San Diego BACKYARD - Summer Visit

The sayote was a welcome sight to come home to -- Mom's and Uncle's summer garden is like a bit of Taveuni... green, green, green!

Traditional CHRISTmas colors of red and green -- displayed in summertime. The two gardeners harvest something almost every day... which ends up in Mom's cooking pot, and i get to be the blessed recipient of tasty Filipino dishes! Paksiw with veges, diningding, tinolang upo, pinakbet...

Being surrounded by all this (ampalaya and sayote vegetables; impatience, stargazer, spider plants) is like being immersed in a green cave...

Kalamansi is still bearing fruit... year-round it seems!

Not-so-spicy chiles... just right for me, but too tame for my Fijian and Mexican friends.

i just munch on these right off the vine... can't get any fresher!

Summer squash -- or upo/tabugaw, in Filipino -- great any way you cook them!

Uncle Ric's handiwork -- my favorite area in the garden, where i sometimes bring my breakfast, coffee, or lunch -- just absorbing the chlorophyll (hah!)...

Mom's watery pets... they rush to her whenever she comes around!

Priceless sight...

The gardeners -- Rosita and Ricardo -- whom GOD blessed with green thumbs.

Then the LORD GOD planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there He placed the man He had made. (Genesis 2:8) GOD -- the first and ultimate Gardener... and Creator of man.

End-of-the Month SURPRISES

Enter the "not-so-Secret Garden."

Baby squash seeking light...

Exotic bromeliads graced with lacey webs...

Fuzzy upo (summer squash) backlit with 7 pm summer light...

Parda (Filipino peas) blooms swaying UPwards...

Sayote (chayote) after man-made shower...

Bless the LORD, O my soul,

And forget not all His benefits...

(Psalm 103:2)

SPRING Not Yet Sprung

Backyard neighbor's lemons...ours for the picking. Was it Charlie Brown who was always given lemons in his cartoon life? Yet somehow, he made lemonade from the many lemons that feisty Lucy always threw at him.

Uncle Ric's sayote...also called sechium edule (its scientific name), merliton, tayota, choko, chocho, chow-chow, christophene, alligator pear, chayote, vegetable pear. This two-month old plant has yet to mature, but it will begin to bear fruit around April-May, and continue to bear much fruit in the summer months ahead. This is a typical Filipino vegetable, usually cooked in a soup with meat; but i've also grown it in Lagiloa, our bush farm in Taveuni, Fiji.

Mom and Uncle's vegetable patch in hiatus, already cultivated with manure. Today, the stormy weather is bringing much rain which will mix the dirt and manure, readying the soil for the seeds to be sown soon.

Do not be deceived, GOD is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the SPIRIT will of the SPIRIT reap everlasting life. (Galatians 6:7-8)

i see GOD's Word illustrated in His creation. When Mom sows the ampalaya (momordica charantia linn or bitter melon) seeds, she will harvest the fruit of the ampalaya...for whatever she sows, that she will also reap.