August 15, 2013

Seasonal Flowers

The various crops here are thriving and it's a joy to see them grow and develop.  One thing I delight in is the flowers they produce. Here is a selection of some that are currently in bloom.

Peanuts.  Seeing a whole field of these plants with their cheerful little yellow flowers makes me smile.


 

Pumpkin. When I look out my kitchen window I see these plants that my friend Agau planted behind my house. Their big yellow flowers are fully open in the morning, then as the sun gets higher, they close up.


 
Sesame. The sesame plants produce white, bell-shaped flowers.




 Watermelon. Some of my neighbours have planted a whole field of watermelon this year, and they seem to be doing well. Their flowers are small, cute and yellow (which seems to be a popular colour for flowers--perhaps it attracts the bees?).

Notice the tiny baby watermelon


My neighbour tending to his watermelon plants





Okra. I kind of went overboard taking photos of these today. They have such a delicate colour, and I love the contrast between the pale yellow petals and the burgundy at the base of them (there's surely a name for this part of the flower but it escapes me).

Field of okra plants



Okra has formed on some of the plants already

9 comments:

  1. Lovely pictures! You and I are in as different places as one could be, but, oddly enough, we are both enjoying some of the same flowers. I also can see squash blossoms from my house which is next to a big communal garden and love the bright yellow splashes, and I pass a vegetable garden on my way to the train station that has okra planted in a row along the fence. I had no idea what the flowers were for a long time until the okra pods appeared.I thought the flowers looked like hibiscus blossoms.

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  2. Thanks for your comment, Tricia. Amazing indeed that some of the same crops grow in such different places. By the way, great to see the photos on your blog!

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    1. You were my inspiration! Thanks! I never saw red okra pods before. Do they stay that color or turn green?

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  3. I mean the red okra pods in your new post.

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  4. Yes, I thought that's what you meant. :-) They turn green.

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  5. Hi, Jan. Even our local horticulture expert, Matthew, had never seen sesame plants before! I'd never seen okra, either. Each made beautiful in its own way; glad you are enjoying all that greenness.

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  6. This is on old blog, but Thomas Jefferson planted sesame plants which he called Benni at Monticello. He hoped to find and oil crop for his new country. When he was in France he tasted sesame oil on salad and instantly be came a big fan. Unfortunately he was never able to extract enough oil from those little tiny seeds even though he made a special oil press for the seeds but he lamented that he had 3 bushels of seeds and only one gallon of oil...wish I knew how much a bushel is.

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