February 4, 2024- Week #11- The snow is mostly gone.

 The snow is mostly gone. 

Many spring bulbs are coming up, and it is the first week of February. I think all those little shoots are early spring crocuses. I do wonder how they will be in a week, as winter will not return before then. 

Two weeks ago we were looking for 30's.

One week ago we were looking for 40's.

Guess what? Now we are looking for 50's. 

In the 10 day forecast the lowest high is in the 40's. There are 2 days when it will be in the 50's.

There are snowdrops. This past week, I even did a little bit of yard work, in the morning before work.

Seeing snowdrops warms your heart. Cabin fever is over. I pushed a metal stick into the ground, and it went all the way in. The ground is not frozen, at least in places where there is sun.

Could winter have lasted only 2-3 weeks?

It is wonderful, with a small discordant note in the background. This is  early February. It is not supposed to be so warm. 

I raked leaves yesterday in short 20 minute shifts. I also picked up sticks. There were a lot of them, the remnants of the damage done by the heavy snow 3 weeks ago. 

In the early spring there are places in the yard where the leaves make a thick mat. This is particularly true for sycamore leaves. When do you take that up? There is always the debate whether to rake that off or let it be for a month. I am of the school that you should rake when you have time.

Last week in the contest

the winner was....the red poppy. There was strong support for the Epiphyllum and the phlox.

The full vote was

This week is Week #11

#1 Daffodil with lots of yellow

 April 15, 2024

I picked this picture for the contest when it was very cold outside. That bright yellow cup was just so very cheerful.

I wish I knew the name. It might be Cornish King. At least it looks like the picture in the catalog. 

#2 Virginia Bluebells 

Also April 15, 2024

The garden goes through phases. There is snowdrop time. There is aconite time. Then there are two blue periods. There is the little blues, or scilla or squill. Then after that come the bluebells.

Mertensia virginica is the formal name. They are in the borage family.

Bluebells are all over the garden.

I have no memory of ever having purchases a bluebell. There must have been some in the backyard when we moved in 40 years ago. They spread.  Each flower cluster must have 10-15 little blue bells. There is at least one seed per bell.

What's to tell about bluebells?

They bloom in April, having a root a little like a carrott. The root can be 4-5 inches long, and up to an inch wide. If you break the root while potting one up, I think the broken root left in the ground just grows back.

They now are in all parts of the garden, 

They last several weeks.

The deer do not like them. Let me remember that as currently I am worrying about deer.

They are considered to be a shade plant. I do not  agree. They bloom in April before the leaves are out. They grow in bright direct sun in my garden.

They are finished in May. Not long after that you can just have the spent foliage cut off or even just pulled off.

They are a great companion plant with lots of other plants in the garden.

They do grow to be maybe 12 inches high. They do not therefore do well with dwarf stuff, like dwarf iris, or mini hosta.

I find them easy to pot up for the all-the-time plant sale. You just need to plant them when they are not more than an inch or two out of the ground. I can usually pot up 50-75 each spring.

#3 Lantana 

August 26, 2023

Such wonderful colors.

I love lantana. It is a plant that has been around for generations. It was the favorite plant of my Aunt Elsie, my father's sister, who lived in Chincoteague, Virginia.

It has its own genus, called...lantana. It is in the verbena family.

It is a perennial in places, such as the church in Virginia next to my aunt's house. I thought the 5 foot high bush was just an aggressive variety of the usual annual. Then the term perennial came to mind.

It is not a perennial in Iowa. 

It is an expensive annual. I find greenhouses are increasingly pricey. What used to be sold in flats is now sold in 4-5 inch pots for $6.99 each.

So I am growing my own. Not from seed. I tried that last winter. Instead I dug up a plant in the fall, which is doing well. 

I have taken cuttings from that plant, which sort of worked. 

I have perhaps a dozen little plants at this point, along with the parent plant.

The leaves are poisonous, but the seeds taste good to some birds.

Perhaps because the leaves are poisonous,  it is considered to be deer resistant. Maybe it is even a deer repellant. Apparently they do not like the smell.

It is invasive in a number of places in the world, such as Australia.

It is used to make furniture in India.

It prefers full sun. I grow mine along the curb on Fairview. 

Like many annuals (think zinnias), it blooms all year. It is going strong in October.

#4 Ornamental Kale 

December 23, 2023

One Kale picture won the contest in Week 6. Let's see how this picture does. This was one plant from the front yard. This was such a gem in December, in the outside garden. As the snow receeds, it looks to be still there. 

#5 Bird of Paradise

 January 1, 2023

Someone brought this to the plant sale in the summer of 2022: an overgrown pot of bird of paradise.

I repotted it into two big plants. One sold. The other did not. The one I had left then bloomed in late 2022, early 2023. That was the last time it bloomed. I am keeping the plant alive under the brightest light I have. I hope in the spring to get it the full sun it wants. We shall see if it blooms again.

This is perhaps the most exotic plant I have. I know little about it. 

The genus is sterlitzia, and it is from South Africa.

They are pollinated by sunbirds (not familiar with them) and blue faced honeyeaters. (I am even less familiar with them. Are they birds? ) Pictures are in the Odds and Ends section.

Bonus pictures

Lantana video from Chincoteague.

Bluebells video

Right now

The orchid takes a long time from bud to bloom. I have just noticed it may have a second bud coming. That could be blooming in April.

The red hibiscus in the basement had several blooms this week.

Here are the first aconite getting ready to bloom. They are really all over the place. To open they prefer a nice sunny day. 

Here is one of the kale, just emerging from the snow.

I have lettuce and lupine seeds growing, having been planted a month ago.

Now I am planting the Shirley poppy seeds. I started the first ones on February 1. I now have a flat of the gray ones planted. I might like to get another 2-3 flats of the Shirley poppies started in the next week. The instructions suggest they can be directly sowed outside. I will save some of the seed to try that.

Julia's recipe

Baked Salmon and Rice

Another recipe for salmon, from the NYT. As I have said, we are in a CSF (community supported fishery) so we get 4 or 5 pounds of fish from Alaska every other month (Katie gets the fish the other months). Often there's salmon, which, I have probably also said, I never ate until I was pretty old. My only (limited) exposure was to canned salmon, which I did not like. Salmon that is not canned is a whole different thing, and good for you too. This recipe takes 30-40 minutes or so and bakes in the oven. Not fussy and tasty too.  

The ingredients:

2 pieces salmon (I cut the salmon shown in half lengthwise);

3/4 cup basmati rice (other medium or long grain would be fine);

about 1/3 cup stemmed/snipped dill;

some (maybe 3 handfuls) fresh spinach; 

1-1/3 cup boiling water;

1 tablespoon olive oil; and

salt and pepper.

For the salmon sauce:

1/2 teaspoon or so smushed garlic;

1/2 teaspoon or so grated lemon zest;

1 tablespoon mayonnaise;

1-1/2 (or so) teaspoon honey;

1/4 teasoon tumeric; and

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (or less if you are averse).

I started by turning the oven on to 400 degrees and putting the teakettle on to boil. Then I spread the olive oil in the bottom of a suitable baking dish, added the rice and the dill and some salt.

When the water boiled, I poured it in, stirred everything around, topped the baking dish with aluminum foil (crimping it to get a nice seal) and put the baking dish in the oven.

While the rice was cooking, I mixed up the sauce ingredients amd cut the salmon in half.

Next, I sprinkled some salt and pepper over the pieces of salmon and then spread the sauce on top. It did not run off due to the inherent stickiness of mayo and honey. 

Not sure what caused the moody atmospheric lighting. 

After 10 or 12 minutes, I peeked at the rice and it was pretty much done - water all absorbed. 

By the way, if you use some rice that is not basmati, you will need about 1-1/2 cups water to 3/4 cup of rice. 

I took the baking dish out of the oven, carefully removed the foil, and used my new fish spatula to ease the fish on top of the rice. 

I crimped the aluminum foil over the baking dish again and put it back in the oven. 

Either this is a picture of the putting-it-back-in-the-oven with the fish or doing it after adding the spinach. I can't tell - one picture of a foil-covered baking dish looks like another.. 

I let the fish bake for about 8 minutes, as my fish pieces were not very thick.

Then I took the fish out again and sprinkled some fresh spinach all around and then sealed up the foil one last time and baked the dish for another 4 or 5 minutes until the spinach was sort of (but not entirely) wilted. 

And here it is. A one-dish dinner. If you don't like dill leave it out, although I think it added a nice something to the dish. If you don't like spinach, ditto. 

Philip thinks I should make more of the sauce next time so that I can dribble some around on the rice itself when I add the salmon pieces to the dish. Excellent idea.  

We did not have any leftovers. If you are feeding more than 2 people, make the dish in a 9" x 13" baking dish and double all the ingredients! 

Odds and ends

This is a blue eyed honeyeater. It was referenced in the discussion of the Bird of paradise.

This is a sunbird, looking a little like a hummingbird.

This past week was Julia's time to send mittens to the local elementary schools. She has done this for years.

This year there were 36 pairs. She miscounted, so the 36th pair will be joined by a few others and go to Christopher's elementary school in Maine.

While our temperatures remain well above normal, I do watch the weather elsewhere. California is expected to have Atmospheric Rivers. That seems like a new phrase for a lot of rain. 

Since the ground was not particularly frozen before our snow, it is still not frozen. That means as the snow has melted it has mostly gone right into the ground. That is good.

There are certain perennials that are suppose to keep their old foliage over the winter. Hellebores are like that. So are certain celematis. I started cutting back the old hellebore foliage yesterday. 

Pray for peace, and reconcilliation. Be kind. It is time to plant for the new year.

Philip