Flowers... of Soap wort, Oregano, Jerusalem artichoke, and Lotus...

Japan is in the midst of the O-bon season, as in All Souls Day...

The university is closed for a full week... 

Put in the two weekends, and yours truly is only too happy to be having a 9-day break...

Which means, an excellent opportunity to catch up with the chores in the potager...

Yes, it is a joy to be able to work in the garden, but still, the heat... ooh, it's killing...

We have been trying to grow this soap wort for a while now...

Am happy to see that they are growing well...

Belongs to the carnation family and has sweet smelling flowers...

Apparently can be used as a mild soap but we haven't tried doing so...

The wild marjoram a.k.a. oregano looks pretty but my missus prefers the sweet marjoram for cooking...

And so is the Jerusalem artichoke... it looks pretty...

We tried eating their tubers but did not quite like their taste...

The mini-lotus flower is doing beautifully in the pond... 

Typhoon Number 12 rips through Shikoku

This is quite a record, to have a second, massive, vicious typhoon ripping through the Japanese archipelago within such a short span of time... 

The eye of the typhoon had cut across Kochi Prefecture in the south and through Kagawa Prefecture, and is now slowly creeping towards Okayama Prefecture...   

After experiencing blistering winds and rains for hours, it was surreal to witness a momentary calm as the eye dawned upon where we live... 

I changed into my rain-gear and made a quick inspection of the potager...

Oooh, how heart-wrenching it was to see damage inflicted...
the okra plants, twisted...
the purple corn plants, contorted with some stems broken in the middle... 

the moroheya bush, mutilated...
the Fuji-mame (hyacinth bean) vines, badly torn... and the pumpkin plants, brutally beaten... 
Oh well, this is god's way of doing things... 
Luckily, other 'low-lying' plants like sweet potatoes, chillies, malabar spinach did not suffer much damage...
The rains and winds began to resume...
I promptly harvested some okra, amaranth, long beans, and chillies...
and made a quick dash back into the house...

Anyway, two days ago before cycling off to work, I recorded this Hime-hasu, literally Princess Lotus...

This is a gift from an elderly gentleman whom I have known since 1997...

It is actually a mini lotus, rather small compared to the 'normal' large ones...

This was the only lotus flower we had this season...

I had requested my sweeto haato to cut the flower and bring it into the house...

The following day, to our pleasure, it bloomed beautifully...

I was quite intrigued with how tiny the seed pod is...

The seeds do not develop into the roundish seeds we see in larger specimens... 

Now, our pear trees are pretty pathetic...

Or rather, their fruits are...

They are so 'teeny-weeny'...

In the words of my missus, 'the size of ping-pong balls'...

Harvested a few days ago this Kodama Suika aka Mini Watermelon...

Their skin is exceptionally thin when compared to the 'normal' watermelons...

They tasted just as good and we have kept the seeds for next season...

And like the Hime-hasu, seems like the Japanese folks are doing a great job creating mini versions of such plants... 

In addition, there is also a Bochan Kabocha, mini pumpkin so to say...

Will definitely try to grow them as well, from seeds next season...