September 24, 2023-the month slips away

It has been kind of gloomy. It rained  several days this week, not really amounting to much. This weekend might bring us a more substantial amount. (not so far)

When it is cloudy it is dark for what seems like a long time. (Written early Saturday morning.)

We travel east in a little less than two weeks. We are off to Chicoteague and then to Maine. There is a lot to do before we can leave. That is true for both the garden and our work.

We hope that when we travel we will miss any hurricanes or even tropical storms. More likely we will have to cope with a government shutdown. 

I have not started bringing plants inside. I know it will get cold at some point. So far the 10 day forecast does not include any temperatures even in the 40's. (I really should not even say that or I will jinx it.) 

The sunny garden plot closes October 13. The amaryllis will need to come out of the ground. 

All the remaining kale has come to the house. I will have pictures next week.

When you are growing any kind of brassica, you have to think about cabbage moths. I have some dust that works reasonably well. However even a little rain washes it off. More about cabbage worms later.

Last Week you liked

Best of the week of September 17-23, 2023

#1  Epiphyllum hookeri

Hookeri is one of the 2 epiphyllum types that will bloom late in the season. The other is Oxypetalum, which is the Night Blooming Cereus. Hookeri will bloom one at a time, spreading their beauty over weeks. The NBC are mostly one and done. More later about NBC.

#2 Cactus flower

The cactus has bloomed several times this last month. A few more are coming.

#3 Little orange zinnia

Maybe this is Zahara. It is a short variety that showed up in stores 6-8 years ago. It stays short. That is less than 6-10 inches short. It is vigorous in the fall, before frost.

Every other picture I showed you from this week would be a repeat. You do not need to see more anemones or lantana. So pick what you like from these three pictures.

More pictures

I have been showing you for several weeks the progress of the ornamental kale.

Here is this week's video.

I can report that having them in the ground with at least 5 hours sun, will do better than being in the greenhouse. I do think they need to start in the greenhouse.

There were no caggage moths in the video. I must have scared them off. They have certainly learned there is kale a growing. So I have been studying.

Cabbage moths/caterpillars-how to control them

I have been reading about cabbage moths/caterpillars. They always tell you the best place to start is to have healthy plants. Sure. It sounds like eating a good breakfast to start the day.

The next suggestion from the organic gardening webpage is to directly pick the eggs and caterpillars off the plants. That is also not so helpful a suggestion. I have perhaps a hundred plants at this point.

Then there is the corndog suggestion. Spray the plants with water and then sprinkle cornmeal on the plants. Right.

Neem oil- ok- I have some of that.

Well this is interesting. One suggestion is to plant red and purple varieties. The moths are not as attracted to those colors. I must try that...in another year. There certainly are purple ornamental kale.

Decoy moths- I actually read this. I will ask at the garden center. Little plastic white moths, perhaps on a stick.

Then there is BT. Bacillus thuringiensis. It is a powder you sprinkle on the plants. That is what I mentioned earlier when I talked about it washing off.

That was a thing when we were are the farm in the 70's. Apparently it is still around and has not been shown to be evil. I wonder if the garden center has it.

Anemone video of the week

You can see the next bud coming in this picture.

This orchid is going to bloom in the next weeks or so.

I repotted one of my cattleyas last winter. I repotted another one this summer. I now have quite a few pots with new growth coming.

More toad lilies are coming. When they arrive there will be a lot of them.

We have had the buckeyes coming out of the tree in the last few days.

We will send some buckeyes to Maine.

Night blooming cereus video

I can now count 11 buds on the big plant. 4 buds and 1 bud on the two smaller plants. They are all at about the same developement.

Julia's recipe

Fresh tomato sauce and pasta 

I found myself with a lot of tomatoes the other day, courtesy of our generous neighbor. Also eggplant (at left) but that's a different story. I had run across a recipe on the NYT website for "grated tomato pasta," which called for a lot of tomatoes so I gave it a try. The dish was very good. The method a bit weird, so I will tell you what I did and what I will do the next time I have too many tomatoes. 

The ingredients:

1 lb. of spaghetti;

lots of tomatoes (I ended up with 5 cups of grated tomato pulp);

1/3 cup olive oil;

1 tablespoon smushed garlic;

1-1/4 cup grated parmesan (or similar cheese);

some salt (maybe 1 tablespoon all told); and

1/2 cup or more fresh basil.

I used packaged parmesan from the Co-op. Not the stuff in the green can. I think mine was from Argentina. Fancy imported packaged parmesan. Grating it yourself would be even better, but I did not have the patience to grate both tomatoes and cheese. Basil season in our garden was done when I made this. We can buy fresh basil in little plastic clam shells - 3/4 oz. is what I bought. It is now fresh herb season at the farmer's market (why are they on a different schedule? unclear) so I would now skip the plastic and buy a bunch. Or use parsley instead. 

First I dealt with the tomatoes. I cut off the tops and cored them.

The tomato tops are in the little bowl- snacks.

I put a big pot of water on to boil for the spaghetti, adding about 1/2 tablespoon of salt to the water. 

Then I grated all of the tomatoes on a coarse grater into a big bowl. I threw away the skins and the last bits of tomato flesh clining to the skins. 

This was tedious. Next time, I will put the pot of water to cook the pasta on first. When the pot comes to a boil, I will briefly blanch (that is a fancy way of saying dip for a minute or two) the tomatoes. The skins will slip off and then I will core them. Instead of grating, I will dump them into my food process and pulverize them that way. 

Katie says she likes to grate tomatoes. I don't. Now you have a methodological choice. 

When I was done with the tomatoes, I measured them and smushed the garlic. 

Meanwhile, I had put the spaghetti on to cook and set the timer to go off one minute shy of recommended cooking time. I turned it off and drained the spaghetti.  

Then I put the spaghetti-cooking pot back on the stove (on medium-high), added the olive oil and garlic and cooked that for about 1 minute until I could smell the garlic. 

Next, I added the tomato pulp and1/2 tablespoon of salt and stirred it around. The stove was still on medium high and so the sauce came to a simmer quickly.

When the sauce was simmering, I dumped in the spaghetti and about 3/4 cup of the parmesan. I stirred vigorously to melt the cheese and coat the spaghetti with the sauce. 

I think the idea is the hot sauce will finish the cooking of the spaghetti and make the whole concoction kind of creamy. And it did. Then I took the pot off the stove entirely. No more heat.

I added the most of the rest of the parmesan and some of the basil leaves (torn, not sliced - but your choice) and stirred some more. 

I used whackers to do some tossing after transferring the mixture to the serving bowl. I sprinkled the finished dish with the rest of the parmesan and the rest of the basil leaves. 

On the table. It was a little saucy, but in a good way. We had it with salmon and corn on the cob and salad and melon. 

The dish reheated nicely. It seemed that the sauce and spaghetti thickened up together in the refrigerator. 

Odds and Ends

There was another storm on the east coast this weekend. It was not a hurricane. For a while this week it was not even a tropical storm. It was called "Potential Tropical Cyclone 16."

 It finally became Tropical Storm Ophelia.

Someone stopped by to ask about what happened to her NBC. She explained that she would get buds that got quite big. However one morning she went out and the bud was all drooped. I explained that I think it bloomed but she just did not go out at night to see it bloom.

We have had this really big jade plant for the last 3 years or so. It was so heavy. We prefer it to go outside for the summer. This summer we moved it to a plastic pot. Yesterday, with Bob's help, we put handles on that pot.

Even in a plastic pot the plant was really heavy. And it had no lip on the pot. When you get a large pot, make sure it has something that can work as a handle. (Or you can avoid plants that are really big.)

Another week is gone. September will give way to October. I think about a favorite season. Mine would be Spring. We went to a memorial service yesterday for a person we had known for almost 50 years. His favorite season was the fall. (He liked to hunt waterfowl.) Fall is nice, as long as you can avoid thinking of it as the gateway to winter.

But winter gives way to spring. New life. Aconite. Snowdrops. Daffodils. Tulips.

Think of the people who do not have gardens. So many people do not or cannot. Sometimes it is because of drought or war. Sometimes it is because they live in an apartment.

Pray for peace. Do what you can to make this a better place.

Philip