Saturday, June 30, 2012

Strawberries, corn, sakura cherries...

Am getting the hang of growing strawberries... 
Still, grew a bit too many of them this past season...
I am keeping just six baby-plants for next season...
No more over-crowding them...
Anyway, we just enjoyed our last few strawberries for this season... 
Their flesh was firm, and their taste... should I say, 'concentrated', unlike the ones from the stores?
Our corn plants are growing really well this season...
Compared to the strawberries, I think I have more or less learned how to grow corn 'properly'.... 
I derive a lot of pleasure just looking at them... 
The stems are thick, and the plants, 'stocky'...
I almost praised myself for setting up the pole-stakes early enough to prevent them from being blown sideways by the winds...
Still, the pests remain an issue...
They are already drilling holes into the stems and I am quite at a loss as to how to handle them...
Well, let's see how the harvest turns out...
Ok, I started with red, and I shall end with red...
These are sakura-cherry flowers... photographed in early April...
And come June... woah, managed to harvest some beautiful sakura cherries for the first time...
They have a very refreshing, sourish-sweet taste...
Absolutely lovely...

19 comments:

  1. Nice cherries, really nice. I can't wait until ours are ready this year.

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  2. Thank you Mr. H... I believe you must be very occupied with your garden... I look forward to reading your posts...

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  3. Those pets in my garden ate away my flowers while I took their photograph.

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  4. Oh those cherries look lovely. Regarding strawberries I just read a post that described growing them as 'easy' but like you I've yet to master it. Having said that yours look pretty good.

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    1. Thank you for your compliment, Liz...

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  5. Do you know that when the corn are already fertilized, you can already remove the tassel or the pollen stalk on top. It helps in minimizing insects coming in.

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    1. Thank you for the hint... shall try to do that and see...

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  6. Your sweet corn doing great. Cute cherries. We have troubled growing sweet corn in summer because not enough water for them. So we grow them in fall.

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    1. I tried growing purple corn in the fall and I think there were fewer pest attacks... so, this year, I shall be doing it again...

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  7. those are healthy looking corns! I must stake my corn next time!
    Beautiful harvest of cherries!

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    1. Thank you... I think the corn plants are happy with the stakes too...

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  8. beautiful cherries, really, i'm astonished just looking at it..hope someday i can taste them ;)

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    1. mat jon... they taste really good... fresh, crunchy... compared to the imported bigger-sized American cherries, the Japanese ones are a little sourish-sweet...

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  9. Sometimes they sell strawberry plants at the nurseries but I doubt it can survive in the lowlands. I'm so glad you showed a picture of the cherry blossom and the cherries. I always think of cherry blossoms as flowers in art and cherries in culinary uses. It is difficult to knock into my head that the two are connected and actually part of a life cycle!

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  10. Just drop by again to read ur blog... Ur blog never fails to impress me.. :)
    Btw, are there any tips to plant those strawberries? I've tried planting them... But the fruits never seems to grow big and the plant seems grow smaller every leaf and after a while it just dies off. Is it becoz i am not fertilising it enuf?

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    1. Thank you very much for dropping by... as for strawberries, I found that they do well if I do not over-crowd them. I give them space, and plant garlic or onions as companions. Yes, they need to be fertilized on and off (good thing is, both garlic and onions are heavy feeders as well)... and yeap, strawberries need quite a bit of watering...good luck...

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  11. We often see lovely pictures of cherry blossoms but I've yet to see pictures of cherries after the blooms. Thanks for showing both. The cherries look yummy!

    I visited some friends in Sibu a few years ago and was really fascinated with their corn crop. Never knew the plant can grow to such a height. I esitmated them to be somewhere between 8 to 9 feet. It was such a delight to see the plants.

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  12. We can't get our Stella cherry tree to hold on to it's fruit :( 4 years and still waiting for the first one in my mouth.

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    1. Hang on in there, and good luck on the cherries...

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