Sunday, March 17, 2024

March 17, 2024- the finals- Spring is here

Spring arrives this week. It has actually been here for weeks. 

The early daffodils, the real heralds of spring, are popping open lots of places. Friday, on our morning walk, we even saw a tulip over on Court Street. There was forsythia blooming.

Every thing in early spring is short. It is all happening close to the ground. 

What I love to do is stoop down and just spend time looking to see what is going on, in that one small area. There may be some blooming bulbs, like crocuses or snowdrops. Some of those at this point may be finished. But there is always so much more. There are the seedlings that can be very small. There are seedlings of aconite and scilla (squill) everywhere. There are so many of them that they give you an appreciation for very large numbers. 

Then in that small area you find the new plants, just emerging. The bluebells are coming, both the ones from Virginia and the ones from England. The Virginia bluebells will come to dominate parts of the garden in the next month. They will be one of the first plants to get to be taller than maybe 6 inches.

There are so many other plants that may be there. Lupines and their seedlings. Corydalis both from established plants and the ones 1-2 feet away that have grown from seed. Tree Peony seedlings. Pulmonaria. Celandine poppies. The lesser spring blubs, including  the chionodixia, both pink and blue. The pushkinia.

There are many plants I forget in that first list. These next ones are all leaves at this point. But that is how most plants begin. There are allium. The first tulips are up and waiting to get some deer spray. Oriental Poppies. Shirley poppies. Epimedium. There is a little iris called bucharica. I just planted more of this unusual variety last fall. 

Then you watch for the plants to come. Where is the bloodroot or the first small trillium? I looked and sure enough, they are there.

This time when everything is sort, is something that is unique to spring. By summer those small squares will be filled with hosta or daylilies. As I think about it those plants will be bigger and taller. It would make no sense to stoop to look at them. 


Last Week in the contest the easy winner was the dogwood.

Here was the full vote.


This Week is the finals. 

We began this trip Thanksgiving weekend. There have been 16 weeks of the contest. We have come down to these three pictures. Two of them, the crocuses and the dogwood,  tied in Week 13. Change one vote and only one would have advance. They both had easy wins in the playoffs. Can the Frosty Kale pull out a victory and become the first picture from December to win the contest? Actually there has never been winner from any month later than September.

I have pictures of 17 winners. Which month would you think would be most represented? If you guessed May you would be correct. There were 5, followed by April with 4. The latest in the season was September 17.

So here are the three pictures you selected.


#1 The dogwood

 May 3, 2023



#2 Frosty Kale 
December 14, 2023




#3 Striped Crocuses
 March 30, 2023


There you have it. These three pictures are the finalists for the winter contest for 2023-24.



Rught Now

It is time for the later blooming crocuses.

You can never have enough. That is related to the idea that "I should get some more."

Most late crocuses are larger. This variety was/is an exception.




I have watched for the clump that is in the finals this week. This could be it. This is out in the front parkway.




I find variations on that striped crocus all over. In this plant the purple markings were muted.



In this one the petals were colored differently.


Lots of other little flowers are blooming.
Mostly you do not see scilla as an individual flower. 


The scilla or squill makes a very short carpet.


Then there is the chionodoxia. 

Blue


Pink



The hellebores are doing what they do. A few were in fact a little nipped by the freeze (down to 8 degrees) at the very end of February.



We have a place, up by the house on the west side, where there are hyacinths. These were purchased over the years for forcing inside. When they were finished we kept the bulbs and planted them outside.
They are coming.


The kale hangs on.





This is corydalis. It blooms at the same time as the scilla, making for a great combination.







Julia's Recipe

One pot pasta

This is a NYT recipe, which apparently was a big deal sometime in the past but I missed it the first time around. It's vegetarian (can be vegan); fast and tasty. We had it as a main course, but it could certainly be a side with a piece of fish or chicken. Philip forgot to take a picture of the ingredients, but that's okay. There aren't that many ingredients, and I will list them below.

The ingredients:

1/2 lb. spaghetti;

1 pint cherry tomatoes;

1 bunch lacinato kale;

1 lemon (for zest);

1/4 cup olive oil;

1 teaspoon salt;

some pepper; and

some parmesan cheese.





I pulled out a big skillet, one that was big enough to hold the uncooked spaghetti without breaking it. I put the spaghetti in the skillet. Then I cut all of the cherry tomatoes in half and added them. I put the tea kettle on because I was going to need 2-1/2 (or so) cups of boiling water.


Next, I zested the lemon on top of the tomatoes, added the olive oil and the teaspoon of salt and some grinds of pepper. 











Then I poured in the boiling water. I started with 2 cups. I brought the contents of the skillet to a boil (which did not take long) and then simmered the mixture for about 6 minutes. I stirred the contents a bit as the spaghetti softened. It looked dry so I added a little more water. Maybe 1/2 cup extra in all. The water in the tea kettle was still plenty hot.




Here it is as the spaghetti was loosening up. 

While that was going on, I removed the stems from the kale, the most annoying part of the whole process. But I had young-ish lacinato kale which I knew would be pretty tender, so annoying was in a good cause.











After the kale was de-stemmed, I washed it...













and sliced across the leaves to get kale strips. I was not precise in width - probably about 1/2" wide. 













When the 6 minutes had passed and the spaghetti looked mostly done, I added the kale in handfuls. There was a lot of kale, but kale (like all such greens) wilts pretty quickly and the volume is reduced.

The idea is that the pasta water, with whatever liquid was generated by the tomatoes and kale and by the oil, would turn into a sauce. And it did. 








After the kale had wilted, I turned everything out onto a nice platter and sprinkled it with parmesan, which was also on the table for extra sprinkling. 


The whole thing took maybe 30 minutes, even with kale de-stemming. We had salad and blackberries with yogurt. 
You could taste a hint of lemon, plus the tomato and the kale. Flavorful in spite of the simplicity of ingredients and method. 

The actual recipe called for twice as much of everything, except the kale. I thought that would have been too much for us. And it would have been. But if you have more mouths to feed, double the ingredients. I think double the kale as well. 

Odds and Ends

I have mentioned garden  yardsticks or mile posts.

Forsythia- While I do not grow it, we have seen it in the neighborhood this past week.

Star magnolia- In 2012, that very warm spring, the Start magnolia bloomed on March 18. In 2024 it has started to bloom. Since it is not in full bloom, I would say that 2012 was a few days earlier than this year.


I should mention that it is cooling off at the moment. We had 3 days in the low 70's this week, along with some nice rain on Thursday. What was important for accelerating plant development was the fact that the lows this past week stayed above freezing.

This coming week with give us temperatures at night in the 20's. tonight is predicted to get to 20. That is cold enough to make you worry a little. But worrying will not make much difference.  


Daylight savings time is here. Having awakened this morning (Sunday) at 4:15 I think my biological clock has adjusted. I do miss that light at 6:30 in the morning. I was able to do some gardening before work.

Normals temperatures for this time of year are 50 for highs, 30 for low.

There will be some new plants in the garden this spring. This is iris bucharica. We had it for years in the front yard, by the sidewalk. It slowly disappeared. We got some more this past fall and it is coming up. 


This clump of crocuses was in the front grass this past week. It is always interesting to see plants that just show up places where they have not been planted. At least they were not planted by me.


Friday morning we saw a pileated woodpecker in the walnut tree. It was remarkably large. It did not stay there long enough for pictures. It did stay around long enough for me to have Julia come see it, out our bedroom window.
I just discovered this nice webcite.


That map is what I have wanted to do with daffodils. I would then like to have it move with time, showing how daffodils, with the spring, moves north over time.

That is about it. It is a tiring time of the year. Inside. Outside. Deer. Freezes. Plant sale. And then there is work. 
And then there is the world. At least we have Catlin Clark.

Pray for peace.
Pray for reconciliation.
Pray for kindness.

It is always good to hear from you.

Philip

Sunday, March 10, 2024

March 10, 2024- Week #3 of the playoffs

Greetings

We had some rain. Finally. It actually rained during three days, accumulating over an inch. It was one of those rains farmers would call "million dollar rains." It was gradual, all going right into the welcoming ground. I had done my part. I bought another flexible crinkley hose and watered for over an hour last weekend. I do like those hoses.  You can carry them around and even put them into a bucket. I used one last summer over at the City garden plot.

Warmer weather continues. It actually reached 80 degrees last Monday. It has cooled considerably since then, but the forecast is a little above normal. "Normal high" at this point is something like 47 degrees.

Actually I should mention that yesterday, Saturday, it was very sunny but only 43 degrees. That was several degrees below nirmal. I wore my wool hat when I went out in the afternoon and puttered around in the garden. I potted up some hellebore seedlings, that should be ready to bloom next year.

I have been trying to spend at least 30 minutes each day on the indoor garden. That tends to be forgotten when the outside opens up. I have been remembering to water the orchids and potting Shirley poppies into larger pots.

Some plants are getting the garage treatment at the moment. That means they go out into the sun during the day but return to the garage at night. I forgot one night and left the lettuce out for the night. Deer do eat lettuce.


Last week was Week #2 of the playoffs.

The winner in breeze was the striped crocus. Last year this clump  bloomed on March 30. This year, in the bonus section you will see a single striped crocus this year, which bloomed on March 6. I would put this crocus, like many of the larger crocuses, in the later blooming group during the crocus season.


Here is the final vote tally. I find it interesting that the crocus ran away with the vote. In Week 13, to get into the playoffs, the crocus could only manage a tie with the dogwood.

 

The dogwood is in this week's contest. Could there be a rematch with the crocus in the finals?


This Week is Week #3 of the playoffs 

You select the third and final picture to be in the finals, in just one week.


#1 From Week 8

  Martian, the little Iris 

April 29, 2023


The little iris look so good this spring. They survived our two  trips to single digits in the second half of February. This might be a year when there are bearded iris in March. I did find an iris picture on April 1, 2012. That was the very early spring I wrote about in last weeks blog.



#2 From Week 13  
Here is the Pink Dogwood 
May 3, 2023


The pink dogwood is probably 30 years old at the point. Its buds appear in the fall and then wait. 


#3 From Week 4
 Purple Siberian Iris
 May 27, 2023


The Siberian Iris are still very quiet this spring. 


#4 From Week 12
 Black Shirley Poppy
 June 1, 2023


Here is the last chance for a Shirley poppy to get back to the finals. A pink Shirley won in 2022, the first year when they appeared in the garden. It was shut out last year.
I am planting them from 6 packs into little 2 inch pots at this point. I have about 20 of these gray ones.
I will have over a hundred of the other varieties.



#5 From Week11
  Bird of Paradise 
January 1, 2023

This was the only time this plant has bloomed. It is still growing in the basement under lights. I will get it outside and figure out what kind of fertilizer it needs. 


Right Now

This is paphiopedilum Hawaiian Knight. We had been watching its bud since January 20. It finally opened about March 1.

Paphiopedilum

This is the time of year where you can literally find 1-2 more plants showing up every day. This is corydalis. That is probably a lupine seedling to its left. 


As advertised, the first striped crocus. Some crocus form clumps. Some do not.


Another late crocus is the big white one.



Here was the first daffodil, opening on March 6, 2023. I should make a folder marked yardsticks.


Here is the first little pulmonaria flower.


To the left of this daffodil is something that is sort of blue. It is a Virginia bluebell, In a month they will be all over. I can pot them up when they are small.




These are Shirley poppy seedlings, outside. I noticed them in early January, and actually brought several inside. I do not recall ever having them reseed. 


This is crocus 'tricolor'. It is one of my favorites.



Julia's recipe

Meatballs, barley and kale

This recipe is from Greene on Greens, a cookbook from the 1980s. Each chapter focuses on a vegetable, starting with artichokes and ending with zucchini. Some of the recipes are side dishes; others are main courses. This is a main course, one-pot dinner. It takes a bit more time than some of the recipes I have posted, but it's good and unusual, reputedly Turkish in origin. Good enough for me. 


The ingredients:
1/2 cup barley;
1 lb. ground lamb (or beef);
1/2 cup chopped onion;
1/2 cup panko bread crumbs;
1-1/2 cup chicken stock (I used better than bouillion);
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg;
3/4 teaspoon salt;
1 egg;
1 tablespoon butter;
1/4 teaspoon pepper;
1 tablespoon olive oil;
1 bunch of lacinato kale;
2 cloves garlic;
1 cup sour cream; and 
1 teaspoon gr. coriander (not shown!)

First, off camera, I put the barley on to cook. Small pot of water, with a big pinch of salt. I did not wait for the water to boil, although that's the usual instruction. It doesn't really matter. Once the pot came to a boil, I turned it down to a simmer, and it took about 20 minutesfor the barley to get tender. I was using Quaker Oats hulled barley. I think natural food store barley would take longer to cook. 



Here's the meatball bowl with the panko bread crumbs, onions, 1/2 teaspoon of the salt and the nutmeg.



















At this point, I had added the lamb, egg, and black pepper and was finishing with about 1/2 cup of chicken stock. 




















There is only one way to make meatballs: take your watch off, roll your sleeves up and mush everything together. Not my favorite cooking task, but the only way to make meatballs. 



I used a small disher (little ice cream scoop, really) to make a bunch of small meatballs.I scooped out roughly equivalent amounts of the mixture, and then rolled them in my hands. I ended up with a lot of meatballs. I don't remember, but I think it was about 20. I set them aside.
















Next I prepped the kale, rinsing it off and then cutting out the center stems.

I also peeled the garlic, shown sitting on the cutting board.



















After de-stemming the kale, I sliced it across into maybe 1/2" to 3/4" strips. 























I left the kale on the cutting board, and I browned the meatballs. I put 1/2 tablespoon of the olive oil (that is, not much!) into a no-stick skillet and browned the meatballs. I did not cook them through, just some color. The meatballs were a bit delicate, so I used tongs to turn them gently. 

I cooked the meatballs in two batches, using the rest of the olive oil for the second batch.

When they were browned, I put them back on the plate where they would sit while...










I mushed the garlic, mixed it with the coriander and 1/4 teaspoon of salt and cooked the mixture in the skillet I had just used to cook the meatballs in the drippings left in the pan. 



















Next the kale. I took out a Dutch oven, melted the butter in that pan and then added the kale with another 1/2 cup of chicken stock. I turned the heat way down, covered the pot and cooked the kale until it wilted, maybe 10 minutes. 




















Finally, it was time to put everything together. First I added the garlic mixture to the kale and mixed it in. 























Then I added the barley (which had finished cooking and which I had drained in a big sieve) and the last of the chicken stock. 





















I stirred the barley in and then nestled the meatballs all around on top. 

I covered the Dutch oven and simmered the whole thing for about 20 minutes. Maybe 25 minutes. 

I checked out the mixture to make sure it was not dry. It wasn't. If it had been, I would have added a little water. 




Almost done. The final step was gently stirring in 1 cup of sour cream Sour cream is always welcome. 























Sour cream added.

















On the table. We also had green salad and reaspberries with yogurt. 

As I said at the outset, this recipe was unusual. Barley! Meatballs! Wilted kale! Sour cream! Not a weeknight meal, but worth the effort.

We had some leftovers, which were easily reheated in a small skillet for lunch. Very nice. 



Odds and Ends

I subscribe to a nice blog from rural Wisconsin. The link is

https://www.prairiehaven.com/?p=63776

It features landscapes, and when available wildflowers and bugs.

She found the first butterfly this month. She also pictured a sadly named moth call the White spotted Cankerworm. As she puts it that is an unfortunate name for a nice moth. It overwinters in the north. The females do not have wings. How sad.

It is going to be a good spring for lupines. They have spread over the last few years to take up more and more room. Each day I find one further from the home turf, which is by the house driveway. The secret to growing these not so hardy perennials, is to supplement their self seeding with new plants started inside. I have several trays of those indoor grown seedlings that go out during the day. I have sprayed them with deer repellant as I am not sure if deer like lupines. 

We try to avoid politics these days. A recent poll in the state newspaper found that more people favored ending the state income tax. That was about as useful as a poll that asked if people wanted warmer winters.  

One distraction in Iowa City has been the women's basketball team. They are one of the best teams in the country, with star player Catlin Clark. 


This banner was put up downtown by Nike, one of Clark's many sponsors. I am so glad that players now get to financially benefit from their gifts.

At the same time one needs to remember that every team in the playoffs will lose their last game, except one. 

Please remember the people of Ukrane and the people of Gaza in your thoughts. 

When I first get in my hot shower every day I remember how fortunate I am. So many people do not have hot showers, or showers of any kind.

As the wicked witch commented "What a world."

Be kind.

Philip