Slowly Getting There

Yesterday, I made my first gardening attempt after so many  months of not even visiting the garden and touching the soil.  I replanted my dwarf sansevieria plants and took shots of some sparse flowers growing there.  It was the last day of our two hired painters and Bing had the garden set painted as well.  

How I wish I could now overhaul our garden and plant more.  I easily get tired so I never try to do things for long.  Typhoon Ondoy brought me a lesson in gardening though.  It showed me what sturdy plants could survive in a flood.  It is sad that my healthy rows of oregano are all gone now.  I have always love the sweet scent  of this mint outside our bedroom window, now it has been replaced by the hubby’s healthy ampalaya.

I noticed some shoots of butterfly weed and they are growing nicely along the border where my mayanas used to be.  My pink angel has also survived the flood and it’s about to bloom. The orange marmalade or what you call crossandra are thriving so well, Bing even replanted some and they are now producing tiny orange flowers which are a sight to behold.  My orchids are all gone except for this healthy yellow dendrobium that is in bloom again.  Oh yes, I noticed my Amazon Lily producing a nice little shoot in the shade, wonderful.

I now have a companion while gardening, our dog Soo Kee thinks that the garden is his playground. She cuddles up with mom when she gets tired. Pampered dog!  Wait till you see the two doghouses which the hubby and the two carpenters built for our two dogs made out of scrap materials which they have discarded.  I want to paint them in bright colors, they could accessorize the garden too.

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Don’t Look, It’s All Gone

It used to be when guyabano was just a part of the backyard fruit trees, just like mangoes, star apples and avocado.  I clearly remember when I was growing up in the province, my lola used the leaves for nausea (hilo), crushing them a little and letting the person smell them.  She said that it was so effective.   We never appreciated it then, preferring the commercial variety of guyabano concentrate drink where you will just add water and presto, you have a refreshing guyabano juice.

I once received a forwarded e-mail  about the efficacy of guyabano as treatment for cancer. I asked my cardiologist once and he told me, it is still not proven. Of course,  some doctors would always choose the  safest way to answer such questions, right? Since I was diagnosed with colon cancer and undergone chemotherapy, I’ve always been researching for some alternative way to fight it- may it be food or herbal medicines which are so abundant here in our country.   The study on the effectiveness of guyabano as cancer treatment might not have been made public yet, those big corporations reeking money producing and manufacturing those costly drugs would not want to have their business goes kaput. You can  probably buy a  whole truck  of guyabano on a single P60,000.00 session of chemotherapy.

Lately, I included this wonderful fruit as part of my daily diet.  Eaten raw, just a little cold from the fridge, it really taste so good.  The white edible pulp is high in carbohydrates and dietary fiber. It is also low in cholesterol, saturated fat and sodium.

Don’t look now, that plateful of this delicious fruit is all gone!

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