March 14, 2021- Week 3 of the playoffs- Spring continues

Spring is truly here. I know it because I am exhausted. Yesterday, was another day with blue skies and temperatures approaching 60. That meant perhaps 4-5 hours in the garden. There was raking and clipping. In the morning I even started potting up a few things. Hellebores were the first things to be potted this year. Then late morning woodchips arrived.

So there went the afternoon. 

Actually we celebrated spring with our entire family by taking a trip to the country, to visit a farm north of Solon.

There were horses you could touch and chickens that ran all over the place. And there were sheep.

It was a glorious time, particularly for a certain four year old. He even got to sit on an old tractor.

In the meantime  there is snow in the forecast - for tomorrow. I remember last year when there was a 2 inch snowfall almost every week, into mid April. It would then melt and the plants would breath a sigh of relief. But we have wood chip work. The paths are about 40% finished at this point.

Actually we did get rid of all the snow. There had still been snow in certain parts of the yard just one week ago. Two days in the 60's and 2 other days in the 70's was all it took.  It is hard to remember that it was just two weeks ago that people were playing in the snow.

Some of the aconite are about done, and even the early crocuses are not as crisp. But lots of other stuff is coming up. I have seen signes of lupine, and poppies, and euphorbia, and epimedium. The list goes on. It seems like every day there is something new.

Look at this wonderful picture taken last Monday. And listen. 

There will be more pictures in the Right Now section later in the blog.

It was/is a busy time in the garden, with the weather cooperating. I had great help. 

There was also excitement in the garden during the week. The derecho had left some big hanging branches in the Sycamore Tree in the back yard. I understand that in Maine they can be called 'widow makers.'  Our tree guy, Mick McGrew, came on Tuesday, to take them down. I was apprehensive about how much damage to the emerging garden there would be. I could not watch, as I ran away to work. My neighbor Bob took the pictures.

The machine was like a giant spider.

Everything was fine. Mick was able to set up in the middle of the backyard, staying mostly on the paths. 4 days later you could not tell they had been there. And the Sycamore tree looks so much better.

Last Week in the contest...

It was no contest. I cannot remember a week over the years when one picture was so dominant. It was the heretofore unnamed orange coneflower. With the arrival of one particular perennial catalog I believe I have the name. Echinacea Sombrero 'Grenada Gold'. The plant is patented. That is kind of a new developement in the world of flower, just in the last decade. Darwin perennials seems to get the credit as the breeder of the Sombrero line of coneflowers. They are rather wonderful. The term 'more' does come to mind. I will confess that 'more' could mean more of Grenada Gold, or more Echinacea.

Here is the full voting totals

This Week- 

Week 3 of the playoffs

This week will give us the final contestant in the final finals, which will take place in just one week.

#1 Coneflower Lemon Drop

 July 4, 2020

Here you have another pretty wonderful coneflower. I saw this plant in a magazine in 2019, but could not find it in commerce that year. It was there in 2020, and is now widely in circulation. So I got one. And here it is.

#2 Heavenly blue morning glory 

August 25, 2020

I really want to do more with morning glories this year. Maybe I will also figure out what fertilizer makes them bloom more. 

But Heavenly Blue is certainly a good color.

#3 White Tree peony 

May 16, 2020

The buds are swelling on these plants. I should get them fertilizer now while they are waking up. 

#4 White Iceland poppy 

May 23, 2020

Iceland poppies need no introduction. They could have their own contest. Maybe in a team competition there could be the Iceland poppies against the coneflowers. Depth would have to count.

#5 Clematis Henryi

 May 24, 2020

This 5 year old plant finally got going this last year. These flowers are special.

I think this will be a closer contest than last week.

For the moment I could not identify a favorite.

Tell me what you like.

Right Now

This next crocus is perhaps my favorite. It is called tri-color. The first picture is before it opened.

Here it is, opened several hours later.

More giant machine pictures

Julia's recipe - 

with a special guest appearance by Elisabeth Snell

Olive Oil Lemon Tart

Hello! I am one of the four people that arrived on the Mearses doorstep in mid-January, known as Mama. I can't actually recommend an isolated mid-winter northern cross-country road trip with a newly minted four year old and an infant. You have so many other things you might want to do with those four travel days: back episodes of Antiques Road Show, that paint-by-numbers of the kittens playing with balls of yarn, scraping old carrots across a sharp piece of tin that Pa hammered out for you so you can add a bit of color (and hopefully not a digit) to the slow churned butter for Saturday night supper in the Big Woods. But, if you find yourself with a preschooler and a new baby, two full time jobs, no childcare, a terrifying pandemic, and no family nearby, the Mearses doorstep is where you want to be. We will never be able to thank them adequately for their generosity and love, but I figured at least I could chip away by producing them grandchildren AND a version of this delicious lemon tart. 

I used to be a reasonably good cook, but then when K and I got together and she was both bossy and a great cook, I gladly gave it up.  And now when I ask what does everyone want for lunch, Christopher suspiciously says not the grilled cheese that sets off the smoke alarm (ONE TIME, kid! Okay, two times). Smoke alarms aside, what I like about this tart is that it's fairly fool-proof, and you can call it by its full name, an Olive Oil Lemon Tart, if you want to be fancy. I guess I haven't made enough Tarts to discern any significant difference; it's not like I take a bite of this one, nod wisely and say "ah, there's the olive oil, a bit grassy." But as they are wont to do, the Cooks.Illustrated writers spend quite a few words articulating why this and not that. What I know is that it's quick, easy, delicious, and there's rarely any leftovers. 

Here I am! I mean, here are your ingredients. You'll want:

Crust: 

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

5 TBS sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 C extra-virgin olive oil

2 TBS water 

Filling: 

1 C sugar

2 TBS all-purpose flour

1/4 tsp salt

3 large eggs, plus 3 large yolks

1 heaping TBS grated lemon zest

1/2 C lemon juice (so, about three lemons)

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Also find a pie tart, preferably one with a removable bottom, and a thermometer.

Set your oven to 350. Thumbs up and self-affirmations optional. 

Whisk your flour, sugar and salt. Preferably using your six mos old, who appears to be an exceptionally good Helper.

Then add the oil and the water, and mix it up until a uniform dough appears. What you're looking for is sort of an oily blob. (Wow, I should absolutely leave research and evaluation to pursue food writing; I am positively poetic.)
 

Then, crumble 3/4 of the blob into a pie tart, preferably one with a removable bottom, and press it out with your fingers. Julia Mears has a pie tart with a removable bottom, but when we made this at home I think we used a chipped ceramic pie plate, and it came out fine (see: fairly fool-proof). Crumble the remaining 1/4 of the dough around the edges, and press it against the sides. (I had to deploy my sous-chef K to do the pressing work because I had been called away, rather urgently, as it was my turn to be "The Wiper," and that's all I'll say about that.) Then put the pan on a rimmed baking sheet and bake until the crust is deep golden brown and firm to the touch. The original Cooks.Illustrated recipe says that's about 30 - 35 minutes, and for me it was more like 40 minutes. Also, rotate the pan once halfway through, except, if you forget, because you are The Wiper and have bigger things on your mind, that's fine too. 

Alright, so now you're going to work on the filling. The original recipe says to do this 5 minutes before the crust is done baking, but I needed more like 15 minutes to get this all together.

Whisk the flour, sugar and salt in a medium saucepan, then whisk in the eggs and yolk, and once you've got a nice even tone with no streaky eggs, whisk in the lemon zest and juice. (Readers, a confession: The recipe calls for a tablespoon of lemon zest, but I really like lemon. So unknown to my tasters, I added almost two tablespoons, and it was divine, and besides we've got to do something to prevent scurvy during these Iowan winters). Then, constantly whisk the mixture over medium heat, until it gets to about thick pudding texture, and registers 160 degrees.  

There is your lovely thick lemon pudding. When you take it off the heat, whisk in the olive oil until incorporated. Now, at this point, you're supposed to strain the curd through a fine-mesh strainer set over a bowl, and then pour the strained curd into your baked piecrust. But I haven't ever done this step, because who has time?! If you are not otherwise occupied trying to answer pressing questions about whether cross-country Amtrak trains use diesel, electric or dual-mode locomotives, then I say go for this. And let me know how the mouth-feel turns out! 

Here my sous-chef is scraping all the curd from the pan and spreading it into the pie crust. 

Then bake until the filling is set and barely jiggles when you shake the pan, about 8 - 12 minutes. Let it cool on a wire rack until it's good and cooled, all the way, which is going to take at least two hours. Slice, serve! And the leftovers, if you make it that far, are delicious.

Odds and Ends

It took Maisie several days to get used to a hat.

The snow is all gone. Because the snow persisted in certain parts of the yard, those parts are maybe behind the others in terms of waking up. That means that the aconite in those areas are still going strong, while the earliest plants are fading.

That is it for this week. I think I know what time it is. We used to just set our clocks ahead an hour. Now we have to remember which clocks will set themselves. I just know that I will not be able to garden by 7 this morning. I will enjoy that hour of daylight  this afternoon. I do not know what that will do to the sleep schedules of the young.

Be safe.

Philip