Summer is just round the corner in our part of the world. Our garden is bursting with colorful blooms this winter season.

Kanakambaram is a tropical shrub that is usually grown in pots. It has small fragile orange flowers also known as Firecracker. With no fragrance, these tiny flowers are often strung together into strands, sometimes along with white jasmine flowers.

Scientifically known as Lawsonia Inermis, the henna plant is a flowering shrub whose leaves and flowers have immense value according to Ayurveda and Sidda medicine. Today, its popular as a dye (Mehendi aka Gorintaku in Telugu) to temporarily stain nails, hands, feet and hair.

Weekend Garden features ‘Star Fruit’ (Carambola). Our backyard starfruit tree is full of fruits and my 7 year old is on a fruit-plucking spree. Just plucking, mind you, since the fruits are within his reach. He won’t eat it.

Wishing all my dear readers, visitors and friends a very happy Ganesh Chaturthi.

This summer the unseasonal showers have reduced the mango yield of our backyard mango trees compared to last year. Last weekend we picked a few mangoes which have since ripened and devoured by way of shakes and smoothies and hope to try out some new salsa and salad recipes.:) We had another mango picking session [...]

Come summer, one finds a lot of mango flavor in our cooking, adding color, a tangy twist and a hint of sweetness to dals, curries, pachadis, pickles, salads, drinks, smoothies or desserts. We literally eat, drink and live, different varieties of mangoes not only from trees grown in our backyard but also from the farm [...]

Wishing all my readers, visitors, family and friends a very happy Ugadi, and Gudi Padwa!

Some color for the weekend, here are some flower pictures taken from the garden this morning.

Today, I’m sharing a few flower pictures taken from my garden this morning. Hope you enjoy them!