March 1, 2020. Week 14- the Playoffs

It is March.

February is over.  That is true even if it lasted a little longer than usual.

Winter is on its last legs.

The 9 day forecast here in Iowa is for mostly highs in the 50's and lower 60's. The high today, Sunday, is suppose to be 61.
There are so many little shoots coming up, everywhere.
Actually we still do have microclimates. Parts of the yard, because of shade patterns,  will remain frozen for a few extra weeks.
That is good since that means that some of the color from spring bulbs will come in waves.

In the garden picture contest

We have now completed the selection part of the picture contest.
13 weeks have given us 17 pictures.
That is the math since we had 3 ties during the season, once having had a tie between 3 pictures.

So now we move on to what is next.
Isn't that always the case.
The alternative is being stuck in the present, or perhaps the past.

But first:

Last Week

The final piece of the playoff puzzle was added this last week.
The winner from start to finish was the Michigan Lily.
Spots are always good for a boost in the poll.
It has such wonderful dark stamen. That is the part with the pollen,
Stamen and Pistils.
Here is a quick reference
https://pediaa.com/what-is-the-difference-between-stamen-and-pistil/







The full voting was:
Michigan Lily 13
Dark Daylily    3
Louisiana Iris  9
Moss roses      9
Pardancanda Iris 3

 Week #1 of the playoffs

There are 17 pictures at this point, selected by all of you over the last 13 weeks.
I will put them up in the next 3 weeks, with five this first week and six to follow.
Caution- this is where voting gets difficult.

#1 Orange Clivia 

June 22, 2019

Here is your number 1 seed, the winner from Week 8.
It is the top seed having gotten the highest percentage of any winner during the contest.

Clivia mostly go dormant in the winter. There are of course, inside. You cut back on the water and mostly ignore them. I try to look at each plant carefully about once a month. Sometimes they can get bugs.
In the picture you can see the blooms and some old seed pods. They keep their seed pods for a long time. The seed pods remain very hard for even a year. At some point they will start to soften. That is the point when you could plant them. It would be one seed per pod.

I have grown clivia from seed. It can take up to 7 years to get to blooming size.
That is rather a commitment.
We found that you could get a blooming plant in 5 years.
That is still a long time.

I have purchased several very small (2-3 leaves) plants in the last 2 years. Some of the colors on these new varieties will be something special.
If you have several plants at different ages, somehow it does not seem so long to wait for a plant to bloom.

Here is the link to the Clivia Society webcite.
http://www.northamericancliviasociety.org/index.php

It would be nice to be able to keep these plants outside all year. Imagine just planting them in the ground.

#2 The Leucojum 

May 4, 2019

This is one of the tallest of the spring bulbs in the garden.
It will get to be maybe 15 inches tall.
It comes near the end of the spring bulb season.
Sometimes people think of it as a very tall lily of the valley.
That of course would be wrong.

I love those green tips.

#3 Pink Poppy

 June 3, 2019

So many wonderful flowers.
Oriental poppies are about the best.
The colors I have in the garden are pink, red, orange and white.
This pink one has always been a favorite.

#4 John Hancock Asiatic lily 

June 27, 2019

Asiatic lilies give some of the brightest colors in June.
Remarkably this is the only Asiatic lily to make the finals.
I had a very nice crop of them in 2019
When florists sell these lilium they cut off the stamen.
That is because the pollen on these lilies really can stain. They can stain your table or your nose, if you try to smell it too closely.

                    #4 Bluebells

                     May 2, 2019

We all have little mantras we use to get to sleep. Some people count sheep. Where did that ever come from I wonder? Any ideas Pat or David? Why do people count sheep as oppose to elephants?
One thing I do this time of year to get to sleep is to walk through the different garden beds in my wind, and remember what will be coming.
I think about what I look forward to in the garden.
Bluebells are near the top of the list.
I wonder if the white bluebells I have now had for 3-4 years will have spread.
I wonder how many flowers there will be on the tree peonies.
Maybe there will be more tree peony seedlings. I carefully planted many fresh peony seeds in September.

Bluebells will be coming.
When will that be?
Maybe the first of April.
If we have the warm week that we are suppose to have, lots of things will be coming.
Maybe we can have the first crocus by the middle of March.
Last year there were crocuses by March 22.
When I looked today there were crocuses that were 2 inches out of the ground. They could bloom in a week.

#5 Amaryllis 

February 13, 2019

I am glad we have one picture from the inside time. It really is an important part of the garden.
I have many amaryllis plants.
We have had one amaryllis grace our dining room table this week. Another one, maybe even this one, is about to bloom.

I really want to find a very sunny location this summer for my amaryllis. I have thought about actually renting a small garden bed in the sun, just to plant my little bulbs. There are the amaryllis which could be joined by some of the smaller elephant ears.



Here are these 5 pictures in a little slideshow:

Make your choice.
Let us have a big voter turnout this week.

Bonus Pictures

Here are Youtube instructions for harvesting and planting clivia seeds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djYrfp8fP4U

Inspired by this writing I found several clivia seeds that seeded ripe, and made them ready for planting. Ripe means soft.
In the picture on the right I took the covering off. What emerged was something about the size of a pea.
As instructed I soaked them overnight in water. I will plant them this afternoon. They should take a month to germinate.
You can actually leave them on the plant to the point that they begin to sprout right there in the pod. You can peel off the covering and find the little shoot. You do not have to soak them then.

Right Now

One of the crotons, Lauren's Rainbow,  is blooming.













Here are some of the winter aconite, starting to get organized. They should explode this week.


I really need to get more. Maybe 500 would be enough. They should almost just go everywhere they are not.










Here is the crocus I think might bloom this week. It is back by the pond.















Here is the snowdrop clump we have been following for over a month.















There is one thing about aconite I love.  They come up everywhere.
Each year there may be several dozen that appear in the paths. I transplant those to places that are without any.
I also discover some coming up under the bricks. I move the bricks, let them see the light, and then move them someplace else.

Julia's recipe

More meatballs

Philip found this recipe on the New York Times website, and it looked both interesting and easy. Interesting and easy is a good combination. These are Italian-ish meatballs, or so it seems to me. And so for the first time we had what I think of an a quintessential Italian dinner - spaghetti and meat balls.



Here are the ingredients: 1 lb. ground pork; 1/2 cup whole milk ricotta; 1/2 cup parmesan (shredded, not grated); 1 egg; 1-1/2 teaspoon kosher salt; 1/2 teaspoon black pepper and 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs. The recipe said "plain dry bread crumbs." I did not have any of those, but I did have panko which worked fine.








Here are all of the ingredients in a bowl. All at once.

I turned on the oven to 425 degrees.




















The only way to mix is with one's hands, as illustrated. I took off my watch, washed my hands well, took a deep breath and went at it. Cold ground meat and raw egg and cold ricotta makes for cold mushy work. However, the mixture came together pretty quickly.










Next I used a 2 tablespoon disher to portion out the meat mixture. The recipe said to make 12 meatballs of equal size. That seemed too big to me so I used the aforementioned disher and made 18 meatballs of equal size.

I rolled the globs into tidy balls and put them on 2 rimmed baking sheets lined with silpats. Rimmed baking sheets are essential. If you don't have silpats, use parchment or foil. Or nothing at all.






I baked the meatballs for about 20 minutes, flipping the baking sheets front to back and top to bottom and vice versa after 10 minutes. I also used a fork to roll the meatballs over at that same 10 minute mark.

If you want to exercise caution in doneness, use an instant read thermometer. Anything over 160 is fine.

Meatballs done! I liked the fact that they baked. No frying. And pretty fast.


While the meatballs were baking, I made a tomato sauce - onion, garlic, and red pepper flakes softened in olive oil; then a can of tomato sauce, a little tomato paste, a little bit of sugar (maybe 1/2 teaspoon), maybe 1/2 teaspoon of oregano, 1/4 teaspoon of basil and a little wine and water to rinse out the tomato sauce can. Plus some salt and pepper.  It would be perfectly fine to use store-bought spaghetti sauce of your favorite kind instead.





The sauce came together quickly, and I added the meatballs to the big skillet of sauce to warm up and get acquainted with the sauce.


We served the dish with the traditional spaghetti, green beans vinaigrette (recipe elsewhere on this blog), green salad and a fabulous chocolate mousse made in a blender, of all things. It being Saturday, we had dessert. Philip made it, and that recipe will appear in the future.



Eighteen meatballs is a lot of meatball for two (or even three or four) diners. We froze the meatballs in their sauce and they are easily reheated, first defrosting in the refrigerator and then simmering, holding their meatball shape.

Odds and Ends

I read an obituary in the last 2 weeks for the person who invented 'cut and paste'. His name was Larry Tesler. He even has his own wikipedia page.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Tesler
You do not think of a real person in connection with something so instinctive at this point. It is like thinking of the person who invented the question mark. There must have been such a person at some point. Pat would know.


Julia has been off in Maine this past week. I survived. I think the most amusing moment would have been watching me try to fold fitted sheets.
Here are a few pictures from Maine.



At the beach















Living the dream
















I read in the newspaper today that snowdrops were poisonous. I love it when nature just makes sense. When something is the first flower to bloom, it makes sense that it would not survive if it tasted good to rabbits or deer. It is no surprise then that I read that aconite is also poisonous.

I remember one year I grew pansies from seed. I had several dozen nice size plants ready to go outside on April 1 or some other early date when they could live in the weather of the time.
But they were just about the only green plant in the backyard.
They just did not last long.  A lesson was learned.


Have a safe week.
Better times are coming.
Find the Spring closest to you.
Philip