He has since left for home but his kindness lingers on at our potager...
Edgar, thank you very much, if you are reading this...
The corn plants have this purple 'veins' in the stems and leaves...
Cute... I thought to myself...
They grew and grew... stopping at about almost 3 meters?
Happy and happy I was...
But, happiness was short-lived as the typhoons came by...
All the plants broke into two... except one...
And this is the lone, precious-precious fruit from the 'harvest'...
Luckily, I had saved some seeds for a second round of planting, which I did last July...
I had always believed that plants, like humans, have some kind of 'thinking' mechanism in them...
This second batch of purple corn plants 'decided' to start flowering at about 2 meters or less...
A response to the upcoming cold season, perhaps?
Happiness returns... as the ears begin to appear...
Until one day, she came home with a bunch of long and lanky eggplants after visiting her youngest sister in Kyushu...
Somehow, her taste buds changed from then on... and eggplant dishes began to show up on my dinner plates...
Meanwhile, I had only grown eggplant once before and I was not very successful with it...
Why, for they are heavy feeders...
And I am not a very good feeder of fertilizers to my plants...
Now, late last summer, I accompanied my suweeto haato on one of her daily (well, almost) walks in the hills...
There is this plot of land midway up the hill, that is being used as a landfill for some construction firm...
We often see a medium sized truck hauling all sorts of debris up there to be dumped as landfill...
The unobstructed view of the Japan Inland Sea from there is really beautiful...
We imagine that after a certain amount of landfill, some big shot company president will come over and build his fifth summer holiday villa or something like that...
Anyway, while walking pass the landfill, a little plant caught my eye...
And I knew it was an eggplant seedling, growing 'wild' amongst the debris...
I dug it up and just then, I discovered a second seedling...
Took them home, knowing that it was a little too late to start planting eggplants...
Three months or so passed... and woah... it is harvest time for purple eggplants...
Ok, please allow me to dedicate this post to Connie Nakamura...
She has just moved to Japan from Saipan and is planning to try her hand at vegetable gardening...
I am much humbled to be at the receiving end of what she had to say of me (or my potager blog?)... and it is indeed an honor to be requested by her to act as her 'mentor'...
For a 'student' of gardening, I still am...
Yet, it will be my pleasure to be part of this exciting adventure in life...
May your garden blooms a thousand blooms....
And fruits, a thousand fruits... :)
You really do have green fingers...err...or purple fingers? hehe! Love that purple corn! Such deep color!
ReplyDeleteI'm entranced by the purple fruits of your labor...look forward to seeing your eggplant! The local market where I shop has recently started having purple potatoes for sale. Beside being a lovely color they taste quite delicious.
ReplyDeleteYou deserve all the gardening accolades you receive!
Beautiful corn, I have always liked the darker colored varieties. Hope you have good success with it next season.
ReplyDeleteThere is another dark variety called "Blue Jade" that only gets around 3' tall. Something you might consider in the future should you want to grow a more wind resistent corn.
I agree with your thoughts on plants having a thinking mechanism of sorts...very interesting. Oh, and congrats on your success with the eggplants.
Your purple harvest is so beautiful. Is the corn edible or it is use to ground and make flour? Great that you can save some seeds of this beautiful corn. Edgar really generous.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing how you get corn from one plant. The colour is great for halloween hehe... your corn is really tall!
ReplyDeleteJeannie... me too, I love that purple shade...
ReplyDeleteTheanne... hmmm, purple potatoes... have not tried growing them yet... would like to do so...
Mr. H... Blue Jade... shall be looking out for them in the future...
Diana... yes, they are edible... we remove their seeds and cooked them with rice and the color of the cooked rice was just amazing...
Steph... the corn plant was really tall indeed...
Wow! A really deep purple corn and the colour is so lovely. The taste is the same as the yellow variant?
ReplyDeleteI would love to grow purple sweetcorn just for the look on the boys faces.
ReplyDeletelina... the yellow one is sweet while this one is more 'powdery' and less sweet... but just as tasty...
ReplyDeleteCathy... now that would be quite a thrill...
Good Morning Professor Lrong.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for write about me and Lake Titicaca.
I am only sorry about typhoon that destroyed your garden.
I know that you are very interested in agriculture issues, and I could recommend you to visit peruvian stores near the peruvians consulate in tokyo, osaka, nagoya or other cities where are peruvian consulate if you want to find something strange when you want or have an opportunity
There are a lot of selected things, that the peruvians couldn't live without these, for example, purple corns, rocoto, quinua, paprika, beans, pisco and others, because buying these things we think that we are in our country.
I read your blog it is very interesting and it was nice to read mi name there.
Greetings of my family for you and wife.
Greetings too for Professor Takamizu, Shioi, Ohnoro, Wada, Yamashita, Kazama, and all The Staff of ISC and Education Faculty.
Greetings for you...
EDGAR SANDRO
Edgar... thank you very much for your nice message... I am very happy to hear that you are doing well... there are six purple corn plants in the field and I hope that I can get some harvest from them... also, I managed to germinate some rocoto plants... I shall show them on the blog later on... thank you for your wishes to the staff of ISC... I shall convey your wishes to them...
ReplyDeleteThe purple corn is beautiful, what a thoughtful gift that was for you. The purple eggplants look delightful also and I enjoyed reading about how you found them.
ReplyDeleteDiane... thank you for your kind words... am very happy to hear that you enjoyed reading my humble post...
ReplyDeleteWow, I don't know how I missed the purple corn...glad I came across it today. It's stunning!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Cat, for your nice comment...
ReplyDeletePurple corn! Wow! Never seen one before!
ReplyDeleteMalar... first time for me to grow the purple corn, actually...
ReplyDeleteDid I actually NOT comment here? I must be getting OlD! Thank you for mentioning me in your blog-post! I hope my gardening efforts are "fruitful" or...veggie-ful? My small little patch will in no way compare to your wonderful garden of Eden! The corn is beautiful-it reminds me of Indian corn back in Wisconsin....
ReplyDeleteConnie... it is my pleasure...
ReplyDeleteI am very happy that the veggies are growing very well in my potager...
I have never seen a purple corn plant and this plant grew and grew ... which reminds me of Jack and the Bean Stalk, now it is Lrong and the Purple Corn! Thank you for your tips on growing groundnuts. I'll look out for them at the stores. Did you make Yong Tau Foo or Brinjal Vegetarian Curry for your Suweeto Haato to try?
ReplyDeleteAB... Did I make Yong Tau Foo or Brinjal Vegetarian Curry for my Suweeto Haato to try?
ReplyDeleteErrr... actually she did the cooking and I, the eating...