MyHerbCorner

Posts Tagged ‘Summer’

I am always impressed how many different flowers produce so fascinating different fruits.
If I bite or cut a strawberry in half I am amazed about all the white lines running from the seed to the middle of the fruit.
Also watching a flower grow into a fruit is a wonderful thing. I invite you in this post to a walk through my garden with it’s magical transformations.

A pea blossom…

… transforms…

… into our daily joy.

Aromatic lovage umbels…

… transform into medical seeds for the digestive tract.

Huge zucchini flowers…

… grow into a lovely vegetable (unless you haven’t made fritters with the flowers ;- )

Pumpkin blossoms…

… transform into small…

… and over the weeks into an incredible big and yummy food source.

Oregano blossoms feed bees and bumble bees.

This marjoram blossoms form into round seed capsules.

While basil flowers transform into flat seeds.

Mineral rich fathen with it’s unbelievable small flowers and seeds.

St John’s wort flowers and seedpods.

Viola tricolor’s beautiful seed pod.

Echinacea is transforming it’s flowers  into little spiky hedgehogs

Elder berries are ripening from red…

… to a deep black colour.

Olives are growing bigger and bigger…

… and our Granny Smith’s are already yummy to eat

Wish you could join me and bite in this apple…

When Hana was here she pointed out a plant I haven’t known. It is called Kawakawa (Macropiper excelsum) and is related to pepper! Here is a link to Kawakawa and here a link to Kava (Piper methysticum) which sounds similar but is a different plant.

Maori used bark and leaves of Kawakawa for medicine and also the fruits which are diuretic.

I will try out the seeds instead of pepper as soon as they are ripe. What a blessing! Now I have a pepper substitute!
If you like to know more about Kawakawa click on this link which also shows the use of Kawakawa together with ginger as a tonic for many uses.

So, now to some surprises…

In front of our house we discovered an old stove which looks so lovely. It knows stories about women cooking and I wished to travel time to see who the women have been and who was the first who cooked a meal on it… and then to hear the stories of their families…
This house keeps so many secrets and treasures…

On Friday my husband removed some more wandering Jew (Tradescantia fluminensis) and discovered this big Clivia! In Austria we had one indoor and here you can just cultivate it in the garden! Christoph loves this exotic plant

And today by my morning walk through our ‘forest’ I found this beautiful geranium! She also was hidden under the wandering Jew. I wonder what more surprises we will discover under the Tradescantia…

I was surprised by my Iris which was closed in the morning, but open in the afternoon! Now she has a nice wet place to grow (she was in a small pot for a few years…)

Over her is this cool passionflower dangling… guess they too have some stories to share

I haven’t had the time yet but need to research of her medical properties… maybe she can be used like Passiflora incarnata. Not sure if her leaves are also effective… you see there is always something new to learn

So, now a picture of my petunia, heliotrope (Heliotropium peruvianum) and catnip (Nepeta cataria) circles and…

… a Baby Praying Mantis! I discovered it today on the basil! It’s so cute!

Ah! My husband started this weekend by finding this huge ‘Lucky clovers’ in our garden!
Just amazing how big they are!

You sure remember our trip over the pass last Saturday.

We went there to Mitre 10 Mega where the kids enjoyed the indoor playground, while Daddy brought back his broken fork
We brought home another fork and of course some plants for me

While David enjoyed to walk around the garden… balancing on the stones…

…I ripped out a plant I thought was a giant yellow sorrel (Oxalis) but to my surprise it was a New Zealand Yam also called oka. How amazing!

This Saturday we went to Masterton to a farmer’s market on the Solway showground, where we met a German woman who sold delicious bread and ‘Zopf‘

On the way home we drove by, by this awesome old house. It looks like a painted picture. You can find a bigger picture on my other blog (please click here)

At home the kids enjoyed their pizza in the garden.

“Careful honey! Don’t break the spade!”

Another tree stomp is removed from the garden and… no tool is broken

I found another new plant which I don’t know. It looks like a grass but is white and green.

I also found this pretty big Weta Lady when I removed some old sticks.

When we brought the lady to a save place Christoph found something interesting dangling down from the trees…

… it was a Banana passion fruit! How great! We have a yummy passion fruit in the garden!

Here is a link to an Album where you can find some other pictures of the passion fruit and Weta.

And this cute hazelnut!

And another surprise plant in a corner we don’t know…

… look at this huge rhizomes! We are waiting for her to bloom to find out what this big plant is, but if you know, please let me know.

Willowbanks always keeps new surprises for me. Last time when we went there I saw this beautiful dragonfly

It is a “red dameselfly” in Maori called ‘Kihitara’ and is a New Zealand native which is described in its Latin name: Xanthocnemis zealandica
A little bit farther I found this plant and first didn’t know what it was.

The leaves smelled like celery and I collected one stem to check out the plant at home.
I found out that it is wild celery (Apium graveolens) which I never saw in Europe, where it comes from! New Zealand has also a small native celery which I saw at the coast side but didn’t know what it was. As soon as we make a trip over there I will take a picture.

Now at willowbanks I also studied the soil which was friendly enough to show off at the river bank. Isn’t it fascinating to see the different levels of soil!

It must be rich in iron since the lower level is rusty red.
When we walked over the lawn David called out: “A rainbow, a rainbow!”
This was funny since we had a perfect sunny day. Amazed I looked up into the sky where David was pointing.

There was the magic of a huge sun halo!

I already saw sun and moon halos, but they where never as huge as this beauty.

We just stood there for a while to watch it. I don’t know how long, but finally the kids did want to play and we walked on.
I felt very blessed on that day. Mother nature had surprised me in so many special ways. I am very thankful to be part of her community.

Our mantis in the garden are growing. We have two smaller and one bigger mantis climbing around the pineapple sage (Salvia elegans) . As babies they enjoyed my raspberry bush.

All is growing well since last weeks fine weather. Even our olive tree makes fruits!

My husband already munched every pea in the garden and soon I can sow some new ones. Lemon balm is blooming and also our echinacea shows of her beautiful flowers.

I call this a splendid summer