August 13, 2023- some nice rain

I think it was Friday morning about 4:30 when there was thunder. It has rained so little these last two years that it was a novelty to hear thunder.

This time there was thunder without really any wind. The rain came straight down, and mostly soaked right in. Bob measured 1.6 inches next door. Officially it was 1.02 inch. But that was in addition to another gentle 1.13 this past Monday. Two rains in one week. Wow. I am not ready to put away the hose but this has been very welcome.

I can certainly attest to the fact that the weeds pulled easily yesterday, which really was the garden work day.

The little ornamental kale seedlings, planted 3 weeks ago, were unaffected by rain. They are in a greenhouse.

But look at them

Last Week the Night Blooming Cereus edged out the late daylily.

Bob took a really nice picture, of a flower that bloomed very late in the nighttime.

The full vote:

Here is the best from August 6-August 12, 2023

#1 Cactus flowers

#2 Yellow Hibiscus

#3 Hydrangea paniculata 'Unique'

#5 Persian Shield

This grouping has illustrated the use of the mass planting. When something works my instinct is to say "more."

#5 Lilium 'Uchida'

The full name of this very late blooming lilium is Speciosum Rubrum 'Uchida'. 

It is described in one catelogue as the genetic ancester of many modern lily hybrids. It is now a nice clump near the magnolia tree/bush in the backyard.

Other pictures

Voodoo lilies are one of my new current favorites. We just got 11 plants for the backyard sale. I will write more next week. By the way the sale just passed the $5000 mark for the year.

Julia's recipe

Indian Squash

I have always (almost always) cooked with a plan. I write a menu on Thursday at dinner and shop on Friday afternoon (with a swing through the farmer's market on Saturday in the growing season). But sometimes in the summer vegetables happen, whether through the generosity of friends or through impulse purchases or through the productivity of our little garden plot. Then one has to figure out what to do with the unexpected.  Here is a recipe if you find yourself with a medium-ish squash and some cherry tomatoes. The recipe is from Madhur Jaffrey's World of the East vegetarian cookbook. 

The ingredients:

1 yellow squash, to yield about 2 cups when cut up (I had yellow zucchini which is more uniform in shape than crookneck, another yellow variety);

2 cups sliced onion;

2 cups cherry tomatoes;

4 tablespoons regular oil;

1 teaspoon cumin seed;

1-1/2 teaspoon kosher salt;

1/8 (or so) teaspoon black pepper;

1/8 (or so) teaspoon cayenne pepper;

1-1/2 tablespoon lemon juice; and

1/4 cup chopped parsley.

I started by washing and cutting the ends off the yellow zucchini and then I cut it lengthwise into quarters and sliced the quarters into 1/2"to 3/4" chunks. 

Next, I cleaned the onion and cut it in half up and down (pole to pole, as it were). I cut each half into thin half-moons. 

And I washed the cherry tomatoes and minced the parsley. 

Next, I heated the oil in a skillet on medium-high and added the cumin seed when the oil was kind of hot. I let the sumin seed sizzle away for maybe a minute or two. 

I think this is an action video of what happened next: I added the onions to the hot oil and cumin and stirred it around while the onions sizzled. 

After a few minutes (the onions started to soften, but no browning), I added the tomatoes. I turned down the heat to medium and put a lid on the skillet. After about 5 minutes, I took the lid off and used my potato masher to mash some of the tomatoes. 

If you are using chopped big tomatoes, you probably will not need to mash. The cut-up tomatoes will break down all on their own. 

Here's a picture of all of the meal prep at once (except for the salad and the blueberries). The covered saucepan has basmati rice, steaming. The covered big skillet contains potato-yogurt curry, for which there is a recipe somewhere on the kitchen blog, and the little skillet is banana raita, for which there is also a recipe somewhere on the blog. 

Shortly after that picture was taken, I added the squash, the salt and a little bit of water (like 1/4 cup) to the tomato-onion mixture. I stirred it up, put the lid back on the skillet and let it cook on medium for about 15 minutes. 

I gave the skillet a stir or two during the cooking time. The idea is to cook the squash so it's done but not turned to mush. 

After about 15 minutes, the squash had reached the correct consistency and I added the lemon juice, black pepper, cayenne pepper and chopped parsley. No picture of this addition. I gave it a stir and it was ready.  

On the table! As I said, we had potato curry and rice and banana raita (with yogurt) plus salad and blueberries. Very satisfying vegetarian meal. 

We had leftover potato curry and squash, both of which were good the next day. 

Odds and Ends

New Garden words

Umbel

The cluster of hoya flowers is called an "umbel."

1. a flower cluster in which stalks of nearly equal length spring from a common center and form a flat or curved surface, characteristic of the parsley family.

Stripee

Katie and Christopher have been following the adventures of this catepillar they found on their parsley. It will be a swallowtail butterfly. The video is to help show which end is the head. 

Here is a still picture if the video does not work.

By the way, caterpillar poop is called "frass."

We had our own insect sighting. This was on our front porch screen. We really had a hard time figuring out which end was the head.

The days are getting shorter. It had to happen. My gardening is reduced as I mostly garden early in the morning. I keep waiting for the accompanied reduction in the hot afternoon temperatures.

Pray for peace. It seems like the war in Ukrane has gone on forever. We must not forget. 

It is always so good to hear from all of you.

Philip