December 8, 2019 Week #2

Welcome back for the second week of the Mears Garden Picture Contest.
I hope you enjoy the experience.
I did appreciate hearing back from so many of you.

In Iowa for the last week the weather has been mild, dry, and for the week, sunny.
In fact it was difficult to go back to work after lunch on Thursday afternoon, when in Iowa City the sun warmed us to 55 degrees.
These days when you go back to work  you realize that when you leave work, it will be dark.
The cold weather does arrive this coming week, with single digit temperatures. It will be just in time for Katie and family to show up for a visit.
We do have to get the house ready for a person who will be three year old in January.


Let me get right to the contest.

Here was your winner from Week #1.

The Amaryllis

It was spirited competition in Week #1, with three different pictures leading at one time during the week.
In last week's voting there was a very balanced field. There was considerable support for the last place picture.

Here was the full voting, with subtotals at the end of the first few days.
As you can see the yellow iris was ahead after the first day.

Amaryllis      5-8-11       26%
Anemone      4-7-10       23%
Lupine          3-5-5         12%
Trillium        5-7-8         19%
Yellow Iris    7-7-9         21%

total             24-34-43

The Amaryllis will advance to the next round, which will take place well into next year.
The runner-up, the Anemone, will have a chance to advance, by being one of the 3 runner-ups with the highest percentage.

Week 2

This week's pictures come from 5 different months. That is somewhat unusual for the contest. The very early months usually have more of the pictures.
As a gardener I try to keep the garden interesting every month.
April through July are always pretty easy.
What is difficult can be the later months, starting in August.

#1  Purple crocus- April 8, 2019

Purple is good.
I always like the way the garden debris makes a brown background for the spring colors. There are so many different browns. There are wood chips and twigs and the occasional leaf.

You cannot have too many crocuses.

#2  Crazy Tulip- May 16, 2019

Tulips are good in the Spring.
As a plant, they mostly do not last more than 1-2 years.
But the blooms can last quite a long time. Some will bloom for at least a week.
They are also deer candy.

But this year the deer were really not a problem until June.

#3 Orchid Cactus -June 7

This piece of beauty is an orchid cactus.
Not many people grow them in the north.
They are a cousin of the Christmas cactus, only they are much bigger.
They grow in the semi shade of our yard, with its mature trees.
I hang them from many of those trees.

#4 Winter aconite- March 28, 2019

This is winter aconite. They grow various places in the garden. These are in the front yard.
I love these little flowers. They are the second  bulb to show up in Spring, following close behind the snow drops. In a mild winter they sometimes bloom as early as February.

Guess what? They spread.
When you have something you really like in the garden, there is always is the tendency to want more.
"More" is not always a bad thing.
In this little corner of the garden I have achieved "more."
I read that some people regard them as vigorous, almost  to the point of almost being invasive.
In my book something is invasive if it gets in the way of other plants.
It is invasive if you cannot completely get it out of the ground.
Dandelions and that evil campanula are invasive.
Aconite spreads, is short, and is completely gone by June 1.
If you want you can even transplant it around. This can be done even when it is starting to bloom.
I always think I should just buy an extra 500 or so. I hardly ever do.

Its botanical name is eranthis. That is the genus. There are apparently 8 species.
The species in this picture, and the one most commonly sold, is hyemalis.
It is a native to southern Europe.

#5 Pastel Zinnia - August 15

Is it pink or is it orange. It is right there somewhere.
And it is lovely.

I have been enamored with big zinnias for 3-4 years now. I have several places I plant them where they will grow from seed each year. (They do need sun.) I try to plant them somewhat late in the year. Late can be as late as July 1. I find they still have enough time to flower by late August.
They breath a freshness into the garden that can use more color once July is over.

I am constantly blown away by the complexity of the center part of the flower.
I thought about explaining it a little to you. I only got confused.

Please see the bonus section for the two picture of this particular flower. I have sometimes said it is difficult to decide which picture should be in the contest.
When I was picking the contestants I first put in the closeup. Then I changed my mind.
I still am not certain which I like better.
Tell me what you think.



That is it for this week's contest.
Vote away.
Invite your friends.
We have a long way to go.

Bonus pictures

When I get to writing about my garden, sometimes I just want to write "more." I wanted to talk about crocuses and aconite. Maybe I can just give you pictures. At least on a computer this can turn into a nice slide show.




Here are more zinnias.

A funny thing happened as I was putting together this set of bonus zinnia pictures. I kept finding pictures that really should be in the contest.
So I have added more zinnia pictures as pictures 69-71.  I will use 65 in the 13 weeks. But I have a few extra in case my thinking changes in the next few months.


I think these are the same flower. The image is from a different day.
I put the picture on the left into this week's contest.
I put that one in in place of the one on the right at the last minute. Well, last night to be exact.





Here are more zinnia pictures.

Right Now

Orchids are carrying the show at the moment.
Once they start to bloom they come down to the living room and the dining room.




Two of the cattleyas are having  their late flowers. In each case the earlier flowers had finished, in one case some time ago.

























This one filled out since last week.
All the buds are now blooming.

















This orchid is an orchid that does not look anything like an orchid.
It is called  a Catasetum orchid.
The named variety is "After Dark".

The flower looks like an orchid.
The foliage does not.
The foliage completely dies  over the winter. Sometime it will flower with no green whatsoever.

This is the first time it has bloomed for me.

Julia's recipe
Parmesan Fans

Here is the link to all Julia's recipes that have appeared on the blog. Really- all of them since she started posting several years ago.
https://mearskitchen.wordpress.com/


Philip was going to the orchid society holiday party, a pot-luck with some structure by means of asking attenders to fill in gaps on the menu. What they needed was appetizers. Philip makes desserts and salads of all kinds, but appetizers, not so much. Then I remembered Parmesan fans from Betty Crocker, that mainstay of regular old American cooking. And so I made some, and they got eaten up by the orchid fanciers. The door prizes at the orchid society holiday party are, not surprisingly, orchids, and Philip came home with a cute little mini-cattleya (corsage orchid) in lavender. A successful evening.

This recipe is simple from the standpoint of ingredients but it does have to chill and there is some fabrication. But they're good and even fun to make if you have fond memories of rolling out play-dough.



The ingredients: 1-1/2 cup all purpose flour, 1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter; about 3/4 cup (or a bit more) sour cream and about 3/4 cup of shredded or grated Parmesan cheese. Like I said - simple ingredients.
















Philip helped me put together the food processor, which always baffles me. I measured the flour and cut up the butter, and I put them both into the work bowl.

I pulsed/processed until the butter was all mixed in. No lumps of butter - the post-pulsed mixture really did have the texture of coarse sand. 










I dumped the mixture into a bowl and added sour cream. I started with 1/2 cup and then added more until the mixture was kind of cohesive. I think I used a bit more than 3/4 cup. I stopped measuring.

At this stage, it was kind of like pie dough - there were still a few bits of flour/butter that were not incorporated, but it was mostly one chunk.








I dumped the mixture onto a big piece of waxed paper (parchment or aluminum foil or saran wrap would work too). I kneaded the dry bits in, using the waxed paper. That is, I would put my hand under the waxed paper and then use it to fold the mixture in half onto itself. After I engaged in that indirect kneading for a few minutes, the mixture was even more cohesive. At that point, I patted the mixture into a roughly rectangular shape, folded the waxed paper around it and put it in the refrigerator overnight. Overnight worked for me. I think 6 - 8 hours would do it.





The next afternoon, I took the waxed paper out and unwrapped the dough and cut it into 4 roughly equal pieces.

And I turned the oven on to 350 degrees.

Then I took out our plastic rolling-out-pie-dough-and-other-stuff sheet and sprinkled it with flour.  Parchment would work.

I put one of the four pieces on the sheet and patted it into a rectangle. Then I used a rolling pin to roll the dough into a 12" x 6" rectangle. I floured the rolling pin as needed to prevent sticking as well as dusting the rolling surface whenever I moved the dough around, which I did from time to time while rolling and folding (see below).





Next assembly. I sprinkled about 2 tablespoons of Parmesan in the middle half of the rectangle. Then I folded both sides to the middle and patted the resulting square to flatten it a bit. The square at right (about 6" x 6") is at this stage.

Then I sprinkled about 1 tablespoon of cheese in the middle - where the folded-in edges meet. Then I folded both sides in again.

Now I had a rectangle about 3" by 6". Maybe not quite 3" wide. I used the rolling pin to flatten it a bit.

Then I folded the rectangle in half length-wise - yielding a 3" x 3" little packet. I did another round of gentle rolling to end up with a shape about 4" x 4". Then one more fold. And one more flattening.

It is easier to do this than to write about it. Sometimes this is true in other areas of life - for example, turning the heel if you are knitting a sock. But I digress.




Pictured here is the little 2" x 2" packet that was the result of all that folding and flattening. I used
a small serrated knife to slice across - from the folded end to the open end.












I got 12 little strips, as pictured, which I baked
on a cookie sheet for 20 minutes flipping the cookie sheet around after 10 minutes.













I let the Parmesan fans cool on the cookie sheet for about 10 minutes and then I used a spatula to loosen them and let them continue to cool on the cookie sheet.

Then I did the whole thing again 3 more times until all the dough was gone. Actually I baked them mostly at the same time. By the time the timer went off to turn the first fans, I had another cookie sheet ready to go.














Here they are ready to go to the shindig. Inevitably a few break and that's okay - we get to sample.

Happy holidays!

Odds and Ends

Amaryllis are all over the grocery stores. Many are sold in boxes. I remember how you can get the box which when opened contains a white plant, grown in the dark.

Garden cleanup is almost complete.

I was at the hardware store yesterday and noticed they still had a few packaged bulbs.
They were inexpensive so a got a few. I will plant them today. The ground is not frozen.
You can tell that because the deer tracks show up.
That will be 3 weekends in a row that I have planted bulbs.
This should be the last time.

Be safe.
Find something that is beautiful.
Philip