Week 8, January 16, 2022

It was melting.

We had a brief look at what spring will feel like this week. For 3 consecutive days it reached the 40's in Iowa City. 

The snow began to melt, actually disappearing in some places. I looked for snowdrops but did not find any.

Of course it was only temporary. We had another Friday snow event. Another 4-5 inches fell and now it is all white again. 

The other big news of the week was the deer sighting. Our neighbor saw the herd and wrote us about it. They were in a neighbor's yard across the street. What jumped out at me from the short email was the number.

17- oh my.

Apparently only a smaller group of them came to visit my yard. I had seen tracks but had no idea.

This time of year the only real vegetation in the garden includes the hellebores and a few "evergreen" epimedium. As you would expect those few "available" leaves probably taste bad.

I checked the little dogwood trees, looking for bark damage. The deer had stripped one of the new acquisitions a few years ago. I did not see any such damage. Sometimes however you do not want to look too closely.

Last Week in the contest the winner was 

The white Shirley poppy.

What elegance. 

The second Shirley poppy advances to the next round, which will be in 6 weeks.

The full voting was

The Pink Orchid cactus was a strong second. It would be the wild card leader at the moment.

This Week-week 8

#1 Paphiopedilum Macabre Venus 

January 23, 2021

This was a particularly special plant from this past January. It bloomed in the room Christopher slept in at the time.There is a  plant stand there with most of the orchids. 

This is a paphiopedilum or slipper orchid. I find them hard to grow. I purchased this plant in September of 2020, so it was primed to bloom upon purchase. It cost maybe $25 and was worth it.

This webpage is interesting because it shows pictures of the parentage of this plant.

https://www.orchidroots.com/detail/information/?pid=101026516&role=

Paphiopedilum is the genus. It is in the orchid "family." Cypripedium is the subfamily. There are hardy cypripedium that grow outside in the garden.

#2 Modern Art Daffodil 

April 16, 2021

This hybridized daffodil was developed in the Netherlands in 1973.

Narcissus is the genus. Daffodil and Jonquil are common names.

The flowers have been around for thousands of years.

They have what are described as "contractile roots" that are said to pull the bulb deeper into the ground.

In commerce they are divided into "divisions." These are mostly descriptive. "Large cupped" is one such division.

They do come back every year. This makes them different from most tulips.

You are not supposed to cut the foliage back until it withers on its own. You should dead head them, right after the bloom is done. You do not want any energy going into making seeds.

While most spring bulbs die back by June 1, daffodils can linger into July. I give myself permission to just cut them all back by July 1, if they are still hanging around.

Here is wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissus_(plant)

#3 Multicolor tulip  April 27, 2021

This is perhaps a tulip called Violetta. Tulips like daffodils, are listed in catalogues by group. This little guy is in the "miscellaneous" group. I think many of these are at least closer to being "species." That means they are closer to being found in the wild. They are more apt to come back every year.

#4 Little Siberian Iris 

May 20, 2021

This Siberian Iris is just different from its cousins. 

It is slimmer. It is pale blue.

I do not know its name. There is one called Snowcrest that is quite like this, only not as much blue.

If the contest was all about composition, this picture should be near the top.

I really like the way the flower is set against all those leaves in the background.

I have had it for a long time. Digital pictures of this iris go back almost 20 years. 

It was a gift from a fellow gardener all those years ago.

Siberian iris, like many long lived perennials do appreciate a move every 4-5 years. Sometimes I get around to it every 10-15 years. Moving it implies that there is room someplace else. Of course whenever you move a plant you wind up dividing the plant and then you have too many. Of course that means you should have a sale. Wait---I do that all the time. How perfect.

#5 Red Hibiscus

 July 20, 2021

This lovely bright red hibiscus keeps us company all winter. It has bloomed continuously since we brought it inside in October.

This flower was outside in July. 

The genus is hibiscus. It is in the mallow family. There are some that are hardy in Iowa. Not this one.

The pointy part is the "stigma" which is the part of the pistil where the pollen germinates. For the complete descriptions of the parts of a flower here is something from a museum. 

https://www.amnh.org/learn-teach/curriculum-collections/biodiversity-counts/plant-identification/plant-morphology/parts-of-a-flower

Bonus Section

Here is a Siberian Iris slideshow. I hope it works. 

Here are some other Siberian Iris pictures.

This iris below is actually a two time winner of the contest, winning in 2009 and 2019. It is Jeweled Crown.

Right now

I have been trying to plant some seeds every day. The first things to sprout were the Iceland poppies planted two weeks ago. Not much to look at now. But you wait a couple of months.

In November Katie got me this miniature amaryllis. I planted it on November 12, 2021. You can get an idea of the size of the bulb by comparing it with the avocado.

I was going to give you an idea how long it took for these plants to bloom.

This was December 16, 2021. The bud had grown up and bloomed for a few weeks. I believe there were 5 flowers at the top of the stem.
 

What a great profile this flower made.

By December 18, 2021 the second bud was growing.

By January 15, the second flower stalk was blooming.

with 6 flowers open. 

I hope you can see what I want you to see in this picture to the right.

There are 4 more buds that had not yet opened. This flower stalk will have 10 flowers before it is done.

I have never seen anything come close to that before.

Here is a little video:

Another picture of the hibiscus plant that greets us down the hall every morning as we leave our bedroom.

Here are the slipper orchids from the garden.

 

Julia's recipe

Chicken Stir fry

The link to the website with all of Julia's recipes is

https://mearskitchen.wordpress.com/

I have had uneven experiences with stir-fry. Sometimes I have ended up with a hot spatter-y stovetop, without sufficient reward in terms of taste. This stir-fry is from the Cook's Magazine Cookbook from 2004. In this case, the obsessive investigation of method that is the hallmark of Cook's Illustrated was a plus. This stir-fry is tasty and pretty fast. As with any stir-fry, the prep time is the longest step on the way to dinner. But it's not that long, and the end product is worth it.  

The ingredients (first stage):

1 lb. (or so) skinless, boneless chicken breast;

1/4 cup soy sauce;

1/4 cup dry sherry;

1 cup water;

2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil;

1 tablespoon cornstarch; and 

1 tablespoon white flour. 

The ingredients for the actual dish:

the chicken, prepared as above;

about 3 tablespoons regular oil;

1 baby bok choy - maybe 3/4 cup;

1 smallish zucchini - about 1 cup;

1 pepper (any color) - about 3/4 cup.

Then there is sauce. For one sauce, 1/2 cup chicken stock (or bouillon); 2 tablespoons dry sherry;1 tablespoon soy sauce; 1 tablespoon oyster sauce; 1 teaspoon cornstarch; 1 teaspoon sugar; 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes and 2 teaspoons grated ginger. For the other sauce: 2 teaspoons grated ginger; 1 teaspoon smushed garlic and 1 teaspoon oil. 

I appreciate that the ingredient list may appear daunting. Stay with me. It's not as complicated as one would think. 

First the chicken. I cut each chicken breast cross-wise into strips maybe 1/2" wide. 

Next, I cut each strip into small pieces, about 1/2" to 3/4". Then I flattened the pieces with the side of the chef's knife so that I had little flat squares of chicken. 

When the chicken was all cut up and flattened, I made the marinade.

I mixed together the soy sauce, water, sherry, sesame oil, cornstarch and flour in a small bowl and added the chicken bits. 

I let that sit for 20 minutes. 

Here is the bowl of marinade with some of the chicken already on board. 

While the chicken was sitting, I put white rice on to cook and turned my attention to the rest of the ingredients. 

I seeded the pepper and cut it into narrow strips; I cut the green top part away from the white bottom part of the bok choy, and then sliced each part into smaller pieces - the green part into ribbons; the white part into slices, sort of. 

I cut the zucchini into thirds, then stood each chunk on end to cut it into little matchsticks. 

Lastly (before the actual cooking began), I made the sauces. I grated some ginger and smushed a garlic or two. One half of the ginger plus the garlic plus a bit of oil went into one little dish. 

The rest of the ginger and the chicken bouillon/stock, soy sauce, sherry, oyster sauce, sesame oil, red pepper flakes, cornstarch and sugar went into another bigger little bowl.  The ginger-garlic-oil mixture is in the little pyrex dish. The other sauce is in the blue and white bowl. 

Now it was time to cook. 

I heated (on medium high)1 tablespoon of oil in a non-stick skillet. I used a slotted spoon to fish one half of the chicken bits out of the marinade. When the oil was shimmering, I put one-half of the chicken in a single layer. It really only took about 1 minute for the chicken to become golden brown. I turned it over and cooked the other side. Then I used another spoon (not the raw chicken marinade-y one) to transfer the chicken to a clean bowl. 

Then I did it again with the other chicken bits. 

I discarded the marinade.

  

With the chicken waiting in the bowl, I added another tablespoon of oil to the skillet, brought that oil to a shimmer and added the zucchini, pepper strips and the white part of the bok choy.

I cooked the vegetables for just 2 or 3 minutes. 

Then I shoved the vegetables to the sides of the skillet and put the ginger-garlic-oil mixture in the middle. After maybe 30 seconds, the aromatics got aromatic and I stirred the vegetables back into the middle of the skillet to mix with the aromatics. 

Here is a little video of the last step. After the vegetables all came together in the middle of the skillet, I added the bok choy greens and then the chicken. I stirred the sauce again, and then added the sauce. The cornstarch thickened the sauce in just a minute or two and dinner was ready. 

Here it is, on a slightly too big platter, which was a Christmas present and so I wanted to use it on the first opportunity. We had the stir-fry with rice, naturally. It did not need any additional soy sauce or other at-the-table add-on. 

We had green salad, of course, and I think fresh pineapple. 

A couple of notes: I added the zucchini, because I thought that the ratio of chicken to veggies in the recipe was too chicken-heavy. You decide. Also the recipe wanted the chicken to marinate in just the soy sauce, sherry and water and then to be dredged in the sesame oil cornstarch and flour. I did not do that. Lastly, I think sesame oil and soy sauce and oyster sauce are important. I happen to have a bottle of dry sherry. If you don't, I do not think the recipe would suffer by its omission. 

Odds and Ends

65 days till spring. Daylight is getting stronger.

Nut it is still a dangerous world out there.

This week I am going to have to think about deer deterrents. That will probably involve smelly stuff. 

We had a taste of warmer weather this past week. It was a nice reminder of what waits for is at the end of this dark time.

I should plant some more seeds.

Be safe.

Philip