My flowers

Aren't they pretty :)

Leafy veges

The one on the bottom is Gongura - not what you think 😛. 

Corn, oranges, hydrangea

Zucchini, beerakaya, eggplants, tomatoes, beans, gongura, golden squash, zucchini

Rock rose, rose campion, calla lily, rock purslane

Mums, sunflower, gardenia and ....

Dal with Bachali

Nothing beats home made food. Interested in more info? : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basella_alba

Chillies - both hot and sweet

My beautiful roses

Wish I knew the names. Beautiful right?

Heirloom tomatoes

Hibiscus - gifted by my friend

Orange juice from my own oranges

Drinking every day - 3 oranges is all it takes. Well, honestly I like to eat them, but I have TMJ now and am not able to eat them. So have to go with the juice.

Beans (Chikkudu, Papdi) whatever you call it

This is supposed to be non-vine version of chikkudukaya (papdi) - Indian version of certain variety of beans. Getting too many of these beans now a days. They are very tasty though.

Butternut squash - mine again

I got this plant from someone who said it is a Zucchini. As it kept growing it turned out to be something. Well, a good one. This is my first time with butternut squash. Can't wait to cook with them - though am not sure what to. LOL.

Beerakaaya - versatile vegetable

This is one vegetable where nothing goes to waste. You can make pachadi (pickle) with the skin and the inside too. Curry with this vegetable is actually very taste.

What is this? Can anyone guess?

Not sure what this is? Is it a melon? Or is it a pumpkin? Is it a vege? Or is it a fruit?

Your guess might be better than mine :)

Bitter melon - Kakarakaya

I am getting so many of these, donno what to do with them. LOL.

Lawn to vegetable garden

So true. I transformed my lawn completely. I am enjoying all the food I am growing. I didn't buy any veges in the last 15 months. And I have very small piece of land. Here are some before and after pics.

This is the before pic obviously :)

This is the after pic - I grow mostly flowers in my front yard. But then I do have Tree Collard growing like crazy along with couple of citrus trees. 

This "was" my back lawn

And now it is a jungle with lots of fruits and veges. This is my paradise.

Dosakai - harvested finally

Indian Cucumber - Dosakai. Love it. Very versatile. You can make curry, pickle or pappu. I made all of them. They are huge and many in my yard.

Jujubes - my favorite

These are my jujubees or Chinese dates. These remind me of Regi pandu (Telugu). I just love them. Came from back from vacation to this huge crop. Ate almost all of them.

Finally the miracle happened!!

**Below was a draft written 4 yrs back and published today
A miracle has happened - within me. The miracle I read about Watchfulness. When I read it few days back, I thought I understood it. But in reality I didn't, coz I was still not 'watching'. Finally I got it last Sunday. Something that was missing in me for years. I have been watching myself this last week and know that this change is here to stay for life.

An episode that started in Oct last year and ended few days back brought this change in me. This period has changed my entire personality because of a fear within me. I wasn't myself. Why? Instead of watching, I let the issue engulf me and this is the third time I let this happen to me in my life (of course they are all unrelated to each other).

In the past few months there have been situations I could've handled much better if I had better control on my emotions - or may be I should say, if I was 'watching' them. I hurt a dear friend of mine in the process. At the same time I do not regret any of it - I am what I am now because of this whole episode. I know my friend will appreciate me for the same. Not only have I become the person I 'was' once upon a time - but also more. I guess sometimes you need to go through the entire process - however painful it is - for the realization to happen. I lost something and gained a lot. I hope I can get back what I lost with the new 'me' or should I say 'old me'.

I was introspecting/retrospecting for the past few days and going through a huge range of emotions and I can say I feel the enlightenment within me. This morning I realized that I am at a stage where I can actually 'watch' my emotions and not let them play me. I could not only overcome the fear that caused all this, am also at a stage where I will not let anything take over me - EVER. I can see the glow within me. I cannot say I am just happy because this is more than happiness. I cannot explain, but it feels so liberating. Finally I am clutter free.

Another wonderful outcome of this whole episode is that I found couple of great friends. 'A' is an awesome person who never judged me, helped me all along by being there for me. I met her in October and now she has become one of my best friends. Another is 'R' who did not judge me either, instead gave me valuable input that got me thinking. I am really glad to have them as my best friends. There is always something good that comes out of everything I guess. :). I always believed situations define a friendship rather than the amount of time you have known a person.

I know not many people can experience this in their life time. I am so happy I went through this metamorphosis and I am good for life. Thanks to all my friends who helped me reach this stage. I love you all and I just love myself :).

Am switching gears and focusing more on my garden. Here is a Adobe Spark page I created with all my work so far.
https://spark.adobe.com/page/ccuwI6MthjT7Z/

Going forward, I will be logging my journey here.

Peonies - progress

I started reading about these beautiful plants. So went to Costco and bought some bulbs. Was trying to figure out where to plant them. Finally, decided to plant few in the front and few at the back - to be precise 6 in the front and 2 at the back. Now the question is, how to plant them. Instructions say, plant them 1 inch below the surface so the roots are strong. Sounds good. Looking at these bulbs could not figure out what part of this goes down and which one goes up. The shoots looked like roots. So planted them with the eyes down. 😅😅Then luckily found a YouTube video and realized I planted it upside down. This means I am forcing the plant to grow "into" the soil downwards. Oh God. What was I thinking? Well then, at least I figured that out within an hour. So dug them up and planted them the right way.  And they started slowly coming out. Here it was about 10 days back.

Now it is around 3 weeks. They started shooting up and now they are few inches long. Beautiful ha?

Can't wait for them to flower. 😀Yeah yeah, I know it's too early. But watching them grow is lots of fun.