February 23, 2020- Week #13 Getting near the end

The week ended with some glorious weather.
It was sunny and almost 50 yesterday.
In spent more time in the garden that I had this year.
For all that work that was done last fall, there is still a lot of clean up left to do.

So from yesterday
I am pleased to show you this year's first flower.
Drum roll please....
the little winter aconite.
They were actually opening up several places.





The snowdrops we have been following were just about open.  They also were popping up in various places,






This was January 9.













This was yesterday about noon.
I think it will be today when they finally open those tight buds.










Of course the star of the week was inside. It was this amaryllis.



I had a double flower. I did not appreciate that it would have so many pistols and stamen.

Last Week  in the contest

the winner in a close contest was the blue iris. The white allium actually held a two vote lead after the first several days of voting. But the blue iris came back, and was the winner by a nose...or a petal...or whatever.





The full voting was
Blue Iris                 16
White Allium         15
Black Lily               6
Pink/White daylily  5
Orange Zinnia         7

The total votes were 49.
It was the best turnout so far this year.

Week #13

#1 Michigan Lily

 July 1, 2019

This is some sort of Lily. It is a wildflower in North America. It is a perennial.
It is either a Canada lily or a Michigan lily. They are both natives.
Apparently the Michigan lily curves back to the base of the flower, as in this picture. The Canada lily does not curve back as far. So that would make it a Michigan lily.
Whatever...
I have grown it for 15 years or so. It makes more, over time. I sometimes forget where they are and therefore it is not quite the clump it could be.
It grows in part shade. That is a relative term since in the backyard the Sycamore tree does not really make much shade until June.
Apparently these lilies are a deer favorite. I will be sure to give it protection this coming season.
I love the spots.
It has leaves that are called "whorled". That means that at least 3 leaves grow at regular intervals from a single point, making sort of a circle. This apparently is somewhat unusual.




#2 Dark edged Daylily July 11, 2019



This daylily has it all. Great colors. A nice edge.
The name...not so much.
Sometimes the names are best forgotten.
The plant was new to the garden in 2019.
It is a keeper.
This lily was developed in 1991.

#3 Louisiana Iris Gamecock

 June 15, 2019

If one grows different types of iris, one group that should be included are the Louisiana Iris.
They bloom after the bearded iris, about the same time as the Siberian Iris.
The flowers are larger than most bearded iris, and are more flat, like the Japanese Iris.
They have sort of a zig zag stem, with flowers emerging at each turn.
I made a bed just for them  when Katie was in New Orleans, and sent me a half dozen varieties.
I designed the circular bed to be about 6-10 inches below grade. The intent was to have this be a wetter area.
It was a better idea in theory that in performance.
The plants probably would have done better with more light. That is a common lament in my garden.
Some survived, but did not thrive.



The genus here is iris.
Louisiana Iris are a group of 5 species of iris that are native to...Louisiana.
Unlike other plants that come from the south these plants will grow in the north.
As one might expect from Louisiana plants they like to be wet.

Trivia...These iris are the state wildflower of Louisiana. The state flower is the magnolia.

#4 Moss Roses 

August 19, 2019

Good old moss roses.
They have had a special place in my heart for these annuals, ever since we lived on the farm with a bunch of college friends from 1971-1977. I went to law school for the last 3 years we lived there. During the summers I was in law school I stayed home, on the farm. We grew all sorts of things on our maybe 1/4 acre garden. One year we even grew peanuts.
But we had a part of the garden where there were moss roses.
They self seed very nicely. One year I carefully separated the seedlings, by the hundreds,  and created a bed that must have been 5 feet by 8 feet. In the middle we placed a chair. (We were very young then.) When they all bloomed, such as after a nice rain, it would be quite the experience.

Education alert:
The genus is portulaca. The plant we all recognize is portulaca grandiflora. It is apparently native to Argentina. I don't see that very often.

#5 Pandacanda Iris 

August 10, 2019

This is another special pardancanda from Joe Pye Weed gardens.
I just got their new catalogue. They have some really marvelous new Siberian Iris that are their introductions.

This plant  I grew from some of their seed, sent to me with my first order from them in 2017 (I think).
As I mentioned in Week 6, these are the last iris to bloom, blooming quite a bit later than even the Japanese Iris. They bloom in August.
There are solid color pardancandas in the mass market. You can get prolific and very nice plants that bloom yellow and orange, and even some bi colors.  But these hybrids are in a class of their own.
I really look forward to growing them in the next 2-3 years when the plants will get bigger and clump up.
I should add that they seem to grow well in part shade. Like so many other plants they would probably do better in more sun.

I did save the seed from this plant and the other special pardancanda plant. I planted that three weeks ago, inside of course. It sprouted Friday, which cheered me up.







Vote for this last group.
Never week we begin the elimination rounds.

Bonus Pictures

Here are more Michigan lilies.

Here are more Louisiana Iris, mostly from previous years.







Bonus Slideshow
I have been figuring out what is possible as to these slideshows. Some of this is rather obvious once you think about it. The number of pictures is not as important in taking up the maximum space as the music. 15 pictures with a song that lasts 6 minutes is too much.
15 pictures with a 3 minute song seems to work.

Here is a slideshow with the pictures that almost made the contest. I pick about 75 pictures and there are only 65 slots, in 13 weeks. As Week 13 is now officially selected I can say with confidence that the

Julia's recipe

Mushroom soup

I have always liked cream of mushroom soup, although I must confess that for many years, that meant I liked Campbell's cream of mushroom soup. It was not until much later that I swore off canned soup and started to make my own. Homemade cream of mushroom soup is very good indeed, if a bit more complicated than opening a can and turning on the stove.



Here are the ingredients: about 1 lb. of cremini mushrooms; 8 oz. of white button mushrooms and about 8 oz. of shitakes, stems discarded. I have made the soup with all white mushrooms, but I have decided that mixing up the mushrooms is good just as it is good to use more than one kind of apple in an apple pie or crisp. Livelier flavor.

Back to the ingredients: about 1 cup chopped onion; about 4 tablespoons of butter; 4 tablespoons of flour; 4 cups of chicken stock; 1-1/2 cups or so of half and half and some salt, pepper and nutmeg.

Use homemade chicken stock if you have it. If not, reconstitute some bouillon. If you are gluten averse, use another thickener - maybe cornstarch. If you are milk averse, use olive oil instead of butter and more stock instead of half and half. Lastly, if you are a vegetarian, use vegetable stock. Vegan? Use the appropriate alternates. 



I decided to spare myself a lot of chopping so I had Philip set up the food processor which continues to confuse me in its assembly.

First, I melted 4 tablespoons of butter in a big enamel pot on medium heat.

Then I zizzed up the onion, followed by the mushrooms, which I cut into chunky pieces as I added them to the work bowl.

I zizzed the vegetables pretty thoroughly and then dumped them in the butter as I went along. There was not enough room in the work bowl to do everything at once.

Mushrooms are kind of like spinach - a lot reduces to a little when you cook with it. Or in this case when you process it.

One more note on use of the food processor. You can't really use a stick blender on mushroom soup. Mushrooms are more fibrous than you'd think, and in my experience, the stick blender yields oddly stringy results. So use a food processor or chop the mushrooms really fine by hand.




Here are some of the ground-up mushrooms and onions simmering in the butter. There were a few pieces of mushroom that escaped the blade. I left them alone.











Here is the pot with all of the mushrooms and onions. I simmered them for about ten minutes, adding about 1 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper.











After some simmering (and stirring), the mushrooms had darkened. At that point, I added the 4 tablespoons of flour and cooked and stirred that for about 2 or 3 minutes.













Next I added the chicken stock which was still partially frozen. I forgot to take it out of the freezer.

The soup simmered for about 20-25 minutes.










I added about 1-1/2 cups of half and half. Maybe 2 cups. I turned the heat way down so that the dairy would heat up but not boil.

Last but not least, I grated about 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg into the pot and gave it a stir. Then I gave it a taste and added bit more salt and pepper.








Soup's on! We also had little cold cut sandwiches and a green salad. We bought little french-bread-esque rolls from the New Pioneer and some ham, salami and cheese. We are all big fans of hard salami. So sometimes we mix healthy eating with slightly less healthy eating.

Leftover mushroom soup keeps nicely in the refrigerator. I have never had enough to freeze. Leftover mushroom soup can be heated on low to medium heat for lunch, and it takes me back to grade school and Campbell's soup.

You may have noticed the word "about" appearing with several of the ingredients. That's because I don't use a recipe anymore when I make the soup. Early on I consulted Fanny Farmer on mushroom soup, but not for some time. The essentials are the ingredients; the proportions can vary. Enjoy.

Odds and Ends

It is blue jello time....What you ask is that?
Julia flew off to Maine yesterday. She will visit our grandson Christopher and family for a week. She does this every February. Sometimes the weather cooperates.



She has been told that this time she will need to be ready to read many Winnie the Pooh stories. Do you remember the one when Pooh gets his head stuck in the honey jar?


















Back to Blue Jello.
My parents lived in Springfield, Missouri, ever since I was a child. They hardly ever left town alone. On the rare occasion when my father was left to himself for a few days he would shop for things in the grocery store that  normally would not be for dinner. For some reason I just remember he would get blue jello.
Remember TV dinners?
But 'blue jello' stuck as an expression.
I think of this rare time staying by myself as Blue Jello time. During During Blue jello time you get  to pick anything you wanted at the store.
I have not yet decided on my special purchases. Sometimes you need some spontaneity.
What do you get during your blue jello time?

While this weekend has been a step forward for the garden, I did look at the forecast. It is going to get quite cold again. There will be single digit temperatures for much of the midweek. Snow is also in forecast. Those lovely aconite will get tested. But they have done this before. Perhaps the snow will be enough to insulate the little flowers.


Be safe.
Be kind.
Better times are coming.
Philip