March 22, 2020 -The finals of the picture contest

Welcome Spring.

Officially Spring arrived a few days ago.

It arrived without much attention.

Can you imagine that?

One sunny day, right before Spring arrived it was glorious.

All the crocuses opened wide.

But it got cold again.

Not really winter cold.

But winter coats felt good.

What is the Spring really?

What do you think of when you think of the Spring garden?

At the moment I think of it as an escape. 

It is a refuge.

But go beyond that.

There are particular blooming things that go with Spring.

I would say 'flowers' but there are also trees and bushes.

I guess I start out by thinking of daffodils and tulips.

But then let the cascade of wonderful thoughts engulf you.

Crocuses

Peonies

Iris

Flowering crabs

Dogwoods

Redbuds

More tulips

Spring comes every year.

It is something you can count on.

One thing you can do on this blog is look at the past.

You can visit the archive. It is over on the right, near the top.

It goes back to 2007.

You can click on the month of March for a particular year and be transported in time.

But certain things will be true, every year.

Spring arrived that year.

Each year there were snowdrops.

Each year there was the first crocus.

Each year we celebrated the end of the dark time, and the beauty of the new.

Spring is an escape.

It is a reality.

It is a comfort.

It will come.

This picture was taken on March 17, 2020. The crocus is called tricolor. I love the background shapes early in the year.




But let me get right to the Garden Picture contest.

Last week you picked the third and final contestant in the final finals. It is the Final Three. Somehow that just does not have the ring of the 'Final Four'. But we play by my own rules.
Here is what you picked last week. It is the blue Siberian iris. What wonderful color.
Mostly in the very early Spring there is little blue.
As I think about it, we are still  in the early part of Spring, and there are the little blues starting.
That would be the squill or by their other name, the silla.
But my how the digressions are flowing this early morning as I approach the publishing time.
Here was the winner last week.




The full votes were

The Final Three

So here are the final 3. You have picked three great pictures. Fortunately I do not have to handicap this last contest of the winter contest.
Here is the slideshow featuring your three contestants.

#1 Monsella tulips

 April 25, 2019

First up, featuring the brightest colors in the group, is the picture of the Monsella tulips.
Tulips will be right around the corner this spring in Iowa.
They are emerging now.
I have already observed however that the deer really like tulips. The backyard visitors pass on the snowdrops and aconite. They do not like the early crocuses. But tulips. They may be the first of the tasty Spring flowers.
It is about time to get the spray out and see if spray can keep the deer from their path right through the garden.

#2 Blue Siberian Iris

 June 1, 2019

Today I noticed little iris shoots coming from the Siberian iris plants. The little bearded iris will bloom first. But the Siberian iris should do well this year.
That will start one continuous march of the Iris.
It will last for months.

#3 Clivia

 June 22, 2019

The Clivia are still in survival mode.
Just like people they are staying inside, waiting for warmer and better times.
2020 will be a year to divide some of the Clivia obtained last year. Of course then I really will have too many.



That's it for the contest. Pick the best picture. They are all good.

I find I could live in a world of footnotes. I do this in my legal work when I write a brief. I write a draft.  When I go to edit that later, I can't stop the footnotes.
I have said the contest is ending.
But the blog and voting will continue.
Next week I will write more.
There will be more pictures and musings of this Iowa gardener.

I do remind you that as we all try to stay even more connected, let me hear from you. Make a comment on the blog. Send a reply email. Tell me about your garden, whether current, past or future. Tell me your favorite color. Tell me what you children think of flowers and colors.

Right Now

Spring is really getting organized. Here is a little tour of the swirly bed in the back yard.

This is a colorful hen and chick called Gold Nugget. It really does almost glow.

















The crocuses were putting on a show last week.


















So many other plants are waking up. This is one of several primroses in the backyard.
You cannot have too many primroses.












This is a frittilaria in the backyard. They are a wonderful spring flower, which come up nicely and ofter do not bloom.
You can see the little scilla or squill getting organized.
At this point you could find any square foot in the backyard garden and there would be 100 shoots of something coming up.








Here, the winter aconite have made essentially a carpet.
Soon the bluebells will come through that carpet and create their own mass spectacle.












I had to enlarge this picture. The little purple crocuses are coming up by the hundreds.
































Here you see the pulmonaria getting ready to bloom.
I saw one pulmonaria flower yesterday on one of our outings.













This next video should be a real treat. I will make sure it works after I publish the post.
The video shows a display like I have never seen. It is in the backyard of a neighbor. A fence fell down. So this week you could look in.
There are so many wonderful things out there, hidden away. Sometimes you just have to stop people and tell them to look at stuff.

This is naturalizing at its finest. These plants have won the local survival competition, despite not a lot of attention.




Here is another slideshow from the garden in the last few days.

Julia's recipe

Hot corn

It has been cold here again, after a burst of warm weather. This is often the way of spring in the upper midwest, and it means sometimes we want to eat summer foods and sometimes we want to eat stew or soup or roast chicken. Here is a side dish for the stew or roast days. It is easy, uses ingredients mostly on hand and tastes good.



The ingredients are: frozen corn (I had about 3 cups from corn we froze last summer); chopped onion (about 1 cup); chopped red pepper (about 1/2 cup), 1/4 teaspoon each of basil, oregano and red pepper flakes, 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt and 2 tablespoons of olive oil.

In trying times (or even in non-trying times), feel free to substitute. Any oil (or butter or ghee) instead of olive oil; another color of pepper instead of red or another vegetable altogether like cut-up green beans or little bits of broccoli or even finely chopped kale or spinach or other greens. And feel free to monkey with the proportions. There should always be more corn than other ingredients. I think there should always be onion. And of course you could change up the herbage: cumin instead of basil for example. I like red pepper flakes, but maybe you don't so use a bit of black pepper instead.

But I digress.



Our corn had been cooked before freezing so all I had to do was thaw it out. I think thaw-only would also work for store-bought frozen corn, as it will cook in the skillet. Or cook it according to package instructions but on the short side of the time called for as it will continue to cook.

I chopped the onion and red pepper. I put the olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. I put the vegetables (and the salt and red pepper flakes) into the skillet when the oil was warm but not blazing hot. Sizzling is not the idea.








After about 5 minutes, the vegetables had softened and then I added the basil and oregano.

If you are using black pepper instead of red pepper flakes, add the black pepper at this point.

I stirred the mixture around and added the corn, which was a little juicy (for lack of a better word) having thawed out. I cooked the mixture until the corn was thoroughly warmed through and then it was ready.






This picture illustrates the benefits of a large dining room table in times of physical distancing. I had the yellow-blue plate; Philip had the green-blue plate and Maggie had the salmon-blue plate. Physical distance while retaining conversational possibilities.












Here's the corn in the bowl, looking colorful and a bit herb-y.

Take care of yourselves. Eat well, stay physically separate but emotionally and socially connected and read frivolous books.

Odds and Ends

Katie wants us to stay at home and be safe. She said if we had to go out someplace we should try to see if other people wanted to go there too. Maybe we could make one trip for everyone, which would allow the other people to stay home.
So today I heard that Earl May had pansies. I called and checked. They did. It turned out they were really good pansies. Big and colorful. Some with faces.
As I was getting ready to go get some,  I met several people outside, enjoying the afternoon. They said they also wanted pansies. So I got enough for everyone.
Julia stayed home. I was the only one in the store, with two clerks. Actually when I got back someone else on the street wanted some. So I went back and got more.
I want to plant some pansies at my little bed at church. They will be nice at Easter. Since there will be no service this year, they should at least have flowers.

If sheltering in place is ordered here, gardeners will have plenty to do.
Actually what I mean is that I will have plenty to do.
But first, maybe I should go get some more pansies to share.

In this remarkable time, stay connected. Become connected.
There is a prayer we sometimes use at church.
Give us the strength to learn the names of the people around us.

Philip