January 13, 2019- Week 7- Winter is back

It had to happen. It is the middle of January.
It snowed yesterday.
It was just 2-3 inches, which was nowhere near the snow they got to the south of us, in Missouri.
I remember that just last weekend we walked around the lake at Terry Trueblood, a park on south side of Iowa City. It was in the lower 50's.
We had 2-3 days, early in the week, where the temperatures stayed above freezing at night.
When I checked the ground was not frozen at all.
In the part of the yard where there is the most sun, and which is protected by the house, I discovered a few  red shoots coming up. These were the non tree peony coming up.

So it is an inside weekend.  Maggie came over yesterday. We did some tie dye.
Today we will finish that work.

I also see the first negative number this winter in the ten day forecast.
Oh well.

Picture contest- last week

In the contest last week the winner was the hosta with bluebells. I was a little surprised. Hosta,  in any combination, has not done well in prior years. But as I think about it, this was really a great picture.
Congratulations to those of you who selected this as the winner.

Here was the full vote.
It really was a great group of pictures.
Can you imagine that the Lupine finished fourth?

Week 7

#1 Mitsch daffodil (May 1, 2018)



Daffodils.
They will be here sooner than you think.
Grant Mitsch was the most well known daffodil developer, perhaps ever.
The American Daffodil Society collected 10 years of his catalogues before he retired in 2014. They are at this webcite:

http://dafflibrary.org/2015/08/mitsch-daffodils-oregon-usa-2001-2013/

While you could pay $20 or more for a single bulb, if you see what he was working on, you could imagine buying 1 or 2.
This one bulb was given to me 5-6 years ago.
Most years, a storm will splash a little dirt on the petals, interfering with a picture.
That did not happen in 2018.



#2 Moss rose (June 16, 2018)



This little gem, also called portulaca, is new to the contests. I grow it occasionally and should grow it more. It is a low to the ground annual, that likes sun. The flowers are good, and it blooms for a long time.
This year I planted it with the little iris, which had finished in May.
In hindsight this is a better companion annual that the fusion zinnia with those iris. That is because it does stay close to the ground. I found that the zinnias, while pretty, shaded out the iris, interfering with their growth.

When we lived in rural Malcom, Iowa,  after college, so many years ago, we had a big garden. While we mostly grew vegetables, we also grew moss roses. One summer during law school I planted maybe 50 square feet, all in moss roses. They self seed a lot.  I very carefully transplanted the tiny little seedlings, enough that there were moss roses everywhere. We then had a chair right in the middle, where you could sit surrounded by all those flowers.
We were young then.




#3 Orchid cactus (July 6, 2018)



What is to say about these plants?
I have grown them for maybe 20 years. Look at the bonus pictures. They come in all sorts of colors. I have 5-6 varieties that are bloom size.
Several others are coming along.
Not many people grow these plants because... they get big and have to come inside in the winter. In Iowa they have to be inside for almost 6 months.
They are cousins of the Christmas cactus. The bloom is much bigger.
This particular plant sets lots of buds and then blooms about the first of July.

I hang them from the trees. They like filtered sun.
I added another 5-6 ropes this past summer.



#4 Japanese Anemone Honorine Jobert (September 12, 2018)



This is a Japanese anemone. It blooms in the fall.
This picture grew on me the more I looked at it.
I have three kinds of the Japanese anemones. There are more. The garden catalogues have started to arrive.
I think it is Honorine Jobert. It was the Perennial of the year in 2016, named so by some group.
It is marked as deer resistant.





#5  Pink and White Zinnia (September 2, 2018)



If you want color in September, zinnias are just the thing.
I started planting them 5 years ago and have been growing them ever since.
I plant them from seed, no earlier than about the first of June.
I have found they grow in areas of the garden that only get half day sun.

Bonus Section

Here are more daffodils with the large coronas.







Here are more pictures of orchid cactus in the garden.




This is the plant for Contestant #3.
It is hanging in the front yard.

The buds develop over several weeks. The flowers last 1-2 days.

Julia's recipe

Red Thai Curry

I did not have much experience with coconut milk until fairly recently. For some years, I have made a soup using butternut squash and coconut milk - a vegan main course soup with a recipe elsewhere on this blog, but that was it. It turns out that coconut milk can serve as the base for a versatile main dish which can be made in about 30 minutes if you have some cooked protein on hand. This is a good thing when one is going to have a late day at the office or at school or at the art museum or in the garden or at the beach. 



Here are the players: 1 can of coconut milk (I used regular; I expect lo-fat (or lite) would be fine too); an onion (1/2 cup, sliced into half-moon shapes); fresh ginger (about 1-1/2 teaspoons, grated); 1 tablespoon brown sugar; 1 hot pepper (apparently Thai red peppers are the ticket, which I did not have, so I used a yellow ghost pepper from the scary plant overwintering in the basement) or 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes; 2 cups of fresh vegetables (I used 1-1/2 cups of zucchini and 1/2 cup red/yellow peppers); salt; fish sauce (2 tablespoons), Thai red curry paste (3 tablespoons - this is readily available in the Asian food aisle at the Hy-Vee and so I expect it is readily available far and wide); and 2-1/2 to 3 cups cooked and cubed pork roast. You could use cooked chicken or turkey or beef or seafood of any kind. Or you could use uncooked protein like smallish shrimp or boneless chicken breast or thighs cut into small pieces or cubed firm tofu for that matter



I started by prepping the ingredients. I washed the zucchini, then sliced it lengthwise then sliced each long half crosswise, ending up with 1-1/2 cups. I peeled and diced the onion (1/2 cup) and prepped and sliced some red and yellow peppers (1/2 cup). I grated the ginger (1-1/2 teaspoon).

I put on a pot of rice at this point as well.

At that point, I opened the can of coconut milk and cut through the congealed coconut oil on top and poured it into a big skillet. I heated the coconut milk over medium heat.




Next, I added the brown sugar, the ginger, about 1/2 teaspoon of salt and the red Thai curry paste. I also tossed in the ghost pepper. Ghost peppers make me nervous - I wanted some heat in the liquid but I did not want to make a dish that would pose a challenge. In the absence of a fresh hot pepper, I would use 1/2 teaspoon of red pepper flakes, added at this stage.

I turned the heat up until the mixture boiled then turned it down and let it simmer for about 5 minutes.

Then I removed the ghost pepper and added the meat and vegetables.



Here is the skillet with the onion, zucchini, red pepper (I had enough red that I didn't use yellow; I liked the red color better.) and cooked pork added. I stirred it all up, brought the mixture up to a simmer again and let it cook for about 10 minutes. If you are using raw meat, cook until it is done, which may be a little longer than 10 minutes.

You could certainly vary the protein-vegetable ratio. The Red Thai Curry paste people suggest 1 pound of shrimp to 1 cup of vegetables. I use less protein and more vegetables. Suit yourself. And you can use the vegetables you have. I would avoid hard vegetables that take a while to cook (e.g., carrots, winter squash, potatoes). Otherwise, I think anything goes - sliced cabbage, any summer squash, little pieces of broccoli, cubed eggplant, thinly sliced celery, mushrooms. Try out combinations and see what you like.



At the end, I added the fish sauce, and dinner was ready. Fish sauce is also readily available at regular Iowa grocery stores, which gives me some confidence that it is not hard to find.

If it were summer (which it decidedly is not) and there were fresh basil (Thai or not) at the Farmer's Market, I would add a handful (say about 1/4 cup)  of sliced basil at the very end.

The dish is gluten-free and dairy-free. If made with tofu, it's vegan!

This is actually a luscious dish - the sauce has a smooth texture and the solids add a nice contrast. Serve this dish over rice, either jasmine or medium grain American. Leftovers, it should go without saying, are great.

Odds and ends

Every so often there is a story you just have to share. At least with those who like growing things.
It is about the Giant Fungus in Michigan.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/08/science/fungus-michigan-mutation.html?action=click&module=Discovery&pgtype=Homepage

The days are getting longer. Sunset will get to 5 o'clock this coming week.

With the return of cold weather it is time to think about pumpkins.
Here was one pair that have been around since Halloween.

That is it for the week.
Stay warm.
Philip