April 9, 2023- Just about the best time

Happy Easter

Happy Spring

Happy April when the sun is shining.

For directions for this delightful bunny read Julia's recipe today.

This next picture was going to have the lead, until the bunny was made yesterday afternoon.

This was early on Saturday morning when it was still dark outside. The plants under lights had awakened. The lady bug had found the Persian Shield, the very best purple that will go in the garden, when it is warmer.

So much to say. So much to do. So much to enjoy.

But first things first.

Last week you had a vote among past winning pictures in the contest.

The winning picture in that vote was the pink waterlily from 2008. So long ago. There would still be Obama. There would be the market crash. Donald who?

Here was your final vote:

It was such a gorgeous day yesterday I put together this impromptu vote of flowers blooming on April 8.

#1 Amaryllis

 #2 Chionodoxa

#3 Daffodil

#4 Bloodroot

#5 Hellebore

Now for random thoughts

Saturday morning- 5am

Warmer weather is finally here. There are no temperatures below 40 degrees in the ten day forecast. On the local garden forum someone asked if they can put out tomato plants yet. The answer is no. We are still a month from the frost free date. That early May freeze happens every now and again. I really toasted some pepper plants a few years ago. Even watching the forecast does not make early May safe.

I think about moving some house plants outside. We have company coming in 10 days (Katie and family) and the room in the basement with many plants will need to be used for people.(That would be Julia and myself.)  One problem faced every spring is the lack of leaves on the trees. If you take a houseplant (such as a croton) outside, it will sunburn unless protected. That is particularly the case if the temperature gets to 80.  

Update: We slept with a window opened for the first time this year. 

Then there are the deer. We do not have many, but they show up often. A nice clump of trillium disappeared one night this week. I have on my weekend to-do list trying out the deer barrier. It consists of a ribbon about an inch wide. You string it up and spray it with a form of deer repellant. This acts like a fence. 

Update: The ribbon is put up. 

I am trying it in the side yard, maybe interdicting the deer path to the back yard. Do what you can becomes the motto. For now I carry my little lettuce plants out every morning before work. They then come in the garage at night.

So much work to do.

The things-to-do list gets a lot of attention at the moment.  I am waking well before 5 these days. I can putter around with the seedlings in the basement, with artificial dawn breaking by 5:30: lights are on a timer. I must have 200 seedlings in very small pots these days. There are poppies, lupine and coleus seedligs. Then there are the houseplant cuttings. 

Many are ready for bigger pots. After they get in bigger pots they can go to the garage for 24 hours. Then they can go outside during the day. When it does get to 80 degrees I may have to rethink this strategy. 

The plant sale for the foodbanks is entering its fourth year. I have begun potting bluebells, which I can do as long as the plants are no more than two inches tall. My goal is 50 plants. I have only just begun.

Update: We sold over $200 yesterday. Sometimes money just materializes in the mailbox and you wonder what was sold.

I still try to work the garden in 30-45 minute repetitions. During those sessions I do some potting interspersed with getting the last of the winter leaves raked off. Despite my continued efforts there are still parts of the yard that need that attention. 

All that potting requires dirt. On the to-do list is a trip to the landfill, for their professional grade compost. That will become much more important when I start potting hosta in 2-3 weeks. So far thee are waiting for this warm weather. I do expect to find the first hosta shoots this weekend.

Update: The first hosta did appear.

Here are a few observations from the week.

Sunday- The spring bulb catalogs have begun to arrive, even if some are only virtual. I now know what a 1000 winter aconite will cost. There is no reduced for buying in quantities of larger than 1000.

It is time to take inventory of the garden, just thinking about early bulbs. What parts seemed bare in March? Where could I put a few hundred snowdrops? Brent and Becky's have an interesting snowdrop called Dionysus. It costs $3 per bulb. Sometimes there is a relationship between how interesting something is and its price.

The best way I find to remember where you need something is to take a video and save it in your pictures. I am taking a video to tell me where to put some bulbs with color. I do recommend also making a list of videos. 

The late crocuses are wonderful.

The aconite have finished blooming. They do make a grand green carpet, through which certain flowers emerge. This is an interesting contrast with the earlier brown background.

Monday

This really strange iris starts out right there on the surface. It is an iris cristata. It is a wildflower.

These are pink chionodixa. 

The trillium rises to be counted.

Wednesday

The anemone blandas have arrived.

Thursday- The new snow trillium just showed up. They are small and in two different parts of the yard. They are so small that at the moment pictures are not helpful.

The carpets of little flowers are everywhere. It was only 2 weeks ago when yellow was the dominant color.

This is pushkinia. It spreads over time. I really need to find the time to weed my paths of these tiny bulbs. I can then save the bulbs and put them in someplace later.

In this picture you can see the difference between the chionodoxa and the scilla. The scilla are all blue and mostly have their face down.

All that scilla.

I do have to pull some of them when they begin to crowd the perennials. 

Friday- the first zinnia seedling has shown up. I just planted them inside last weekend. I got several smaller varieties and decided to try some of the smaller varieties inside. You do have to remember how fragile seedlings can be. You have to water them every day or two or they will not make it. Part of that is their lights can be warm.

In the daily effort to locate something new, I located the fern leaf peony on Friday, just emerging. I really ought to get it a label. Getting new labels should be on the to-do list. I can do that after dark, assuming I can stay awake. Actually I find I can find a burst of energy if I just go outside after supper. Maybe "burst" is an overstatement. I can find some energy if I just go outside and pick up a trowel. 

Other plants that found the daylight this weekend were the martagon lilies. I suspect they are tasty so I got the deer spring out for them.

Here is the clump of cypripedium orchids. I count 11 shoots this year. 

Julia's recipe

Bunny Cake

Usually I make a lamb cake for Easter. I have a lamb cake mold, as my grandmother had and used, which is where I picked up the tradition. This year, I decided to change it up and make a flat spring-themed cake.This is a cut-out (or maybe cut-up cake). No mold, just a knife to cut cakes into assemble-able pieces and a lot of frosting. I once made a three dimensional cut-up cake for Katie's birthday when she was little. It was supposed to be a chalet. Only the roof slid off so it looked like a chalet that had been clobbered by an avanlanche. Thereafter, I stuck to flat cakes or lamb cakes. Anyway, here is a bunny cake. Easy to make and seasonal and silly. The cake recipe is from an old copy of the Joy of Cooking. The frosting is my take on some recipe I must have read somewhere, but at this point, it's just mine. 

The ingredients for the cake: 

1/2 cup soft butter (1 stick); 

1-1/4 cups white sugar;

2-1/4 cups cake flour (see below);

2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder;

1/4 teaspoon salt (see below);

1 cup milk (I use whole);

1 teaspoon vanilla;

4 egg whites; and 

1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar (not shown).

I'll use the yolks when we have scrambled eggs later this week.

The ingredients for the frosting:

1/2 cup soft butter (1 stick);

1 8oz. pkg. cream cheese;

6 cups powdered sugar;

a sprinkle of salt;

1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla; and 

4 tablespoons whole milk yogurt ( see below).

Plus decorative bits to make bunny features. 

If you do not have cake flour, sift all purpose flour and use less - about 2 cups and 2 tablespoons. If you use unsalted butter for the cake, use 1/2 teaspoon of salt. If you don't have yogurt for the frosting, use whole milk - maybe 3 tablespoons,

The frosting recipe makes a lot - I was lavish on the cake (partially to make sure to adequately frost the cut edges on the ears and bowtie). I had about 1 or 1-1/4 cups left over. The frosting freezes well, and it means if you have a cake-baking impulse, all you have to do is defrost the frosting and you're all set to be festive. 

I started by beating the egg whites until stiff but not dry, as the cookbooks say. I started by adding a pinch of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar to make whipping them easier. Something about the pH of the egg whites. 

This is a picture of stiff but not dry. See how the little peaks stand up by themselves when the beaters were removed? That's it. 

I set this bowl aside and turned my attention to the rest of the cake ingredients. 

I put the cake flour, salt and baking powder in a bowl and stirred them together. 

I put the milk and the vanilla in a measuring cup.

Next I put the stick of soft-ish butter plus the sugar in a different bowl and used the same beater to mix them. When the butter and sugar were mixed but still a little lumpy, I added about 1/3 of the dry ingredients and mixed with the mixer, followed by part of the milk/vanilla and more mixing. 

I did this 3 times, until all of the dry and all of the wet were mixed in.  

Next up: the egg whites. I added about 1/3 of the egg whites and mixed them in with the mixer to lighten up the batter a little - it was pretty thick. 

I added the rest of the egg whites in two dollops and folded them in with the spatula near my right hand. 

Oh - I turned the oven on the 350 degrees. I sprayed and floured 2 8" cake pans and a little pie plate. The recipe called for 9" cake pans, which (obviously) are bigger. The extra batter went into the little pie plate and P and I ate it. 

In the oven - both 8" cake pans and the little pie plate (also lubed up). 

I baked the cakes for 25 minutes (the pie plate cake was done in 20 minutes).

When the cakes came out, I set them to cool on a cooling rack and after 10 minutes or so, I turned them out of the pans onto the rack. 

When the cakes were cold, I cut one of them to make ears and a bowtie. 

I used the fold-up paper technique to make a template. Kind of like making a heart out of folded paper only easier. Size does matter, and I ended up trimming the template to make it smaller. 

Somehow, I did not center the template so the resulting bowtie was a bit lopsided. This is how you know this is a homemade product. 

Cutting out the second ear.

The inside of the bunny on a big cutting board. 

Next, I made the frosting. I started by creaming the butter and cream cheese. Then I added a little salt and vanilla followed by 2 cups of powdered sugar and 2 tablespoons of yogurt. I added more powdered sugar (totalling 4 more cups) and 2 more tablespoons of yogurt, and I liked the consistency. 

I used a scoop/disher to plop blobs of frosting hither and yon. I used a little metal spatula to smooth the frosting all over the cake. I pushed frosting from the top over the edge without a lot of lateral spreading (if you see what I mean) to prevent cake crumbs from being spread around. 

Then I started decorating. 

I found some short skewers for whiskers. I had planned to use licorice string, but I could not find any, not even for ready money. 

I took a bit of the frosting and mixed in some green paste food coloring to jazz up the bowtie. 

I had some chocolate covered coffee beans for eyes; a pink jellybean for a nose; some strange pink fruit leather (sort of) from which I cut out a smile; assorted jellybeans for tie-dye inner ears and a bit of coconut over all.  

And here you go! Festive! Cheerful! Springy!

Odds and ends

Gardeners are never satisfied. It is either too cold, or too hot, or too dry. Having gone through two tornado scares in the last 10 days, it is with mixed feelings that I see little or no moisture in the next week. A drizzle with temperatures in the 50's would be the best for potting up anything. That does not seem likely. I guess the watering cans will get a workout.

The garden plot we rent is to be open and available next weekend. I have had our plot rototilled the last 3 years. Maybe it will not need it this year. (You get the same space.) I am not sure what I would plant there anyway. The big change will be that there will be a water source right there. I will only need a short hose to water the amaryllis or the eggplants. I find okra a pretty plant. Maybe I should try some.

We have such lovely weather the last few days. The garden is so nice. There are so many things to look forward to, including a visit from our grandchildren.

I need to pause to remember the tornados that damaged some of our neighboring towns. Legislatures are so cruel at times. You want to find common ground. But how can you? I suppose you should remember they are just scared. Scared of anything that is different. But everyone is scared at times. Can we find common ground by finding mutual things to be scared of? If you figure it out, write it down and let me know.

Pray for peace, and reconciliation. But remember tht bunny cake, and smile.

Let me hear from you. That really matters.

Philip