The hard freeze was forecast all week. It is suppose to get down to 25. (It did.) There is nothing equivocal about that. I appreciate that it was not 31. At 31 some plants or parts of the yard are OK. Covering plants with sheets should also not work with that hard freeze.
We had all week to prepare. The plant migration inside is complete. I did one last sweep of the garden, looking for stragglers. (I found one little cactus and one little red and grey succulent.)
On a much more pleasant note, several days this week were about as good as you can get in the fall. Wednesday and Thursday were sunny with temperature in the 60's. It certainly made for enjoyable work in the garden after work. It was wonderful weather for bringing in all those plants. (I do get help with the heavier ones.) I was able to garden without a coat. Yesterday I did last minute garden chores while wearing my winter coat.
Daylight- We will have that time change thing soon. Right now we get up in the dark. Soon we will go home in the dark. I am not sure which I would rather have. I have always thought that we should just individually get to pick when to make that change. I would wait for another few weeks. When you work for yourself as we do, we could just tell the staff that we would close at 4 and open at 7. (or 6 and 9)
At the last minute
There were those last 3 jade plants under one tree I had not noticed. Jade plants. You should see the second year plants now. I had one big plant knocked over last fall, probably by a deer. I potted up maybe 50 little ones. Potting a jade plant is so easy. You fill a pot with dirt and stick a little piece of the jade plant into it. I try to select a piece that is 5-6 inches long. I put it 1-2 inches into the dirt.
I will look for that picture from last fall and include it in the odds and end section.
I take cuttings from certain annuals. I know which ones will make roots and can be potted up. Persian Shield, that great purple leafed plant, is like that. Sometimes I will pot up the entire plant in the fall, and then take cuttings off that mother plant all winter. This year I am just taking cuttings. I had five cuttings on the window sill from earlier this week. I will have to decide whether to just go get another 10 tips of the plant, which is where you get the cuttings. (I guess that would be the only place to get cuttings. It does not make much sense to take a cutting from midway down the stem.) ( I did get those extra cuttings.)
I brought in both of the ghost pepper plants. (I had two in pots all year.) I had actually grown them over the winter last year. They were small in 2016. This year they were big and produced many peppers we mostly did not eat.) But they were pretty and fun to talk about.
I could go on. Let me show you pictures.
Last Week's pictures
The picture with the most votes was the colorful cattleya. It just started blooming about 10 days ago, spending 3-4 days outside. I finally brought it inside this week. It had been fine outside, even when the bougainvillea was toasted two weeks ago.A second cattleya is just about to bloom. When they bloom they get to be featured in the living room on a pedestal. Right now I will have to get the second pedestal.
The full voting was:
Cattleyea 15
Saffron Crocus 10
Red Coleus 6
Popcorn Plant 5
Toad lily 5
Orange Zinnia 4
Red Coneflower 1
Orange Zinnia 1
This week's pictures:
What a wonderful closing gift from the zinnia collective. Some of their best flowers were at the very end.
I really love this color combination.
#2 Saffron crocus
I know you saw these flowers last week. They continued and they stand out in a garden that is increasingly brown.
Two clumps of these gems bloomed this week. I covered both last night, to see if a bucket would protect them from a hard freeze.
#3 Cyclamen leaves
How often do you see leaves in the featured pictures.
These are from one of the new cyclamens, put in sometime in August. They have such wonderful patterns on their leaves.
#4 White zinnia
I had know about the little stars in the center of some of the zinnias. I had not realized how wonderful were those yellow parts, I think called stigma. (I have no idea if that is singular or plural.) They make a ring around the center of the flowers in the zinnia pictures this week.
I read that the stigma are part of the pistol, which leads to the ovaries. I think the stigma collects the pollen.
The stamen is the part of the flower with the pollen.
I could be entirely wrong on this. That seems to be what I read when I ask about zinnia stigma.
#5 Red Zinnia
Here you have stars and, once again, those yellow stigma.
#6 Pink Zinnia
This flower has the yellow stigma and those column things.
Do you notice that where there are columns, there are no stars. Coincidence?
Please give me a plant with just two parts.
There you have some pictures from this weekend.
You may vote for two.
Enjoy that double voting because when the real contest starts in maybe a month, there will be so such equivocating.
Bonus pictures
The plants that came in first were the air plants. I figured that since they came from Florida they would not like the cold. Being first meant they came in early this week. They did not seem to mind the weather for the last month. So the ball of airplants we have had for a year, is back in its usual place. That is over the sink. It gets lots of humidity and I spray it almost every day when I finish the dishes. It is now joined by all the other little plants, fastened together. They seem to like it, at least for the first week. In several places I could convince myself that maybe they are going to bloom.
As you can see from the ball of plants there is this particularly red place. I think that is where it might bloom.
Here are the midsize crotons in the dining room. Those are five different varieties.
This wonderful hosta got the award for the biggest plant to staynice to the very end. This is Victory, which is every bit as big as the first time I say it in Dubuque. It took it 4 years but it is now enormous.
Here are the mostly new cyclamen I got this fall. The one holdover is the one on the right, of the picture on the left. I so look forward to seeing if they make it.
Julia's recipe
Avgolemono Soup
Avgolemono means egg-lemon in Greek, and this soup is a thick and creamy and lemony chicken-based soup. I have not had it for years except as the first course in Greek restaurants, and I did not have much of an idea how to make it. I knew there were eggs and lemons and chicken broth, but I had no clue as to technique. Then Cook's Magazine published a recipe this winter, while I was visiting Katie and Elisabeth and the baby, and Katie and I made it for supper. It was great. We were able to take some shortcuts which made it both great and pretty fast and easy. When Philip and I were in Maine this fall, Katie and I made it again, and here is our illustrated recipe.
We added 1 cup of long grain white rice. You could use 1 cup of long grain brown rice and it would take a little longer to cook. You could use medium grain rice (which I have used when making this soup), in which case use 3/4 cup. Do not use short grain rice of any color. I would not use basmati or jasmine rice because the aromatic qualities of those rices will be lost in this application. The reason you use less medium grain rice and should not use short grain rice has to do with differences in starch among rices. You do not want the degree of starchiness and overall stickiness that short grain rice would bring to the party.
The Cook's Magazine people tell you to get yourself a piece of cheesecloth and put things in the cheesecloth: 1 whole peeled and flattened clove of garlic, 2 teaspoons whole coriander seed, 2 sprigs of fresh dill and the strips of lemon zest. I think this is fussy, and I do not usually have fresh dill around. Or cheesecloth, for that matter. I think the garlic, dill and coriander can be left out with no discernible taste difference in the final soup (I've made it both ways). You do need the lemon peel, but it can go straight into the pot and then you can fish the strips out later (which is why it is good to know how many you started with). Cooking the strips of lemon peel in the broth does impart essential flavor to the broth. If you have fresh dill on hand, use a branch of the leafy part - not the seedy part and not dried. Throw in a sprig and fish it out when you fish out the lemon peel. If you want to use the garlic and coriander seed, be my guest and put them in a tea ball, to be fished out at fishing-out time.
Digression over. At this stage, we had a pot with 8 cups of chicken broth, 1 cup of long grain white rice, and 15 strips of lemon zest. We brought the pot to a boil and then turned it down and cooked for about 20 minutes until the rice was soft.
Another digression. We had about 4 cups of cooked chicken on hand. If you have cooked chicken on hand (from your well-stocked freezer or a rotisserie chicken from the store), then you are ahead of the game. If you don't, then you will need 1 pound of skinless boneless chicken breast, sliced lengthwise into several long strips. Cook it. You can do that by poaching it in a little water in another pan or by adding it to the pot of chicken and rice and letting it simmer while the rice cooks or by microwaving it. Strips of skinless boneless chicken breast do not take long to cook. Do not brown the chicken first. If you cook the chicken in strips in the pot with the long grain white rice, it will be done when the rice is done. If you are using long grain brown rice, take the chicken out after about 20 minutes of simmering.
Next we assembled Katie's blender. We scooped 1 cup of hot cooked rice out of the broth and put it in the blender, leaving the rest of the rice behind to just be in the soup. Then we added 2 eggs and 2 egg yolks. Yes, it matters. Save the egg whites for the next time you make scrambled eggs. And we added almost all of the lemon juice (say 1/3 cup) and 1 teaspoon of salt.
Actually, we forgot to take pictures of that step and so the picture at right is at our house in Iowa. I have made the soup again since we came back from Maine. It's that good.
The soup reheats beautifully. Nothing weird happens to the eggs. According the Cook's Magazine, this is some kind of science related to the presence of the rice starch with the eggs. It does thicken up in the refrigerator, but can be easily thinned with water or broth.
It's getting cold. Eat soup.
Odds and Ends
Here is our kitchen sink area as of last night. There are the airplants on the right. That is a little orchid, hanging on the left.Then there are glass jars on the windowsill with several things in them. They first had cuttings of the Persian Shield purple plant. They Saturday afternoon I cut the zinnias and put them in with the cuttings.
Satruday evening about 9pm.
The skies are clearing I think. It is still 37. It is 27 in Waterloo and the cold is coming.
The house plants are huddled with roofs over their head. Some are inside with us.
Many are still in the garages. I am hoping that many of those can go back outside midweek, at least for a few weeks.
I really do not know where we will put all the jade plants. There must be 50 in the back garage.
Here is what they looked like last fall.
All those plants are one year older now. They have outgrown there purple pots.
While I was looking at last year's pictures here was the popcorn plant on November 11, 2016. This was taken the day before the first hard freeze.
The hard freeze this year is about two weeks earlier than last year.
With that look back, I might just say good night.
Stay warm.
Philip
1 comment:
I think--and am too end-of-day to look it up just now--that "stigma" is singular and "stigmata" is plural. Don't bet the farm.
Post a Comment