October 1, 2023- I suppose this is fall

Hello October. The calendar says it is fall. Everything else says it is summer.

It has been hot. And dry. We are now used to that. For several days now it has been  in the lower 90's. 

I have been running the  sprinkler, again. I move it around to  different parts of the garden.  We are running the AC. 

But all the time I have been keeping an eye on the 10 day forecast. At some point the cold will come. 

It looks like that will be this coming Friday, the day after we go east.  One prediction is that it will get to 40 degrees. We have not seen any temperature in the 40's since... 10 days ago. In the current little heat wave it is hard to remember that at least the official temperature was down to 45 degrees.

The weather channel on the phone says 37. That makes me think about plants coming inside. That process has not begun. Update-  there is now a prediction that it will get to 33. This is from the same group that had 104 in the forecast a month ago. That did not come close to happening.

But one thing about this time of the year is that Julia and I get to go someplace else. We leave for Chincoteague on Thursday, at 6 in the morning. 

The following Monday we fly to Maine. It will be cooler there, and wetter. There will of course be grandchildren. I look forward to seeing Katie's garden. Garden centers there will carry kale, and maybe even pansies. No one in Iowa City has pansies by the flat. Next year we will just grow the damn things ourselves.

While we are gone we just hope there is not massive cold event. (We actually have contingencies if that happens.)

Last week you liked the orange zinnia, by a lot. It was a real blast of color.

Pictures from the week of Septemer 23 to September 29

#1  African Violet with ruffles

#2  Double pink anemone

The anemones bloomed for the entire month of September.

#3 Red Hoya flower

#4 Group of toad lilies

Is there a word for a group of toads? Julia says yes: a knot of toads. They really have burst forth this week, perhaps nudged along by the hot weather.

#5 Red Zinnia

This flower had not yet opened fully. For that reason the petals were not flat, giving that other color in contrast.

#6 Milkweed seeds getting ready to fly

I liked this picture before I noticed what else was in the opening seed pod. Do you see them?

Other pictures this week

Caladium are good, but I do not have that many this year.

Toad lily buds are interesting .

I look at the leaf cover to understand the danger of frost. A leaf cover protects most plants by as much as 1-3 degrees. (This is a guess, rather than one based on science.)

Leaf cover is also important in the spring, providing shade reducing the danger of sunburn.

Kale report-

They have grown nicely. I am interested in getting more color. We will see what developes. I do not think I planted all green kinds.

Toad lily report

I have mostly these two varieties. There was one with yellow flowers I had for years, but it is gone. The big difference between these two varieties is that the one on the right has dark places and darker spots.

There had been only one or two flowers. One day this week it seemed like they all opened. They will bloom for weeks, assuming no frost. That is because they will bloom all down the stems.

Julia's recipe

Dumpling and tomato salad

By the way all of Julia's recipes are located at

https://mearskitchen.wordpress.com/

The big news in the last month is that her blog is now "ad free." 

This is sort of a salad and sort of a main dish, easily made because of the frozen potstickers. We can call it a main dish salad. We had tomatoes and a bunch of fresh basil from the farmers market. As is so often the case, this is a dish better made when fresh tomatoes and basil are available, but it would probably be pretty good with grocery store cherry tomatoes and basil. Anyway, the recipe is from the NYT, and it is very good. 

The ingredients:

1 lb. of frozen potstickers (I used vegetarian);

3-1/2 (or so) cups tomatoes (I used both red and yellow);

1 teaspoon smushed garlic;

1/2 cup (or more) basil leaves;

2-3 tablespoons regular oil; and

salt and pepper. 

The vinaigrette:

3 tablespoons chile crisp OR chile oil;

2 tablespoons rice vinegar; and

1 tablespoon soy sauce.

First I chopped up the tomatoes.

I put all of the tomatoes in the serving dish, added about 1/4 cup of basil leaves (little leaves or torn-up bigger leaves - not sliced) and 1 teaspoon of salt and about 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper. And I stirred it up and set it aside.

Then I turned my attention to the dumplings. I heated up about 1 tablespoon of oil in a non-stick skillet over medium high heat. I added enough dumplings (flat side down) to cover the bottom of the skillet. 

I cooked the dumplings (which were fully cooked, but still frozen) for maybe 2 minutes - until the bottoms were brown (as shown). 

Then I added 1/4 cup water and covered the pan. I cooked the dumplings for about 4 minutes - at which point they were fully thawed and heated through. 

When the first dumplings were cooked, I put them onto a plate to wait for the rest. Then I sauted and steamed the rest of the dumplings. 

A video of sizzling dumplings. 

When all of the dumplings were cooked, I scattered them around on top of the tomatoes. 

Then I made the vinaigrette. I had chile crisp on hand. If you don't, you can use chile oil which is available at Asian markets and well-stocked grocery stores. 

If you want to make some chile crisp, there's a recipe on the mears kitchen blog - look for the recipe for fettucine alfredo with chile crisp.

I added the rice vinegar and soy sauce to the chile crisp jar and shook it up. Then I dolloped the vinaigrette around the dumplings and stirred it up gently.

The finished dish - both pretty and tasty. The leftovers were good cold. 

We had a green salad and melon and apple crisp. A nice light summer meal.

Odds and Ends

The drought is real...but sometimes it is hard to see. As we drove around town yesterday in most places the grass was still green. Those little rains in the last few weeks seem to have kept some places green.

As I understand the math we have had 2/3 of our normal rain.

The black dot in this picture is not Iowa City. Johnson County is the one with the foot. But we are one county away from the place with the extreme drought.

We are shutting down the Chadek garden plot soon. The City wants us out by October 13.

The amaryllis that have been fattening over the summer will have to be dug up and dried for storage.

They come out of the ground with a lot of roots. Mostly you ignore them as you let them dry. As I think about it one day in the sun with these current temperatures and they are dry. Now they can go inside for storage. I actually will leave them loose on a tray in the garage for perhaps a month.

There were about 15 that were planted in pots. They will stay in the pots for the winter. I will let the tops try out. The instructions talk about withholding water starting in September. Since it has not really rained in September that is not hard.

That is it for this week. I am not sure about the next two weeks. We will be elsewhere. We will try to post at least something.

By the way, the bots are gone. 

Pray for peace, and then pray for a better world. 

Philip