April 28, 2019- Just about the best

The bluebells have come out this week.
I think this time of year in the garden may be about the best.
Of course I also say the same thing about several other times as well.


The bluebells in the yard are everywhere.
They also go well with all the other plants.





That includes the tulips and epimedium...of course, the hosta.
I sometimes forget about hosta in the first month of the spring. But they are coming up now.
The darn plants continue to get bigger.

This week I divided one clump of a great hosta called Sagae. They are big and swirly and have a nice yellow edge.
Of course when you divide a hosta, all of a sudden you have many more. I dug up about 2/3 of the one clump. That gave me 5 pots of very nice plants, with another 3-4 plants still waiting for their pots.
One reason to dig/pot up hosta is to make room for the group coming this next week. I will not say how many of these new hosta are coming. Let me just say that they all seemed so attractive in late December when the sale was on.
After I potted up those Sagae hosta early in the week, I dreamt that night I had just acquired too many hosta.

I received an order of new Siberian Iris this week. They arrived and were in the ground the next morning.
I have tried getting some new ones in the fall the last two years. I have been less than pleased with how that went.
I have to remember to give  the new plants plenty of room, and that means plenty of sun. I tend to plant annuals in unoccupied spaces. Those annuals could then shade out some of those new plants.

Yesterday was not a good gardening day. It rained most of the day. As I write this at about 5 pm the temperature has dipped to 38. We are likely to get a frost tonight.
(update- The two thermometers on the front porch say 32 and 33. There is frost on the car window this morning.)
All the tender plants, such as the crotons that were on the front porch, are back inside. This is not so good  for them as they prefer not to be going in and out with the temperature changes that accompany that move. But I cannot leave them out in the cold.
It did not help the mood this week that yesterday's weather was forecast all week.
Rain and cold. And it arrived as forecast.
At least the snow is staying north and east of us.
I do believe that most of the plants that are up will be fine. At least that is the case as long as the temperature is only 31. If it dips to 28 then there could be some hosta damage, at least for the plants that are up and have their leaves starting to open.
But what can you do?
I am just making sure that the tender plants are in the garage.

Let me show you some pictures of this glorious week.




Here is one bluebell plant. The flowers have pink buds.













Primroses are going strong. I just ordered some more from a company with a good warranty.
















Here is the Mitsch daffodil that comes up every year and blooms without spreading.
Grant Mitsch bred daffodils for most of his life. I saw one of his catalogs before the business closed about 4 years ago. You really could, if you wanted, get a single plant for $30. Or more. I did not do that.












Sometimes subtile colors are good.














Here is Hosta Montana. If there is a plant that might be frost damaged this could be it.













Here was the first bearded iris that bloomed on Thursday of this week.















Monsella, the tulip.
What color.
I really should give you  closeups in a big picture.













Try that again with a slightly different crop. I think you will see this picture next winter.








See what I mean about tulips and bluebells?















Here are some bluebells that actually opened pink before they turned blue.













Some of the colors on these tulips are just the best.

Trillium

The trillium were good this week, and this Spring. 
I thought I would give you this feature on just those plants.

I do not know the names of all my trillium. This one is all by itself along Fairview Street.



















That center is certainly worth a closer look. It is quite different from the center in the one in the two pictures after this.















I showed you this picture last week. Compare that center to the one in the previous picture.

I discovered this closeup of the last picture. I find this picture fascinating with the different petals and all those lines.






















Here is a bunch of little ones.



































This is trillium luteum, which  means yellow in Latin.































This clump is grandiflorum. This picture is from this week.
It is one of the last to come up and to bloom. It will have white flowers that will change color after a bit.
It will get bigger too.

Julia's recipe

Cod with mushrooms and spinach

We participate in a CSF (community supported fishery), from Alaska. And yes, we still live in Iowa, very far from Alaska. These folks (Sitka Salmon Shares) turned up at the winter farmer's market last year, selling lovely Pacific seafood, flash-frozen and whisked to us in the midwest. It's very good, and not as expensive as one might think, not much more than the grocery store but fresher somehow and very tasty. We have bought salmon, of course, of several kinds, and halibut, prawns and cod. These Pacific cod fillets is not very thick - thicker than sole fillets, a bit thinner than halibut fillets.

In addition to selling fish, the Sitka Salmon folks hand out fast and innovative recipes. This recipe is pretty much straight from them, just tweaked a little. Get yourself some Pacific cod and give it a try.


Here are the players: 2 cod fillets, each between 1/3 and 1/2 pound; 1 lb. cremini mushrooms; 1 lb. (I think 1 lb. - a big box) of fresh spinach; 1 lemon; about 1/4 cup olive oil; 1 tablespoon white wine (or cider) vinegar; 2 tablespoons mayonnaise; 1/3 cup panko breadcrumbs; about 3/4 - 1 teaspoon smushed garlic (2 good-sized cloves); salt and pepper.

You will need a big rimmed sheet pan. Or maybe two smaller rimmed sheet pans. Bigger is better here.

Step One: I turned the oven on to 450 degrees.



I started the cooking by washing the mushrooms and cutting them in half if medium, in fourths if big and not at all if small. I put the washed and cut up mushrooms in a bowl with 1-1/2 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 tablespoon of vinegar and a pinch or two of kosher salt and pepper. I tossed to coat and then poured the mushrooms onto the rimmed baking sheet, all at one end.

When the oven was heated up, I put the sheet pan in the oven and set the timer for 10 minutes.

Next, I zested the lemon and put the zest in a little bowl with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and the 1/3 cup of panko and again a pinch of salt and pepper (say 1/4 teaspoon of salt and 1/8 teaspoon of pepper), and I mixed that up.

I took the fish out of its packaging, patted it dry and set the pieces on a plate.



When the timer went off, I took the sheet pan out of the oven, set it on a sturdy trivet and put the fish fillets on the sheet pan at the other end. I put a 1 tablespoon dollop of mayo on each fillet and used a table knife to spread it over the top of each fillet. Then I spooned the panko mixture over each fillet (the mayo serving as a kind of glue). I exercised caution because although the fish was at room temperature, the sheet pan was very hot.





Another view of the panko distribution process.

When the fish was duly coated, I put the sheet pan back into the oven and set the timer for another 10 minutes.











Next I turned my attention to the spinach. I started by smushing the garlic. I heated 1-1/2 tablespoons of olive oil (gently, on medium heat) in a big skillet and then added the garlic.













I rinsed the spinach and started adding it by handfuls to the skillet with the olive oil and garlic. It reduced to a mere shadow of its former bulk in the way of spinach. I covered the spinach and took it off the heat until the timer went off.











When the timer went off, the spinach was done and in a bowl, and the fish and mushrooms were both done, on the sheet pan.

I cut up the lemon (remember the lemon zest harvest phase?) and put the lemon wedges in a little bowl to be squeezed over the fish or the spinach or both.












Here it: we served the the spinach and mushrooms and fish with a nice green salad and little bowls of blackberries with yogurt. It was delicious. And ready in just about 30 minutes.

The fish was tender with a slightly lemony crunch on top. The mushrooms were unexpectedly delicious. I had never roasted mushrooms before. The spinach was the contrast, in flavor and color and texture.

For you gluten-phobes, there are panko style crumbs that are gluten-free, made of rice I assume.



What to watch for this week

The slipper orchid is just about ready to bloom.














The little beard iris have just started. With the rain yesterday everything will grow even more this week.

The tree peonies should open sometime soon.


The pink dogwood tree by the house is coming soon.

Odds and Ends

Deer- I had some real damage in the yard this week. That is not surprising since neighbors report seeing a small herd of perhaps 6-9 deer.
I had seen tracks in the back yard and had given some protection to certain vulnerable plants.
Well this week at least one deer came through the backyard and munched away on some hosta that were up perhaps a foot or so. It all topped a nice clump of daylilies in that general area.
Oh well.
Talk to the City council. They do not seem to think there is much of a problem.

Pond- The reset is complete. All the plants were taken out of the pond. The pond was cleaned and fresh water was put back. I had as many as ten extra water lilies when I was done. The bulbs just grew right out of the pot. There was some mighty good muck at the bottom of the pond. It was spread around to fertilize the plants near the pond. Now is the time for fish and tadpoles acquisition.


Annuals- We took a road trip yesterday down to the greenhouses near Kalona. I now have a flat of lantana and the first flat of impatiens. There were some irresistible coleus. Some are now waiting for warmer weather. I did start a few cuttings from several I purchased. I will have multiple plants in 2-3 weeks.

Rain- It has been a little dry. We had over an inch of rain yesterday. That was good.
Maybe it will not freeze.

Epimedium- I intended to do a feature on epimedium this week. I ran out of time. They are just about the best ever this Spring. They are peaking now. If you are interested in what they look like come by this week.

Contact- it is always appreciated when I hear from you. Please leave comments or send a return email.

Philip