October 10, 2021- A week for the heavyweights

Fall continues. It seems like there are no real changes. This just disguises the inevitable,

It remains reasonably warm. Even the 40's at night disappeared this week. And no real rain. ( A good soaking is forecast for tomorrow.) I am using the sprinkler quite a bit.  The sky actually sprinkled for several hours Friday morning. It only came to about a tenth of an inch. We have now had about a half an inch of rain in about six weeks. 

The great plant migration has begun. The first plants went to the office. We have an older light stand there. And then there are windows. There are south facing windows in 4 offices. 

I should really start bringing in some of the larger plants. The best time to do anything is the first time you have the time to do it. You do not want to wait until it is going to be 34 degrees and  raining. 

This week was dominated by the more sensational members of the garden, the heavyweights.

First up were more cactus flowers, on Tuesday. I love the plant on the right. It is the oldest and certainly the most complex. It has many little plants, all over, even on top. You can see it in greater detail in the second and third pictures.

They seem like Tiffany vases.

Then there was the second major plant to bloom.

Let me now take you through this last week or so with Epiphyllum oxypetalum, sometimes called the Night Blooming Cereus.

This was October 2. This buds were hanging straight down.

This was October 5. You know the bloom was coming in a day or two when the bud curved around.

October 6, which was Wednesday.

October 7, about 5:30 pm

The buds started to show white.

About 7:30 there was a tiny hole at the end of the bud. 

That same night about 10pm.

The two buds in the top of the picture bloomed, the next night, Friday.

I should add that this was the latest in the year this plant had ever bloomed.

The cereus bloomed on two nights, Thursday and Friday. (Different buds.) There were a total of 5 flowers that bloomed. For whatever reason the second night, the two flowers stayed open until early morning light on Saturday morning. I was able to take this picture at 6:52. Sunrise was at 7:12.

For those of who remember the winter flower contest, you might think about this picture. I think it might go along way in the playoffs.

The next round of fall blooming crocuses are blooming, just popping up all over the place. There must have been 15 of them in just the back yard yesterday. I planted many of them in September, 2020.  

The white anemones are still doing nicely.

The lantana continues to be impressive. I particularly like this bicolored flower.

The bougainvillea are choosing this time of year to bloom. This is one of the big plants I have. 

Please welcome a new plant to the garden.

This is Montauk Daisy, also known as Nipponanthemum nipponicum. 

We have seen it on the east coast when we have traveled there in the fall. Remember travel?

One thing we have liked is that it appears to bloom in the fall.

Here is more information.

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/flowers/montauk-daisy/growing-montauk-daisies.htm

Julia's recipe

Chiffon cake

I was thinking about my grandmother a few weeks ago. Her birthday is September 18, and she would have been 129 years old. Sometimes it surprises me to think that I knew someone who would now be 129. Of course, Philip's parents, whose birthdays were last week, would have been 100. This means that I am pretty old myself, but it is also a source of some wonder to reflect on the passage of time. As the Grateful Dead put it, what a long strange trip it's been. My grandmother started out as the 8th of 15 children in a farm family in the province of Banat in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire and eventually ran her own rooming house in Des Plaines, Illinois. 

My grandmother made chiffon cake, and I have the plate she served it on. So I decided to make a chiffon cake in her memory. This recipe is from Betty Crocker, and I think my grandmother used a predecessor of this recipe from an earlier version of BC. I don't think this is a cake she made in the old country. 

Note: this makes a big cake, suitable for family gatherings or receptions or parties. Whenever such things happen again. 

The ingredients:

2-1/4 cups of cake flour (or 2 cups of regular flour);

1-1/2 cups of white sugar;

1 tablespoon baking powder;

1 teaspoon table (not kosher) salt;

5 egg yolks (or 7 with regular flour);

7 egg whites;

!/4 cup orange juice;

2 tablespoons of orange zest; and

1 teaspoon cream of tartar.

For the frosting: 1/3 cup soft butter; 1-1/2 tablespoons orange zest; 2-3 tablespoons of orange juice and 3 cups powdered sugar. 

Yes, I know this is a lot of orange zest. I ended up needing 3 good sized oranges to get that much zest, which did mean I had enough orange juice for the cake and frosting (and some to drink).

I started by zesting and juicing the oranges. 

I measured the flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder into a bowl. 

Next I separated the eggs, putting the whites into a big bowl. I had a couple of extra egg whites in the refrigerator from hollandaise sauce making so I had the right number of yolks and whites. You can simplify the math by using regular flour - which requires 7 eggs.  

I made a pit in the flour and poured in the oil, egg yolks, orange juice and orange zest. 

I had extra zest and juice which I set aside for frosting making. 

I used a whisk to incorporate the wets into the dries. 

Another picture of whisking.

Now I turned my attention to the egg whites. I added a pinch of salt and started to beat the egg whites. When the whites began to fluff up just a little, I added the cream of tartar. 

I beat the egg whites until they were stiff. 

Here is a picture of stiff egg whites. When one removes the beaters, there are little peaks. 

I then remembered to turn the oven on to 325 degrees. 

When the egg whites were done, I started slowly pouring the flour/sugar/oil/egg yolk mixture into the egg whites, folding the flour mixture in. I would stop pouring from time to time to concentrate on folding. This is done with a spatula, putting the spatula at the edge of the batter and going down and along the bottom of the bowl and then up to the middle of the batter. I think Philip took this video which will be better than a thousand words.  

When the ingredients were incorporated (but not beaten or folded past that point), I poured the batter into a 10" tube pan, one of those where the inside part and the bottom come apart. Do not lube the tube pan. 

I baked the cake for about 60 minutes. The recipe said 75 minutes, but that would have been too long in my oven. 

The cake is done when a bamboo skewer comes out clean and when the top springs back when you touch it. 

The cake needs to cool completely, which led me to an appreciation of the inadequacy of my tube pan. The hole in the middle is so small that I had to balance it on a tabasco sauce bottle. Not secure. I put the tabasco sauce bottle in a little canning jar which worked. But this is a design flaw. One wishes to cool such a cake (or angel food cake) by hanging the tube pan on a wine bottle or soy sauce bottle or wine vinegar bottle. 

This tube pan works for other cakes - poppy seed sour cream cake, for example but not cool-them-upside-down cakes. 

When the cake was cool, I flipped it over and ran a knife around the outer edge and lifted the cake out of the pan. 

Then I ran a knife around the tube part and around the bottom and turned the cake over onto a cake rack and then over again onto my grandmother's chiffon cake plate. 

I then made frosting by beating the butter and then adding the zest and some of the powdered sugar and the orange juice and the rest of the powdered sugar. 

Here it is. 

Here I am, back from church on a Sunday morning, cake in hand. 

Odds and Ends

Gardens evolve over time. Of course time can be measured in days, months, years or decades.

Trees come and go over time. Our pink crabs, that were so lovely in the spring, are almost all gone. In their place are small dogwoods.

Recently an infected full size ash tree, across the street at the dentist's office, was cut down. All of a sudden we have a few more hours of direct sun on that side of the yard.

The part of the garden along Fairview is going to be a little more sunny. That is where many of the new little iris have gone. It has a slight slope to it, which provides good drainage.

This is also where the new Montauk daisy has gone.

Sometimes when a plant comes inside, it gets cleaned up and even divided.

Here is bowiea volubilis, the blooming onion. 

We have had it for so long we have forgotten when it was acquired. I think it in the 10-20 year time frame. Of course in dividing it we now have 5 plants. I have put some on the sale table in the back driveway. I suspect it will not sell as people have no idea what it is.

Here is more information about this interesting succulent.

https://www.thespruce.com/climbing-sea-onion-plant-profile-5071999

This week is time to close the garden plot with the city. It was not a good year. There is no available sprinkler. I am ready to stop growing cherry tomatoes. They do get out of control when you are not looking.  The City did extend the season by two weeks, until October 15. But they will start fall preparation at that time. (That means they will plow it up. I have grown some amaryllis there this year. I need to go today and harvest them. 

It is time to post this session. It is so dark. 

I am getting the first of the bulb orders in the next day or so. 

We need to remember snowdrops and aconite and crocuses. They will arrive at some point and raise out spirits.

Be safe. Better times should be coming.

Philip