A little paradise in our backyard

One of the joys in living in Minnesota is growing flowers and Thai herbs/plants in my backyard, despite the short summer. I always look forward to the summer to fill in my lonely mini gardens after the winter time over with Thai common herbs and vegetable that are used for my Thai cooking, such as kale, cucumber, cilantro, Thai chilies, etc. However, we have planted some lemongrass tree, sweet basil, holy basil, mint and kaffir lime tree in a different pot size for an convenience of moving them into the house during the winter time when it is below freezing.

 

Basil is a fragrant and flavorful herb that can’t ignore in many Thai dishes like Pad Kra Prao (stir-fried pork/chicken with chili and basil), Green curry, etc. 

 I got a little kaffir lime tree from my lovely Thai friend a few years ago and it has grown up healthily due to the fact that my husband always takes a good care of the tree since then. My friend who gave me the kaffir lime tree said that not everyone would be able to grow lime tree well, only a kind of people with good mind would be able to.  I totally agree with her   He waters it regularly and keeps trimming its branch from expanding as it is going to be as tall as me now.  We like kaffir lime’s fragrant in our curry dishes, spicy tom yum soup, fish cake, spicy curry in coconut milk, etc.

 



 I just got two more from Thai temple when I’ve been over for making a merit. They are still little and cute.
Pic 

 kaffir lime tree

Lemongrass is the cheap easily grown plant. I buy these in a pre-cut form from a refrigerator at Asian market. Just fill a pot with potting dirt and put it down. We were told that a lemongrass will repel mosquitoes naturally, so we just put it on our deck to scare off the mosquitoes.
Here you go. It is a nice plant to pot, isn’t it?.

My banana tree from my friend

Some of my beautiful flowers and vegetables life time are often shorter than usual when there are un-invited visitor come over and feed on my growing up plants. I was so disappointed when I saw my baby plants and flower destroyed after I spent lot of $$ and energy to those. My enemy is deer and rabbit.  They may think that this is their private yard, they are our pet, and these plants are grown for their special treat, so they go insane over my garden     

                                                            

Cucumber

                                                 

 Tomatoes

                                                                

Kale

Here're my plants & flowers

สวยจริงๆ :)

Some on my deck :)

One year we grew Marigolds as these plants have a smell that tends to chase off a rabbit and deer. So, we planted them around other flowers and herbs as a fence. Guess what!...my fence were all eaten up >_<

                                                               

One of my visitor