September 27, 2020- September fades away. The cold is coming.

September is almost gone.  The forecast at the end of this coming week has the f word for parts of the state. (Not Iowa City) I suppose that is better than the s word. 

The garden still sparkles, even as the leaves are falling. Yesterday I noticed that the elm tree in the front yard was starting to drop its leaves. I have mentioned before that the trees send down their leaves sequentially. 

The garden sparkles in the front yard because of the annuals. I have been planting them since the first of August. There is a wonderful combination of the red of the impatiens and the burnt orange of the one variety of coleus. I felt almost desperate yesterday to get the last of the annual cuttings into the ground. They should get to enjoy some time before a frost will send them on their way to the great compost pile in the sky. 

I am having to water again. It was dry in August. Then we had that one week of over 5 inches of rain. That is now two weeks ago and now nothing. Maybe today. 

This week in pictures

The Japanese anemones have put on a show this year. They do take over a space. They also are a plant people do not know about. This white one is either Honorine Jobert or Andrea Atkinson.

This great double pink anemone is Prince Henry. I really need to mark all the plants of this variety. I only have 2-3. That is unlike the single pink one that is all over. 

    The third variety of these anemones is this single pink one. It could be Robustissima. That would be an appropriate name. It is 'robust' and then more.  This picture was taken on August 22. The clump has been blooming for over a month at this point.

There is such a 3 D dimension to these pink ones at this point.

Fall is also time for the toad lilies. The official name is tricyrtis. They should bloom for the next month if the frost holds off.

Even the bud is interesting on the toad lilies. I have three really established clumps. Then I have another group of more novelty toad lilies. One is yellow. 

I really liked the dark stems and the dark buds in this picture. The flower is not bad either. I expect you will see this picture in the contest later this year.

Here is a different variety that is lighter in color.

The late planted zinnias have started. Some of the larger ones are now inserting splashes of color into corners of the garden. I love the wonderful centers of zinnias.

The star at the moment in the garden is the little air plant. Tillandsia is its name. It is a globe of many little plants. They turn bright red and then have this marvelous little flower. It is perhaps the smallest flower in the garden all year.

Here are two pictures. This plant is now 5 years old. It will come live over the kitchen sink in the cold time.

And the closeup

That set of pictures for the week could compete with much of the garden year, in an interesting team competition.

Let me tell you a little about my garden to do list at the moment.

Plant things:

    I actually planted the fall crocus bulbs that arrived ten days ago. I just got 110. That was a manageable number. There were white ones and purple ones. They are suppose to come right up. I mean they are supposed to bloom still this fall. I would have felt better about getting them in the ground if it had been the beginning of the month. 

    I planted some new little dwarf bearded iris yesterday. In 6 long months we will see those new colors emerge.

    I dug up 3 daylily clumps last weekend. I sold some for the plant sale. (more on that later) When you dig a clump you wash off all the dirt and get out the weeds. Then you have 10-15 little plants. Some I will send to Katie. The rest will need to go back into the ground. Where? So I can move some hosta and then put them where the hosta came from. What I have held in reserve is maybe 10 square feet of empty space by the back garage. I think I might turn that into a holding location. The plants will go there for the winter to be dug up in the spring.

Then there are those annuals. My project of planting impatiens in the front sidewalk bed is about done. I have put away the little glass jars over the sink where rooting has occurred for 2 months. It is interesting to see the size variation between the plants. At one end are the plants that were planted in early August. At the other end are the plants that have just been planted. You can watch the plants progress from one end of the bed to another.

Pansies- I have been pushing pansies for the fall. I found a greenhouse that sold them by the flat. It was not in Iowa City. The box stores only sell them in over priced pots with 3 plants in them. (I remember 2-3 years ago when they had none.) So I started with 3 flats early in September. They are mostly in the ground at this point. Just this week I got the last 4 flats they had. I am selling them for the back driveway sale. 

Pansies will survive a frost. They should bloom to Thanksgiving or longer. Then they come back in the spring. They are not perennials as the heat will end their run. But for the fall garden they are a 'must'.

Actually pansies are one plant that can provide color in November.

Here are the four flats currently on the sale table. 

I am trying to get everyone reintroduced to this very late bit of color.

I should add that they have developed really nice black pansies at this point. For people into school colors (such as at UI) black and yellow pansies could be attractive.

Transplant things:

If anyone asks how you transplant a cactus the answer is easy. Very carefully.

I put on leather gloves. I then cut the old pot off with shears. Then I lifted the plant by the dirt at the bottom into the new pot.

I just moved one of the underperforming tree peonies from near the pond to by the kitchen door. The hope is that it will get more sun so will bloom.

Speaking of school colors here is another picture of the annual asclepias. I did not realize how the flower attracted ants. 

Dig things up:

I think my experiment with amaryllis at the sunny garden plot has been a success. I have many amaryllis bulbs. This year I took them to the 'farm' where they spent the summer in full sun. Some, that were already a group,  remained in their pots. There are maybe 4 such pots. I brought one home yesterday, and decided to take them out of the pot and dry them off for storage. That is how you prepare them for the winter. 

There were 4-5 decent sized bulbs and then about the same number of little side shoots. I think they will go in a pot to wait for next summer. I will definitely get that plot again next year.

Clean up:

There are no pictures at the moment with cleanup. Sometimes as a task it slips down the list. But there are plenty of things to do. Leaves need to be picked up. Paths need fresh wood chips. Perennials need trimming. Weeds need removal. 

Planning:

I do need to order tulips. And poppies. 

Julia's recipe 

Tomato, yogurt, and chickpea salad

Here is another recipe from Joshua McFadden's Six Seasons, which I have mentioned before as a cookbook full of innovative recipes for seasonal vegetables. Great stuff. This recipe uses tomatoes, cucumber, red onion and herbs, all late summer farmers market fare. It is a lovely salad but would also work as a main dish for a light meal.  



Here are the ingredients: a couple of big round tomatoes; a few cherry tomatoes; 1 smallish cucumber (to be chopped up to about 1 cup); about 1/2 cup thinly sliced red onion; 1 can of chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans); 1 teaspoon smushed garlic; about 2 cups of fresh herbs such as mint, basil and parsley; 3/4 cup plain yogurt (not shown!); 2 tablespoons of olive oil; 2 tablespoons of wine vinegar (or any vinegar, really); a little sriracha sauce or other hot sauce if you have it and some dried spices and such: 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander; 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin; 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes; 3/4 teaspoon black pepper; about 2 teaspoons of kosher salt and 1 teaspoon of ground sumac if you have that which, oddly enough, I do.  If you don't have ground sumac, you can use lemon juice instead. 

I know the ingredient list is long, but I hope these are mostly things you have on hand. There is no cooking involved, just assembly so I would urge you to give it a try. 



I started by mixing the cumin, coriander, red pepper flakes, ground sumac, smushed garlic and 1 teaspoon of kosher salt in a little bowl. 

Then I sliced the tomatoes into slices of roughly the same thickness and spread them out in a single layer in a rimmed pan. I sprinkled the spice mixture over the tomatoes. 

If you don't have ground sumac, sprinkle about 1 teaspoon of lemon juice over the tomatoes after the spice mix. 

I let the tomatoes sit and turned my attention to the other components of the dish. 










Next up: the yogurt sauce. I mixed the yogurt with 1 cup of the fresh herbs (which I had washed and dried as they came from our garden and also de-stemmed and roughly chopped). And then I added the chopped up cucumber. I had a small cucumber, called a mini-cucumber here in the midwest. Maybe called Persian cucumbers elsewhere. Peel or not, your choice. If your cucumber is seedy, scrape out the seeds. In any event, after the prep, dice it up fairly small - say about 1/2" squares. 

I added about 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper and a few dashes of the sriracha (the little red dots). I stirred that together and set it aside. 

Next, I mixed together 1 cup of the drained chickpeas (you could use the whole can, which would be about 1-1/2 cups), the rest of the fresh herbs and the red onion. I added 1/4 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper and the vinegar and the olive oil and mixed again. 





All of the components benefit from sitting quietly for a while - from 15 minutes to 1 hour. 

Here are all of the separate parts, waiting for assembly. 
















First I put the tomato slices on the bottom of a serving dish. The tomatoes had exuded some juice, which I poured over the slices. Next, I spooned the yogurt mixture over the tomatoes. 















More spooning. 

















Here are the tomatoes, covered with the yogurt mixture. 
















Next, I spread the chickpea mixture on top of the yogurt. 

















Lastly, I topped it off with a few halved cherry tomatoes. 




















We served this as a salad with baked salmon and some plain rice. 

Katie, our daughter in Maine who gave me this cookbook, serves it as a main dish over spiced basmati rice. 

The ingredients are familiar, but the combination is fresh and the result is delicious. Give it a try before tomato season ends. 

Odds and Ends

As I prepare for cold weather I do have to start to think about the plant migration. There might be temperatures in the upper 30's this coming week.  Some of the orchids would prefer to be inside.

The back driveway sale continues. This last week was a good week. We are over $3900 for the season with one more day to go this weekend.

We passed the equinox this past week. I am ready to get that hour back in the morning. Somehow I can just do more in the morning. 

I marvel at how plants and trees prepare for the cold. The pink dogwood is setting buds for the spring.

Farm report:

The peppers are really doing well. It is always remarkable how some plants, including vegetables, do so very well right before the end of their season. 

I think these are the habaneros. 

I have also planted lettuce. It is now about two weeks since the seed went in the ground.

As the cold threatens the garden there is this other darkness out there. Optimism and pessimism go back and forth all the time. 

I do find that getting my hands in some dirt helps.

There will be better times. Let us keep saying that. 

Philip