Growing in Our Garden

Blueberry Blossoms

White blossoms, petals dying, berries beginning to swell

Plump, young blueberries

Brita from our local garden advised to harvest ripe blueberries right away or the birds will!

Our first ARTICHOKE

We are loving our little patio garden. It brings such joy to our family as we observe its transformation.

Pink flower buds on our peach tree, living in a whisky barrel

Beautiful peach blossoms adorn the branches

Young peach ~ Thank you God for the bees and hummingbirds!

"The ovary, then, is the part of the plant where the seeds form. At a certain time the flower withers; the petals wilt and fall; the calyx does the same, or remains to play the part of protector a while longer; the dried stamens break off; only the ovary remains, growing larger, ripening, and finally becoming the fruit. "Every fruit -- the pear, apple, apricot, peach, walnut, cherry, melon, strawberry, almond, chestnut -- began by being a little swelling of the pistil; all these excellent things that the plant furnishes us for food were first ovaries."

"Now, in order to outlive the other parts of the flower and remain on its stem when all the rest dries up and falls, the ovary, at the moment when blossoming is at its greatest vigor, receives a supplement of strength, I should almost say a new life. The magnificence of the corolla, its sumptuous colorings, its perfumes, serve to celebrate the solemn moment when this new vitality comes to the ovary. This great act accomplished, the flower has had its day."

"Well, it is the pollen, the yellow dust of the stamens, that gives this increase of energy without which the nascent seeds would perish in the ovary, itself withered. It falls from the stamens on to the stigma, always coated with a stickiness apt to hold it; and from the stigma, it makes its mysterious action felt in the depths of the ovary. Animated with new life, the nascent seeds develop rapidly, while the ovary swells so as to give them necessary room. The final result of this incomprehensible travail is the fruit, with its contents of seeds ready to germinate and produce new plants. Do no question me further about these wonderful things concerning which even the keenest observer ceases to see clearly. God only, the wisest of beings, knows how a grain of pollen can give birth to something that was not before, and can cause the ovary to feel the stirring of the vital principle."

THE STORY BOOK OF SCIENCE

by Jean Henri Fabre