Leela's Garden & Kitchen

We went to blueberry picking on a Sunday morning around 7. There were plenty of blueberries even though it is getting late in the season. We forgot to take a photo while we were picking so we took these photos after we finished picking. Sushma made vegan blueberry muffins and they were good.      One of our projects over the past few months has been growing an avocado tree from the seed. Once the plant got 4 or 5 leaves, we planted it in a pot. It is growing well.   We finally got an eggplant. The first flowers fell off and did not turn into eggplants. I am excited to see eggplant growing in our garden. We are also getting some beans and our cucumbers are continuing to produce 1 or 2 cucumbers per day. Unfortunately our squash plants got killed by the squash vine borer and Shilpa had to pull out almost all the plants and kill the bugs. We are starting to plan our fall garden now. We went to Botanical Gardens yesterday morning. We ha...

Shilpa grew some yellow squash and cucumbers and we are enjoying eating them.  The dahlia are blooming so big. A lot of sunflowers came. We have all sizes of sunflowers.  This is a photo of me with a cute small one that we got.  My friend Meena gave me malabar spinach from her garden. In Telugu it is called bachali aaku .  The white flower is hibiscus in our garden and Meena also gave me the seeds for that. We went to see Meena and Narayana's garden and they have so many varieties of flowers and vegetables. I was happy that I had given them some plants a while ago like the Lone Star Hibiscus and  gongora  (a type of green leafy sorrel used in Indian cooking). Seeing their beautiful garden motivated us to grow more things. My husband thinks we are already growing too much. But that does not stop us.  I feel sad that I cannot do very much in the garden any more because of PSP. I can only pick leaves like gongora or fr...

We love that our garden is bursting with flowers right now! Sushma planted a bunch of bulbs at the mailbox a few months ago, and they've finally bloomed.    Gladiolus   Lily We've also been enjoying our squash plants. They've had lots of flowers and we're starting to get some good squash veggies! Shilpa has been very vigilant in squashing all the cucumber beetles to make sure our crop is good.   Our first squash   We are so proud! Shilpa even made some a yummy snack of fried squash blossoms stuffed with cheese and herbs, yum!   Squash blossoms   Final product We're looking forward getting some cucumbers, beets, and tomatoes next.  With lots of love,  Leela

We have been gardening a lot, especially Shilpa! It's getting hotter so we have to wear hats and go into the garden early in the morning. Sushma came and stayed with us for two weeks and we loved having her at home.  For mother's day the kids surprised me with a hammock. I have been laying down every day in the hammock. Sushma made me sign a contract before giving it to me to make me promise that I would not try to get in or out of it without help. I fell down once from a hammock in Cancun, Mexico when we were there for a wedding. I never thought they would buy me a hammock because it was really scary when I fell that time. It hurt so much I thought was going to die. The magnolia buds finally bloomed and the flowers smell really nice. We brought a flower inside and it smelled good but it turned brown quickly so I think we will enjoy the flowers on the tree instead. We had our first harvest of radishes that Shilpa planted. We enjoyed radish chips and pickle...

This amaryllis flower is one my favorite things in the garden. We were carefully watching it and waiting for it to bloom. It smells so good.   It was my birthday on April 20th and Suresh got me these tulips. I was very happy because they reminded me of when we were in Holland in 2017 for the tulip festival.   We have a rose bush with lots of pink roses and this is one of them.  Yellow and white iris came too. 

Even though I have a hard getting around now since being diagnosed with PSP, I'm happy to say that I have re-started my garden with the help of my oldest daughter, Shilpa, and my sister-in-law, Padma, both of whom have been quarantined here due to the COVID pandemic. I'm excited to show you all the new developments! Shilpa and Padma bought tons of seeds from the dollar store, including marigolds, spinach, cucumbers, and tomatoes. The marigolds have been planted in the corners of our raised beds to help keeps pests away. And, it looks like we'll have lots of tomatoes this summer! Check out these seedlings. We'll transplant these seedlings soon into one of our raised beds.  One of our French sorrel plants has bloomed and now has lots of seeds for us to plant. We absolutely love French sorrel in our house, and often cook it with spinach and dahl in the tastiest Indian curry. Here are some pictures of the seeds - aren't they pretty?  We had a lot of work done ...

I do not gardening anymore because of PSP.  It is progressive supranuclar palsy and out of  100,000 people only 4 or 5 people get it.  I do not know why I got it but it is progressing very fast.  It has no medicine and exercise is only medicine. I am not driving a car anymore.  I am not going straight especially they have one lane I tend to go to the left. Which is not good because I might go hit the oncoming traffic.  I got acoustic neuroma in my left ear and I had a gamaknife radiation my hearing complexly gone in my left ear. I got dengue fever when I went to India and that time I got scared.  I went to blood count everyday and luckily it went up.   NowI got psp and it is scary.  I am falling down a lot but luckily I did not get hurt much except one time . I fell down on my teeth one time on a Saturday.One tooth got chipped I got root canal treatment and it cost alot to get three root canal treatments .