Butter scotch pumpkin, Hawk's claws chillies, etc...

Was trying to dig out an azalea plant to make space for the 'Southern Cross'...   

Slipped, fell over and hit my head on the concrete steps... 

Next thing I knew was the sound of my own heavy breathing...

My missus came over to look me up...

Lucky thing, it was only a minor cut on the right side of the head...

Lesson learned: be careful and wear the safety helmet while working... 

(I often do so, actually, and today was one of the few instances that I didn't...)

Anyway, am happy to be able to do some harvesting...
My missus bought a butter scotch pumpkin last year from the farmers' market...
We like the taste of it and kept some seeds...
Am delighted that the plants produced 6 large pumpkins...
This one weighs about 900 grams... not too bad...

Similarly, we kept some seeds from the winter melon that we bought from the farmers' market last year...
We manage only one fruit, however... 1.7 kilograms...

The first time I ever planted potatoes years ago, we harvested over 11 kilograms from one kilogram of seeds...

Subsequent plantings were rather measly...

This time, only 3 kilograms from one kilogram of seeds...

Reason? I did not fully dry the cut-up seeds before I planted them, so most of them rotted...

Chillies this season... not too bad although it could be better... 

These finger-sized ones are called 'Taka no tsume', aka 'Hawk's claws'...

They are spicy and they taste good...

I got some okra seeds from my younger brother in Malaysia last year...

And I must say that they have adapted very well to our potager...

These are the last of the harvests for this season... 

Compared to the Japanese okras, these are gigantic...

Some of them were about 30 centimeters long...

And they were tender, super delicious and combine very well with curries... 

Will certainly grow them again next spring...

The Autumn Giraffe, among others...

Autumn days at Shikoku have been super pleasant... 
Cool, dry, and simply heavenly to be outdoors...

Took a shot of our potager today...
The marigolds are still blooming, as are the zinnias...

This dwarf of a flower is called 'wild chrysamthemum'　（野菊）in Japanese... 
They grow so well in our garden, without any attention from us...

The Japanese folks call this flower 'Hototogizu' (ホトトギス）, which is the name of a bird belonging to the cuckoo family... Apparently, the spots of this lily-family flower is similar to the spots on the chest of the bird...

Think this is called Larkdaisy or Porcupine flower.
The Japanese name is Murasaki Rushan （ムラサキルーシャン） or Ringo Azami（リンゴアザミ）...
Leaves emit apple-like smell when rubbed...

This chrysanthemum is endemic to the island of Honshu in Japan... 

It's scientific name is Chrysanthemum pacificum Nakai but I prefer the common name Isogiku (イソギク) meaning, Rocky Shore Chrysanthemum...

 

We enjoy looking at this wild flower in our morning walks... 

Took back home a specimen of this 'Aki no kirin so' （秋の麒麟草）, literally, Autumn Giraffe flower...

Am linking this post to GBBD, which is hosted by May Dreams Gardens...

Berries from the Inumaki/Kusamaki tree...

Was visiting the University of Victoria at Vancouver Island, Canada, a couple of years ago when I first witnessed birds eating these berries... 

I actually went over to the trees and tried one...

Sweet, it was...

Years down the road, was really happy to discover that we have those Inumaki or Kusamaki trees (native to China and Southern Japan) in our property...

Five of them are females, and I managed to harvest 1.3 kilos of these delicious berries from them...
The round, green portion is apparently inedible, and there is a small seed inside the berries...

The Inumaki trees and the Mountain Peach tree had been 'over-growing' in our garden for a while...
They were blocking the sun from our goldfish pond...
And my suweeto haato had been urging me to trim them down...

Finally got to doing it today...

And, whoaa, what an amateurish a job it turned out to be, I said to myself...

Well, at least we got the sun in, and the view of the mountains from our house improved markedly...

China root berries, strawberries, pineapple sage, etc...

There has been just so much rain this year...

Not to say that I am complaining... 

It is just marvelous for the plants, in fact...

This is a picture of the berries of a climber plant called 'China root'...

They grow wildly in our property... 

The young shoots can be eaten as a vegetable (pictures next spring?)... 

Some folks use the berries to make wine but apparently they do not taste good... 

For the time being, we just plan to enjoy their beauty...

I bought two types of raspberry plants from the store some years ago... 

And they do give very good fruits...

Only thing I really have to do is to fertilize them more...

I had thought that this specie fruits only in spring but we found it fruiting this season...

Hmmm, lovely, of course... 

We had taken the liberty to name this beauty 'Princess Pink'... 

My suweeto haato found it growing semi-wild in the hills...

We took back some cuttings and this beauty of a rose has been thriving very well in our potager...

This white chrysanthemum is also grown by my missus... 

As with the above mentioned rose, this cutie has adapted very well to our environment...  

And finally, the pineapple sage... 

Apparently, the name comes from the pineapple-like fragrance that the flowers leaves emit when crushed... 

Purple corn... purple eggplant...

Hosted a student from Peru who kindly brought some purple corn for me all the way from the hinterland of Lake Titicaca...
He has since left for home but his kindness lingers on at our potager...
Edgar, thank you very much, if you are reading this...

Tried planting some seeds last summer...
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...

My suweeto haato had not been very fond of eggplants...
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...  :)