August 6, 2023- Low summer with the occasional gem

August - If July is high summer in the garden,  August might be low summer. It probably should be a time for annuals. Zinnias and lantana come to mind. I do not have as many annuals as I would like to have. 

But there are flags.

Still no rain. While the temperatures have moderated, the sun when it is 85, can be quite warm. There was suppose to be rain this weekend. It does not look promising.

I do have kale seedlings. We planted them 2 weeks and they are in a local greenhouse growing. We will see what they look like mid September. So far about 75% germination. We planted 128 cells.

Last week in the poll

You liked the zinnia. It got my vote. 

The full vote was

This week in pictures- July 30 to August 5, 2023

#1 Volcanic Explosion - daylily

There are so many daylilies in cultivation. The names are great too. The late ones are all the more appreciated.

#2 Hibiscus Starry Starry Night

As I travel around it is apparent that hardy hibicus are one of the main perennials for August. Starry Atarry Night was lost one spring. I replaced it and the replacement is doing fine.

#3  Epiphyllim Oxypetalum

An assist with this picture goes to neighbor Bob. He stayed up and took the picture. This is the real Queen of the Night. It opens close to midnight and is finished by dawn. 

I am waiting for the big plants to have their bud production triggered. We need a cold spell, I think. I want to go back in the picture archive and look at when the big flush happened. I want to see if there was something about 4-6 weeks before that that would have been the trigger.

At the moment these plants are blooming one flower at a time.

#4 Red Zinnia

Red is good.

#5 Caladium

The caladium are doing well. I did not get many this year. There was some crop failure in Florida. They are on the "more" list

Other pictures

The first eggplant from the "farm" became moussaka.

Gardening- it is so often thinking about what is yet to come. You find the bud on the cactus, which should bloom in a few days. Here are some buds on the Japanese anemone clump.

This is hoya 'Lisa.'

The blackberry lilies are still blooming. Here is a little video. The little flowers can get lost in a video. But this might give you an idea.

Julia's recipe

Chicken Salad with Fennell

We make several kinds of chicken salad, not minced enough to put in a sandwich but a bit chunky to be a main dish. This is a simple salad, not many ingredients and quickly made, assuming that you have cold chicken on hand, which I often do. The recipe is slightly adapted from an old cookbook called Greene on Greens, which, as you'd expect, is all about vegetables. This recipe is from the fennel chapter.

The ingredients:

2 cups or so chopped chicken;

1 cup chopped fennel bulb;

1/4 cup finely chopped red onion;

1/3 cup mayo;

1 teaspoon dijon mustard;

a splash of white wine (not shown); 

salt and pepper to taste; and

some fennel fronds to garnish. 

I cut the tops and bottoms off the fennel bulbs, then I split them lengthwise, cut each half into lengthwise slices and chopped the sections into small pieces. 

I chopped some red onion into finer pieces and put both sets of vegetables into the eventual serving bowl. Next, I skinned and deboned the cold chicken and cut it into pieces that were a little bigger than the fennel pieces. I added that to the bowl. 

Off camera, I put the mayo and mustard into a little bowl and mixed them up. The recipe wanted me to use 1 cup mayo. Way too much, I thought. The recipe also wanted me to use about 2 tablespoons of pernod, an anise-flavored liqueur. I don't have pernod. Instead, splashed in a little white wine to thin the mixture and scraped the dressing onto the salad. I mixed and tasted and added a bit of salt and pepper and it was ready. 

I had cut most of the tops off the fennel earlier in the week. Crowded refrigerator. So I did not have as much fennel frond left as I would have liked. I sprinkled what I had.

We had the chicken salad with tomato-cucumber-red onion-feta-kalamata olive salad and cantelope. It was a nice light supper on a hot day. No need for the oven! 

Fennel is not a regular in my refrigerator, but I need to remember it. Sometimes it is roasted with root vegetables to accompany baked chicken or pork. But it's also good raw in a salad, crunchy like celery with a faintly licorice flavor. Leftover chicken salad is always good for lunch. This chicken salad is no exception. 

Odds and Ends

The neighbors:

The twins are getting used to the neighbors back yard for the evening. Unfortunately the fence is gone. 

I will have to do something. I think more spraying is in the offing. 

I did speak to someone yesterday who had triplets in his neighborhood.

I am so tired of hearing about a certain former president. What fools his supporters are. As much as I try to think concilliating thoughts in their direction it is difficult. Unfortunately here in Iowa we are in for another 5 months of this nonsense.

Pray for peace. It seems we are just used to continuing war. I cannot imagine how tired all the combatants must be. And their families. Does prayer do any good?

Philip