the veggies from my garden next week. and later on, would display the fruits and herbs that we grow in our backyard.

-beekay!

uploaded some pictures today..

My garden is just an year old. With limited space around my home, and limited time (As a working mother of two kids), and summers with water scarcity.. I think I have done a good job. I generally avoid taking gardener's help and tend to be on my own.

I took some pictures of various flowers, vegetables,fruit and herbs that I grow,(Yesterday and today) and started uploading this on this site. I guess I will take like a week to complete this activity.

Today I uploaded some flowers from my garden. I still have dozen other varieties, I would do that, when I have time next week.

After which I would upload pictures of veggies, fruits and herbs.

Let me know what you think of it..

good day,
-beekay.

Beekay's daily..

I finally joined the blogger' s club. For the last couple of years.. I have been hearing about blogging and been reading friends' blogs. Final push came today, came home with a lingering headache at lunch time, After applying sickleave, came home took a good nap, ate some light lunch, ...
Came out of backdoor,..


mEghaavritamaina aakaaSam, talaakaayalooputoo, haaaai cheptunna chEmaakulu,
gaa.. sannagaa..garakugaa.. nimmagaDDee,lOlakullaaa vElaaDutunna oodaarangu vankaayaloo,


came to the kitchen for some hot tea,..

kiTikeelOnchi pacchagaaa.. pushTi gaa..rekkalu chaachukuni.. kaayalatO ninDina boppaaas cheTToo,
vangipOyina dannimma cheTToo,.. ekkaDanTE akkaDa paakipOyina chikkuDu teegaa..

Kids got a surprise welcome at home from me, in half an hour, their friends are all over the place, ..after all it is friday evening.

I took out the digital cam, took pics of garden, kids, and as we were about to be done,.. it started drizzling. we uploaded, and admired the pictures..

And in this wonderful mood, I thot it is the time to start a blog after all!

more later,..