December 1, 2019- THE CONTEST BEGINS-Week #1

Welcome to the Mears Garden Picture Contest.

It is cool and gray. After yesterday I can add "and wet."
I suppose that is better than cool and white. I think we all know what that would mean.
December is here, so progress in getting to Spring has already been made.

For the 13th year we present to you the Mears Garden Picture Contest.
So many years.
Please join us each week as we work our way through the long Iowa winter.


Here is a little history of the contest:
The contest started in 2006. That first year it was done entirely by email. In 2007 the blog began and that fall so did electronic voting. There has been this contest every winter since then. Well, we skipped one winter. At this point I do not remember why. It is probably just as well.

But that means this is contest #13. That is a lot of winters. That is a lot of pictures. You should be able to review most of them. The archive goes back to 2007.


Here is how it works.
Each Sunday for 13 weeks I will put up five pictures which are the contestants. (There will also be other pictures, or bonus pictures.) They are all pictures from our garden here in Iowa City from 2019. You can then vote for the one picture you like best of each week's selection of five. There should be a voting poll on the right side of the blog. Voting lasts until Saturday night at midnight.

The weekly winners will advance to a playoff round. They will be joined by several runner ups. Including some runner ups fills up the playoff brackets. It also accounts for weeks where the second place picture came very close.
There will then be semifinals. Then one last week, when the days are warmer and longer, we will have the final vote. There will be one winner. More importantly winter should be about done.

I really like to hear back from you each week. I like to know why you picked the picture you did. Was it the color or the shape?
I like to know about your garden. Maybe you grow the particular flowers that are featured that week. Mostly I like to strengthen our small connection. A blog, a Facebook page, a letter to the editor, or talking over the back fence are all ways to be connected. We sometimes live is such isolation.
Too deep? Sorry.

There is a place on the blog for comments. It is at the bottom of the post. Comments are nice because all the readers can see them.
Many people receive an email notice of each garden post. I send those out with the link to the new page. Some people reply to those emails. That works.
If anyone wants to be added to that list just let me know. My email is
philip.mears@gmail.com
Finally I think you can sign up to receive email notices by using a link at the side of the blog.


Please understand that having the contest does not mean that Julia will stop posting recipes. There are now over 150 great recipes with pictures which are found at
https://mearskitchen.wordpress.com/

Here is the First Week's contestants.

Picture #1 Apple Blossom Amaryllis (February 13, 2019)

I start the contest with a picture from the inside garden.
In Iowa the outside garden goes from maybe March to November. There is a lot of time in between November and March.
Lots of plants come inside. The contest is now quite inclusive,

Having blooming amaryllis inside is one of the ways that you get through the winter.  They are currently being sold all over the grocery stores.They do bring color when inside is about all there is.
This picture was taken on February 13.

I have perhaps 25 amaryllis bulbs. I bring them inside in October. I first let  them dry out in the garage for the next month. Dormancy is what you are looking for.
After the foliage has completely died back,  I put the bulbs in a completely dark place, giving them complete rest for as long as they want.
The idea is that you can control when they wake up.
That is not always the case.

Some will stay dormant until April. Then they can come out and join the spring bloom.
That is my plan.
Some just break dormancy, all on their own.
Most instructions say to take them out 6 weeks before you want flowers and give them water and fertilizer.
I find they can awaken all by themselves, right there in the dark. In fact if you do not check them every two weeks or so, you may get quite a bit of growth, again, in the dark. It will be an awful white color I associate with spring bulbs that try to come up that are covered by leaves.
Usually however  the ugly white growth will green up once it gets some light.

I actually prefer to have them stay dormant until spring.
If they bloom in February they then become another house plant that competes for space by the windows.
Here is your basic amaryllis care instructions:
After they bloom you cut off the bloom stalks and just let them grow. Like all bulbs they then spend the rest of the year, until fall, storing up energy to bloom the next year. They want sun to do their job. That is a problem in the outside garden, as the competition for sun is high in my garden.
Ideally I should find an off site sunny place for them from April to October. Maybe I can sign up for one of those city garden spots.

I should tell you that at times I provide some educational text and links. Please feel free to skip over those parts.

What is in a name?

Plants are organized, and have been for centuries.
A good source for a quick primer on plant names is found here. It is from the master gardeners of the University of Wisconsin.
https://wimastergardener.org/article/whats-in-a-name-understanding-botanical-or-latin-names/

Mostly you need to know that plant identification starts  by  division into the genus and the species. Then of course there are the hybrids and the cultivars. Have you glazed over yet?

The Amaryllis in the picture, that we all know, is actually not in the genus Amaryllis. The plants that are bred to bloom in the winter are in the genus Hippeastrum.

Here are the links to better understand the difference between the genus Amaryllis and the genus Hippeastrum

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amaryllis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippeastrum

A flower that is actually in the genus Amaryllis is that August blooming "naked lady".
Who knew?




#2 Blue Anemone Blanda (April 8, 2019)



This is one of my favorite Spring flowers. I like the fact that it is an Anemone "Blanda", and it is not white. You know what I mean. Blanda. White. Whatever.
These Blandas come in a variety of colors. They bloom in the Spring. They come back ever year. They eventually become clumps.
The bulbs are little, perhaps being 1/2 inch in size. You can plant them right on top of the bigger bulbs. Since you mostly cannot tell which end is up, you can easily plant them in quantity. I planted 50 a week ago, right in the area where I planted daffodils, a few days before.

For those of you just wanting to know the plant identification, here it is.
The genus is...Anemone.
The species is...blanda.
Sometimes this is not so hard.

#3 Pink Lupines (May 27, 2019)

I love lupines. I can imagine an entire bed of nothing but lupines.
I grow them but they need care. They are what I call not so hardy perennials. They will come back, but you should not count on them for more than maybe 2 years.
But they do self seed, if you leave the seed pods on the plants.
It is such a welcome sight in the early Spring to see the lupines coming up. Sometimes it is just a single little sprout.
I also find that I can grow them from seed, rather easily. I then put the new little plants out in April.

Like Oriental poppies they do send up new growth in the fall. In the bonus section there is a picture of one such plant taken a week ago.

They can take a hit from a frost or freeze. We were down to 3 degrees for 2-3 days while we were in Maine, a few weeks ago. The little new shoots were fine, once the weather bounced back to 50.
That means you can set the seedlings out in April and not worry about an early frost. That hasn't stopped me from covering new plants when there is to be a hard freeze.

The genus is lupinus.
There are over 200 species. Many are native to north America.
We see them all over the place in the mountains.
Most of what we grow and plant are hybrids, developed over the years.
There was this English guy who spent his life improving lupines.
Sometimes I am amazed by this computer search capacity.
I put in a search for "English guy who improved lupines."
George Russell,  is the name, as in the Russell hybrids.
Here is the link.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Russell_(horticulturist)

If you look at this link you will find a reference to the "cucumber mosaic virus". There is just so darn much information out there.

#4 Trillium cuneatum (April 20, 2019)

The genus is "Trillium". The species is "cuneatum".
This particular plant has reliably come back for probably 10-15 years.
That was my guess.
I looked at the old pictures. There is one of this plant from 2004.

I grow a number of varieties of trillium. This one is about the first  to push up when the soil warms up. (See the picture in the bonus section.)

This particular picture illustrates the sometimes difficult choice I make in picking pictures for the contest.
Sometimes I think that closeups have an unfair advantage.
In the bonus section I will put the contestant side by side with the image prior to enlargement.
When I have picked the 65-70 pictures for the contest I have to compose the weekly competition.
I try to balance color, time of the year (which is difficult as so many pictures are from April/May), and closeups.


There will be another trillium later in the contest. I will wait to show you all the varieties from the garden until that time.

#5 White and Yellow Dwarf Bearded Iris (May 7, 2019)

My goodness. The yellow just jumps right out at you.
Little bearded iris are just about the best.

Bearded iris are in the genus...wait for it..."Iris".
There are so many iris.
In my garden there are iris reticulata, bearded iris from the dwarfs to the tall, Siberian Iris, Louisiana iris, iris cristata, and at the end the Japanese Iris.
There are so many iris that the genus is divided into subdivisions.
Here is the wikipedia link

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_(plant)

The subgenus in which the Bearded iris is located is...wait for it...called Iris.
I kid you not.

Here is the wikipedia for the subgenus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_subg._Iris

I am done with that technical stuff.
Here is all you need to know.
It is rather simple.
The flowers of the bearded iris all look about the same.
Some are taller than others.
The really short ones are called Dwarf bearded iris.
The tall ones are called Tall Bearded Iris.
The ones in the middle are called....Intermediate Bearded Iris. (I had to tell you that.)

They bloom in the order of height. How orderly.
The little short ones bloom first.

I like the little short ones since you never have to worry about staking them.
It is sort of like the concept of a frog farm fence.
Well I thought there was a connection.




There you have it for Week #1.
Vote away.
Report any problems.
Get a friend to vote.

Bonus Section

Each week there will be a bonus section. It contains pictures related to the contestants. It also contains pictures that just cross my mind.

Here are the pink crabapple trees putting up one of their last blooms this past Spring.
They were mature trees when we moved into the house 37 years ago.
Their time is ending.
I am replacing them with dogwoods.
I hope that the dogwoods will start with a small show this coming Spring.







Here are a pair of pictures that almost made the contest.
You can see the difficult choices that can be presented in picking pictures. Which do you like? The one that fills the screen or the one that better lets you see the flower?
The image was captured on February 2, 2019.






Here is the amaryllis right above, in all the glory of multiple blooms.
















This was taken on March 3.
As a group they broke dormancy this past year mostly on their own.
It really is a plant mystery how they just do that without being watered or brought into the light.













I like this picture taken on March 11, as it is back lit and shows the wintery display outside.

I would have put it in the contest if it wasn't for that bud at 9 o'clock.

More anemones

This is a nice picture of a group.
For several years I had a rule for the contest that it had to just show one flower.
It was a silly rule.
Sometimes groups are better.
This was almost better than the single flower.







This is the emerging trillium. It looks like a creature from one of the Star Wars movie.
















This is that plant before the flower opens.














Here you can see the two views of the same picture.
I chose the enlargement for the contest.





Here is one little lupine growing in the garden right now.
These little leaves will get toasted soon. But that should not hurt the plant.


















Here is one blooming orchid this week. 
It is called 

Bc mackai mayumi.

I am mostly not going to try to explain orchid names.

Bc stand for 

Brassavola crossed with Cattleya.

Julia's recipe

Pastitsio

Sometimes we think of moussaka as the Greek version of lasagna, and that makes some sense: layers, tomato-y meat sauce, cheese. But moussaka is differently spiced (cinnamon, not oregano) and eggplant is not really much like lasagna noodles. Here is another dish that could be thought of as a Greek version of lasagna, but that would not be quite accurate either. We have layers and pasta and tomato-y meat sauce and cheese, but it's way different in flavor and texture. One can find this dish in Greek restaurants and of course my Aunt Julia made it for celebrations. 



Here are the ingredients: 1 lb. of elbow macaroni (the gluten free among you should feel free to use corn or rice pasta); 1 lb. ground beef; 6 eggs (I'll explain later); 1 little can of tomato sauce; 1/2 cup dry white wine of some kind; 1/2 lb. cheddar cheese; 1 cup or so diced onion; 1 stick (that's 1/2 cup) butter; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg; 1/4 teaspoon cloves; 1/4 teaspoon black pepper; 3 cups of milk (anything but skim); and 3 tablespoons of flour (not pictured - I forgot when I was gathering ingredients - all purpose or gluten free).


This recipe, like moussaka or white lasagna or pizza, requires the preparation of various components followed by the construction of the final product. Nothing daunting, but there are a few steps.

First I cooked the macaroni as per the box (in salted water). When it was done, I drained it and put it back in the pan with 1/2 of the stick of butter (that's 1/4 cup), cut into a few pieces. I put a cover on the pan so the butter would melt. And I turned the oven on to 350 degrees.



Next I made the sauce. I cooked the meat on medium heat until there was no pink, and while it was cooking, I diced the onion. Then I added the onion to the meat along with the salt and pepper and cloves and nutmeg and cinnamon. The kitchen started to smell good. Then I added the tomato sauce, and I rinsed out the can with the wine and added that. I simmered the sauce (bubbles, but not furious bubbles) while I worked on the next steps. The idea is to have much of the liquid boil off so that the sauce is kind of dry (not soupy) when it is time for assembly.







Next, I grated the cheese and set it aside. And I put 1 cup of milk in a big cup and added 2 eggs. I gently whisked the eggs into the milk and set that aside.

Then I started the other sauce by melting the other half of the stick of butter (that's the other 1/4 cup) in a saucier. When it was melted, I added the 3 tablespoons of flour and whisked that together. Then I added 2 cups of milk: I made a white sauce.

I let the white sauce boil (but gently) for 1 minute, then took it off the heat and added the other 4 eggs, 1 egg at the time. No, the eggs did not curdle. I whisked after each one.





Now it was assembly time. I sprayed a 9" x 13" pan with cooking spray. I gave the macaroni a stir to make sure the butter was everywhere and then ladled about 1/2 of the macaroni into the bottom of the pan.
















I sprinkled the macaroni with 1/2 of the cheese. Then I spread all of the meat sauce on top of that. Next, the rest of the macaroni and the rest of the cheese.

















After I had smoothed out the macaroni and sprinkled the rest of the cheese, I poured the first sauce (the one with just eggs and milk) over the whole pan. Then I jiggled the pan to make sure that the sauce got all the way down to the bottom layer of macaroni. Gentle jiggling, please.












Lastly, I poured the egg-enriched white sauce on top and smoothed it gently with a big spatula. No jiggling. Then I put the pan on a rimmed baking sheet with a silpat on it (lest there be bubbling over and the attendant mess) and baked the pastitsio for about 40 minutes.













Here we are after about 40 minutes, golden brown and delicious as Alton Brown would say. A dinner knife stuck in the pastitsio should come out clean - there may be tomato sauce but no runny custard. The top should be firm.














Here it is on the plate, after cooling off for about 10 minutes. Note that it holds its shape. That's the result of that first sauce - it is a custard and it makes the dish hold together. We had acorn squash and green salad and it was all good.

Leftovers can be eaten cold, kind of like a pasta sandwich (due to the miraculous effect of the custard) or warmed up in a covered shallow pan with a little water (so it steams).  A nice lunch on a busy day.

Odds and Ends

The crotons have survived the leaf drop. In some cases it has now been almost a month.
I was sure that one at the office was dead.
There was not one leaf left.
But it was only mostly dead.

The was almost time to
"go through the clothes and look for loose change."
A very strange line unless you know the source.

But a few weeks in the sunny window and now it has lots of little leaves coming out.

Gardening really does teach patience.




Here is one croton at home with a similar experience.

The fact that they will start to grow new leaves does relieve the anxiety when you have to sweep up all those dropped leaves.

















Friday we went to visit Reha's Greenhouse, located just west of Wellman.



It takes a while to get there. Being inside with all that color is worth it. Those are poinsettias.
Greenhouses that actually grow things inside are the best.
They can be a sanctuary once outside is not as inviting.








Let me add this one Amaryllis note. Some people get and then enjoy a blooming Amaryllis during the winter. You may not be interested in keeping it after it blooms. If you are going to through it away, throw it our direction. We will know what to do with it.



That is it for this first week of the garden picture contest.
I had forgotten how much I enjoy writing about the garden and pictures of some of my favorite flowers.
Stay safe.
Warmer weather is coming.
We will get through this long dark time.
Philip and Julia Mears