Wednesday walk around the house [photo blog]

Queen of the night

I haven't had a post about homesteading or gardening for a long time. Back then when I wasn't so busy, there should be an update of things about every month or so. This post is sort of an update then.

Let's take a walk around the house.

I want to start off with the flowering/ornamental plants.

My favorite Queen of the night or night-blooming cereus is in full bloom and there are lots of flowers more than before. It seems there are more blooms each year which is delightful. Also, they give off that subtle lovely scent which makes this delicate and beautiful flower sexy.

We are experiencing one of the shortest summers ever. For the past months, we only get some weeks where we can feel the heat of the summer but most of the time, we are blessed with the coolness of the rain. Too early, too much. Our ornamental plants are rejoicing as evident by these colors they shoot.

The first two plants, I haven't identified yet. The third one is a red lily variant I think. We do have the white one but I am not sure what happened with that.

I miss those days when there were lots of bees in our yard buzzing from flower to flower and how as kids we dare each other trap them inside flowers. If you are not careful, you will be stung by the bee which makes the dare a test of bravery.

Now, however, there are less and less of these important winged friends.

I am not sure I have seen the flowers of this cactus before but this is the only time that I fully paid attention to it because of how plentiful its flowers are. I have never seen this much yellow in our yard before. What's interesting is that it looks like a flower in a flower.

We also have other cacti but these are the tiny and cute ones. Most of these were given by relatives and friends. I'm sure they are happy to know that their gifts are flourishing.

Now, it's time for our veggies and fruits.

While the ornamental plants are abundantly flowering, the vegetables are not doing much. Even our fruit-bearing trees missed their window of produce because of so much rainfall we are experiencing.

Notice how the passion fruit is small and diseased. One victim and more to go.

Not be disheartened for the parda or bataw (hyacinth bean) is doing just fine. We add this when cooking pinakbet, a sauted dish of mixed vegetables including squash, string beans, bitter gourd, tomatoes, etc. My favorite dish.

Also, the pumpkin plant is growing okay.

Our strawberries were already harvested. Some are just bearing fruits.

The strawberries and pumpkin are tended to mostly by my sister. They are grouped in one area along with mint, tomatoes (which we harvested as well so we will be planting anew), stevia, and basil.

In our backyard, there is still a tiny patch of land that we can plant. This time we planted green beans or locally known as Baguio beans. When my mom first planted this, it was during the peak of the summer days. I thought it was bad timing for we will be experiencing drought. However, a couple of weeks after, the rain came and did not leave. The last set of beans planted were soaked yet some survived although barely. There is not enough sun so they are more yellowish in color. On that patch of land we also grow lemon grass, cassava and yacon (ground apple).

On one bed is what we call sinay. I can't find the other name for this. Sinay looks like mung beans but they can be colored dark to light brown and most are light green. They are elongated.

This is the calamansi tree that our trespassing neighbours planted in exchange to the lemon tree they deliberately cut. That lemon tree had been there for more or less 20 years and they just cut it along with another avocado tree because they needed space to paint their wall. I do not want to dwell on that too much because there's nothing else to be done. I hope this calamansi will live long and bountiful years just like the lemon tree did.

The pomelo tree has flowers again, ready for more fruits, but if the rain will not let up, I wonder if they will survive. Beside that is the jackfruit. There are already a handful of fruits. Next to that are the avocado tree and mango tree. No fruits for those for now. I was looking forward for the avocado fruits but not this time.

Under those trees grow taro plants. I like this when it is cooked in coconut milk. Yum!

We have also planted rosemary. We only have one pot of that and we wanted more so here they are temporarily planted. I love the scent of this.

I would have wanted to share more but the rain is not allowing me to take more photos.

If you have made it this far, this is my entry to @gogreenbuddy's giveaway. Head on his post and learn more. NOTE: According to the rules, "Post doesn't need to be yours, it just needs to be good!" So, go on and join the contest.

All photos were taken by my phone. I wanted to test the camera Huwaei P30lite and so far the only thing I don't like is how contrasty and bright the photos are but that is manageable. Other than that, I have no other issues.