July 19, 2020 -Being positive

As the high summer display begins to fade I find that I am feeling more positive that I expected.
Maybe it is because yesterday, in the morning, I decided to week an overgrown area, pulling plants right and left. Armed with a trowel, some clippers, and a trash can, I went to work. I trimmed the Siberian Iris. I cleaned up all around several perennials in that area. I found one plant that I had feared would not make it. Maybe today I will go back in there again and add some fresh compost around the base of those plants.

In doing that I remembered that one part of the second half of the gardening year is cleaning up and redoing certain areas. It goes beyond just enjoying what is there. There is that but cleanup incorporates the future into the picture.

Now, of course, all this is sometimes an overwhelming task. Yesterday I did a little piece of one garden bed. At one point I  organized the garden into 19 different gardens.

But let me get back to the positives, in this crazy world full of so many not so positive things.

We continue to get timely rain, when it is needed. Someone asked me the other day how I watered the garden. He wondered if I had a sprinkler system. I chuckled and told him about the front yard hose and the back yard hose. I told him how there were years when I did not have to ever get them out. So far this is one of those years.


The natural water source from the sky has been good for the rented sunny garden bed over at Chadek Green park. We call that "the farm." We had our own lettuce for quite some time.  We are growing tomatoes. I am learning how tomatoes can get away from you. I tried to explain to them how they had to leave the peppers alone. I am afraid I had to get out the clippers.
We are getting peppers and tomatoes on the plants. Now I will learn how very long it can be before those things ripen.

We have enjoyed that "farm" experience as we call it. There are over 90 plots in our carefully fenced area. Some never were rented, including the two on either side of us. But we can watch as other people grow beans and leeks and of course zucchini. Someone is growing lotus waterlilies (in barrels). Of course in the odd duck category I am growing amaryllis. I have about 25 plants, and that does not count the 3 sunken pots of group amaryllis. I decided not to take them out of their pots. There can be merit in having an entire pot of amaryllis bloom at one time. (or maybe 2)

On the extremely positive note, we are now ending the first month of the back driveway low budget plant sale. It is a sale to raise money for the local food pantries. It continues to be not only a success, but something that really keeps me going. We passed the $1700 mark yesterday. I am now selling blackberry lily starts. They are a hit as soon as people see the blooming flowers. I divided one of my Sagae hosta yesterday despite the heat. (I was trying to go the entire post without mentioning it.) As is often the case when you start dividing a plant you wind up with a lot. I got 4 large pots and 4 smaller ones. I divided a Blue Mouse Ears hosta a week ago. One clump produced a dozen decent plants for sale.
Imagine cleaning a garden bed. You get the satisfaction of an improved looking area. You also can pot up and sell plants that were in the way. It is the classic win/win situation.
I have also so enjoyed the limited people contact as sometimes I talk to people who come and look.

The daylilies are starting to be over. But I really think that as they start to finish I appreciate those late ones even more. How is that for positive.

As August rolls around it becomes time for garden gems. The first cactus bloomed this week. The week before was one orchid cactus. I expect to see more over the next two months. It remains to be seen whether the Night Blooming Cereus will bloom this year.

Last Week in pictures

Here were the top pictures based on your choice. The daylilies is Volcanic Explosion. I have decided to divide one of the clumps of that lily and add it to the sale. You do that when the flowering is over.

Here was the full voting




This Week there are some really great pictures of some really great flowers.
As there are so many choices you can vote for two. You probably have to refresh your browser to vote the second time.

#1 Banned in Boston- the daylily

This would be right up there in my top ten daylilies. I also like the name.

#2 Helen of Troy-the Oriental Lily

#3 Magic Amethyst- the daylily

When they ordered up ruffles this plant showed up. What a great color combination too.

#4 Cactus flower

5:48 A.M. yesterday. This was the first cactus bloom of the year. Another one on the same plant should bloom today. More buds are coming on its neighbor. August is cactus time. I just gave them all some fertilizer.

#5 Stargazer- the Oriental lily

There are several old faithful oriental lilies.
Star Gazer is one. Casa Blanca is the other.
These lilies bloom now.

#6 Better than Ever- the daylily

I moved this one a few years ago. The label went with it. So I know who it is. I guess that is why you make labels.

#7  Unknown pastel daylilies

Sometimes I do lose labels.I really liked the sharpness of this picture.

#8 Breed Apart daylily

#9 Blackberry lily #1

It is time for the Blackberry lilies or Candy lilies or Pardancandas, depending on how careful you want to be. I will call them Blackberry lilies named after the wonderful seedpods they make.

#10 Blackberry lily #2

These wonderful flowers grow on stems that are almost 2 feet tall, and come in many colors.
Next week I will write more about them. This week I just ran out of time.

Bonus pictures

I write now to commend to local sunny borders.
This first border is over on College Court Place, about a block from our house. This person showed what all the new Coneflowers can do with decent soil and full sun.
They really have done a great job with that garden on the edge of the street.
It is worth a drive by.




This was up on Court Street not far from our house. They combined black eyed Susans and some sort of low growing hydrangeas. Remarkable.






Rose of Sharon
We picked up this blue rose of Sharon maybe 12-15 years ago. We were coming back from a wedding reception in Kansas and stopped a garden center in Kansas City. We got this little plant.
Now look at it.



Why is it called Rose of Sharon? Who was Sharon? Well it appears in the Book of Solomon in the Christian Bible. It describes the beauty of King Solomon's lover.
But what do I know?


This was going to be in the voting this week but it got bumped.
It is Primal Scream, a member of the all name team of plants in the garden.

Julia's recipe

Plum Cake

My grandmother made plum cake in the late summer. She used damson plums, which are bluish-purple and oval-shaped and free-stone, which means it is easy to get the pits out. I don't see damson plums in the grocery store these days, but I decided to make plum cake anyway. This is not my grandmother's recipe (which of course she did not write donw), but a version from an old copy of The Joy of Cooking and tasty.



Here is an atmospheric late- afternoon-on-a-summer-day-in-the-kitchen picture of the ingredients.

For the cake: 1 cup regular flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 2 tablespoons of sugar, 3 tablespoons of butter, 1/4 teaspoon of salt (only if you use unsalted butter), 1 egg, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and enough milk so that when added to the egg and vanilla the total comes to 1/2 cup.

For the filling/topping: some plums, to yield 4 cups of plum slices (I had 7 plums, and that was more than enough), 3/4 cup of sugar, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and 3 tablespoons of melted butter.





First I made the cake, for which the method was more like making biscuits. I stirred together the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, sugar) in a bowl and then added the butter, which I had cut into little cubes. I used a pastry cutter (as shown) to cut in the butter. You could use your fingers or dinner knives to break the butter into tiny pieces and mix thoroughly with the dry ingredients.










Here is the cup with the egg and the bit of vanilla, topped up to 1/2 cup with milk.

I mixed these ingredients up and added them to the flour/butter mixture. The resulting batter had the consistency of a sticky biscuit dough.

I lubed up an 8" x 8" pan. You could use a 9" x 9" pan or a 10" pie plate instead. And I preheated the oven to 425 degrees.














I turned the dough out into the pan and patted it into an even layer. I put some (but not much) flour on my hands and on top of the dough to facilitate patting, as the dough was sticky.

Then I turned my attention to the plums. The plums were referred to at the grocery store as red plums; surely there is a more specific name, but I don't know it. They were not free-stone so I cut slices off around the pits. Free-stone would have been easier.















I arranged the plum slices in rows on top of the dough.





















Then I melted the 3 tablespoons of butter and poured the melted butter into a bowl with the sugar and cinnamon.






















I used a teaspoon to drop bits of the topping all over the plums. Note the extra plums on the plate in the background. I ate them,

















The plum cake on it way into the oven.

















The plum cake out of the oven. It baked for about 25 minutes, at which point the topping was melted, the fruit soft and the cake golden brown. One plus to pyrex bakers is that one can see what is going on underneath.

The plum cake is sweet and a bit tangy. It can be eaten out of hand or on a plate with a scoop of ice cream.

Plums have a relatively short season and should be enjoyed. You could certainly make this with peaches or nectarines, which might need to be peeled or with apricots which I think would not. 

Odds and Ends

Farm shots
Here are some pictures of our little garden plot in the sun.



Time has run out for another week.
Stay safe
Better times are coming.
Philip