Garden at home

Ya, this beautiful nest shown is the empty one, left by the bulbuls, after the babies grew up last week.

So nicely built. Wonder why they don't use it any more....

However, I noticed a bulbul flying out from the bamboo leaves again yesterday.

Looking closing, I noticed that the male bird is building a new nest, just about 1.5 feet away from the old one. However, it is so close to our main door, and we may frighten them whenever we go in/out to our house.

This morning, again I saw him working so hard.

Perhaps the female bird is asked to take a rest as she is pregnant ;)

This second photo shows the semi-completed nest.

Some more effort needed.....

Just see how many nests are there within such a small angle of the jambu air tree.

The Dragon fruit flowers withered, but the young fruits are beginning to form at the base.

I have wrapped them up this morning to prevent fruit flies from attacking them.

Unfortunately, the recent heavy downpours have destroyed the 2 new buds :~(

Meanwhile, our chili plants are yielding some good hot staffs....

Have you seen this 'rounded loofah'? 絲瓜

I trust they are available in US too.

These are the baby loofahs, and the yellow flowers are bright and beautiful.

This one is approaching maturity.

The longest we harvested is around 15".

Too much for our own consumption, so we have been giving away....

If ripen fully, it is used for washing.

Cheers....

Dragon Fruits flowering again

2 months ago, we chopped off some sugar cane and jambu air branches to allow more sunshine onto our dragon fruit ( pitaya, 火龍果/火龙果 ) plant.
So far, we harvested 3 fruits just before ChinPing's wedding in June last year. John and Diane had the honour of savouring our first harvest.
With the long drought and recent rain, our effort seems to be yielding some good results.

These are the 2 flowers which I shot this morning. They are huge, measuring about 15" each!















Tonight, as expected, these 2 flowers have a full bloom.
BTW, they only bloom for just for 1 night.
The flowers measure around 11" in diameter!














Using a different mode I catch these flowers for a better view....














Focusing on one of the flowers, you can see that the long stigmas are very nicely arranged in a vertical ring at the center.
Mummy was so excited to see them.














However, their beauty will not last.
This withered flower was blooming last night too :)













So we will be having 3 fruits in some 3 weeks time.
I also noticed another 2 small buds sprouting out. They are just about 1/4 inch in size..... ;)
Soon they will stand 15" high, like the brothers.....