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Yes, that is indeed the name of these blue climbers. I wasn’t sure when asked before but just reconfirmed. Ipomoea purpurea or something close.
For some reason they waited until the fall to unfold their big blue blossoms. Perhaps didn’t want to compete with the summer skies?  It is that magical time of the year when everything turns orange. The air itself must be tinted — just look at this photo. We don’t get to observe the setting sun directly from our windows but its bright orange reflected light provides some truly dramatic lighting for Midtown skyscrapers in the fall.
Where have all the flowers gone? – you might ask this New York’s leading florist… Well, obviously, they have all turned into pumpkins.
 4 comments - (Comments are closed)  animalia, deer, flowers, insects, pretty pixels, pumpkins, vegetabilia  bumblebees, Fall, marigolds, nasturtiums, orange, pumpkins, sunset I was away from the garden for long three weeks. Finally, we escaped the city, shaken up by yesterday’s seismic tremors, and safely arrived in Canaan late last night. (Although the earthquake was most noticeable in the neighborhoods of Twitter and Facebook, I did feel it in Soho and James, who was at home, says that 5.8 magnitude translates into quite an unnerving sensation on the 37th floor…) And if Manhattan, fortunately, did not sustain any damages, in the garden this morning I witnessed scenes of devastation. The tallest sunflowers collapsed.
Tomato plants fell to they ground, many with their support structures.
But it only looked dramatic. The was almost no real damage. Quite the opposite, actually — I spent the rest of the day . . . CONTINUE READING → Back in the garden – harvest time! 4 comments - (Comments are closed) appetizers, flowers, harvest, peppers, shishito, squash, the feral chef, tomatoes beans, corn, earthquake, gladiolus, okra, onions, peppers, salad, shishito, sizzling, squash, sunflowers, tomatoes, zinnias
1. Whatever the angle, they are very pretty.
6 comments - (Comments are closed) animalia, birds, flowers, pests, pretty pixels, vegetabilia ants, aphids, ladybugs, photos, sunflowers
Comments are closed bulbs, flowers, lilies, pretty pixels, vegetabilia abstraction, flowers, lilies, photos
Since we’re talking fancy botanical terms, I will have you know that okra belongs to the Malvaceae (or Mallow) family that also includes such plants as hibiscus, jute, cotton, cocoa, cola nut, and most notably, baobab. Now you surely realize why this flower looked so familiar… This particular variety is called Tokyo Gokaku. According to Kitazawa Seed’s website that I ordered it from, “This extra early Japanese okra produces 3″ long, dark green pentagonal pods. The tender, high quality fruit is short and round and has excellent flavor.” Here’s the photo of its fruit that I just took, about 10 days since the flowering:
10 comments - (Comments are closed) feral trivia, flowers, pretty pixels, vegetabilia gadgets, Japanese, kitchen, okra, photo quiz, photos, trivia
Is there a fire burning in my garden? No, but there’s one in my heart — and it’s name is lily. Which is also the correct answer to the last week’s photo quiz. Thank you, all, who participated! And now prepare to see a lot of red because there are many more photos where that one came from.
Although it’s not a Tiger lily, inside it lives a Tiger Spider. Who probably would also be sold under a different name. Fortunately, it came free of charge, and I shall continue calling it by its stripes.
I’m enamored with lilies. There’s . . . CONTINUE READING → Lilies! I realized the other day that I’ve been relying on my iPhone’s camera a little too much… It is very convenient, of course, but those pictures never make me as happy as those taken with my half-abandoned (and in dire need of repair/upgrade) Nikon. So, I armed myself with a macro lens two days ago and ventured out into the garden as soon as I woke up in order to catch some of that morning sunlight. Sure, you can turn lemon balm into a delicious drink, but for me, in order to attain its truly ambrosial effect I have to be able to see it in its magical translucency.
3 comments - (Comments are closed) flowers, pretty pixels borage, chard, currants, flowers, kiwi, lavender, lemon balm, peas, photos, squash, tomatoes, zinnia
Last week my dad came to visit us upstate, equipped with his new Nikon D90 camera and gardening expertise. In just 2 days he delivered such a load of constructive criticism that my garden probably won’t need any fertilizing in the nearest future… In addition to prolific advice, he helped immensely with many of my projects and took hundreds of photos. Today, I would like to borrow some of them to show you around. Some of you have tasted the feral produce but today I’ll take you behind the scenes. The kitchen behind the kitchen, so to speak… That’s why I chose to greet you with this portrait — if you were one of my vegetables, the photo on the left would be a much more familiar image than the one below.
Here's how the garden looks from below these days. 4 comments - (Comments are closed) animalia, design and compost, flowers, pests, pretty pixels, rodents fire pit, kiwi, raised beds, terraces 
For the past 2 days New York City had an air quality alert due to the “high levels of pollutant ground-level ozone level.” Even before I looked up what this meant, I took one look at that air and thought that it might not be the greatest breathing option. (The color scheme of this photo is not due to a sunrise — it was taken around close to noon.)
After I googled “ground-level ozone,” I learned that (or, perhaps, re-learned?) that it’s mostly created in urban and industrial areas, mostly in summertime. Why? How? Cars, industrial, residential and conventional energy facilities emit nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds (don’t be confused by the term “organic” here; it’s nothing you want to find at your local Whole Foods) that enter into a chemical reaction in the presence of sunlight and produce ozone. Another important distinction: ozone up high = good (ozone layer); ozone down low = bad. The US Environmental Protection Agency website says that “[b]reathing ozone can trigger a variety of health problems including chest pain, coughing, throat irritation, . . . CONTINUE READING → summer signs and warnings 3 comments - (Comments are closed) flowers, pests, slugs beer, ground-level ozone, peonies, power outage, severe, slugs, strawberries, summer in the city, thunderstorm, traps, weather alerts |
 
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Last year I, too, planted some pumpkins and was very excited about cooking all kinds of stuff with them. They grew big and pretty but turned out to be completely inedible. So, this year I decided not to plant any; yet, this one somehow grew on its own!
And I’m very happy it did. First of all, it proves that my feral gardening method works. And secondly, even though it isn’t large enough to turn into a carriage or round enough to be carved into a jack-o-lantern, it 
None of these catastrophic damages, however, were due to tectonic shifts. The sunflowers grew too tall for their own good and tomatoes too heavy, although I do take partial responsibility for a somewhat faulty deficient job staking the latter. In any case, it won’t hurt to get more earthquake-resistant varieties next year.
2. They reach very impressive heights. You can even try using them as a natural trellis for pole beans, as I did this year. Just don’t plant bush beans instead, as I did, due to not labeling last year’s seeds, thinking that, of course, I’ll remember everything…
3. Even at times when your garden looks like a total dump (which is obviously not the case here), they create instant rustic charm, making you think: where am I? Is this Provence? Kansas? Ukraine?
4. They look great in a vase (not the case here either). I just saw that FreshDirect sells them for $19.99 a bunch. Just imagine all the savings!
5. Waiting for tomatoes to ripen (when it’s already August!!!) is much more bearable when you have pretty sunflowers to look at.
Well, the last photo quiz was over faster than you can say Abelmoschus esculentus. Or look up its definition on wikipedia. I admit, I was stunned by both such a quick correct response and its Latin name. Normal people (those who didn’t guess it right away) know this vegetable as okra or gumbo.
I read recently that you have to pick okra within a week after the pods are formed; otherwise 
Those of you who guessed “watermelon,” “strawberry” and “leopard” were very close. A a matter of fact, this rare variety is called Oriental watermelon-strawberry-leopard lily.
It was sold to me as a “Gran Paradiso Asiatic Lily” but, obviously, I know better.
And since I also talked about the bees recently, I think they too deserve their spotlight. Here’s a fuzzy bee on a fuzzy borage flower.
And another one on lavender.
Lavender is in full bloom, by the way, and I can’t get enough of it.
And the first pink zinnia is about to unroll 
What a perfect day for a virtual feral garden tour!
But enough about me, let’s get moving.
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