March 31, 2024- goodbye March

Time passes. March is going out the door. Goodbye crocuses and aconite and snowdrops.

Hello daffodils.

I think about what is next. Bluebells, of both varieties. Then the little iris. Tree peonies. Species tulips. And the lupine. So many lupine.

But let me talk about this week.

The week started with wonderful bird sighting. We were just out of the driveway on Monday, off to work. As we approached the stopsign on College Street I saw the pileated woodpeeker, again. We had seen it several weeks ago, on March 10. At that time it was in the walnut tree just looking around.

Well, this past Monday it had found work to do. It was busy making small holes in this large place where there had been a branch 15 years ago. There must be a name for that part of a tree, but I do not know it.

It was so busy that I was able to stop the car and take some pictures with my phone. 

I was able to get this great silhouette.

At noon I took this picture of the holes it had made. 

We have not seen the woodpecker in the last 6 days. I will look to see whether the holes are bigger.

Yesterday was one of those dream days. It was sunny and not too hot. There are so many things to do. I am potting up bluebells, which are maybe two weeks from blooming. I wander garden trowell in hand, looking for a plant that could be removed. Helebores. Pulmonaria. Cypress Spurge.

I think about half the bloodroot have been sold. Here are some of those that are left, looking good. I noticed the ones in my front yard bed have just begun to appear. 

 

We have sometimes forced hyacinths, over the winter. When you do that, the blubs, after blooming,  can be saved and planted outside.

We have planted them outside the kitchen door on the west side of the house.

They are blloming now. It makes me think about planting more, for realy splashes of color. Do deer like hyacinthis. They have left these alone, but it is somewhat off the regular paths.

Such a dark blue.

I still do not know what color this will be.

I do not know if I have ever seen this color in the garden before.

I have a nice amount of daffodils. The are sprinkled throughout the garden, but never too many. There are some bare spots and could use a little color. Maybe just a few dozen this fall. I will have to write down where they should go.

Some of the baby tree peonies are 3 years old at this point. This plant, in the swirly bed in the middle of the backyard has a couple of small buds. I am watching them.

There really are many really little ones coming this spring.

The blue chionodoxa have spread nicely. They are brighter than the scilla as the have white centers and facr up.

Some of the hellebores are on shelves alog Fairview. It is easier to see them. Some hellebores did get nipped by the last time the temperatures that got below 10.

The windflowers, anemone blandas are blooming, in all sorts of colors.

We have a few dutchman's breeches.

This really vibrant orange flower is an orchid called Orange Bird. It has bloomed for 5-6 years. It usually blooms in April. It was a little early this year.

The first daffodils seem to be all yellow. Now that we are midseason some of the other colors are showing up,

I included this winter aconite picture to show how long some of them have lasted. Actually this was in the front parkway. The front yard is slower to warm that the back yard. In addition these were planted there last fall. That always makes them a week or two slower to bloom than they will be after a few years.

Primroses are some of the most beautiful spring flowers. I have a few. 

Some of the star magnolia flowers were toasted a while back. The blooms toast with just a hard freeze. Those that were still tight in the bud are now blooming.

This is daffodil Modern Art.

This is the bigger clump of hardy orchids in the back yard. It does get bigger over time.

Julia's recipe

Sausage and other round things  

It got cold again recently. And at about the same time, a recipe appeared on the NYT website for a sheet-pan dinner featuring sausage, brussels sprouts and red potatoes. Not seasonal for spring, but welcome.  Like most sheet-pan recipes, once the vegetable prep is done, the time to get dinner on the table is pretty short. 

The ingredients:

4 Italian sausages (we had 2 hot and 2 sweet);

about 1 lb. brussels sprouts;

8 red potatoes (about 1 lb.);

1 or 2 tablespoons olive oil;

1 tablespoon (or so) honey;

1 tablespoon prepared dijon mustard;

1 tablespoon mustart seeds;

some salt and pepper. 

First step: I turned the oven on to 450 degrees and put a rimmed sheet pan in the oven to heat up while the oven came up to temperature.  

Next, I washed and quartered the red potatoes. I did not peel them. I did look out for weird spots as I washed them and cut any weird spots off.

Next, I prepped the brussels sprouts. This means I rinsed them in a colander and then peeled off the outer leaves, which are always a bit wilted.Then I cut the brownish bottoms off but left some of the base so that the brussels sprouts would hold together.

The I cut them in half through the root end. The picture is a mess of brussels sprouts debris. 

I added the halved brussels sprouts to the bowl of potato quarters. 

If you have small red potatoes, just cut them in half. The goal is to have all of the vegetable pieces roughly the same size. 

Next I slashed the sausages in 4 or 5 places per sausage. This facilitates the release of fat as they cook in the oven.

I added the sausages to the bowl and then added a bit of oil. The recipe called for 2 tablespoon of olive oil. I think 1 tablespoon is sufficient. Once the stuff starts to cook, the sausage will release some fat to lubricate the vegetables. 

I took the rimmed baking sheet out of the oven (which had come up to 450) and put it on the stove (which was cold). I poured all of the things out of the big bowl. I think the little video is me moving vegetables and sausages around. The brussels sprouts and potatoes needed to be cut side down. Somewhere in there I sprinkled everything with some salt and some grinds of pepper. 

I put the sheet pan back in the oven, where it stayed for about 15 minutes, at which point the vegetables had started to soften.

During that 15 minutes, I mixed the honey, dijon mustard, and mustard seed in the bowl that had held the sausage, etc. 

I was supposed to "drizzle" the mixture over the dish. This was not going to be possible: the mixture was just sticky. 

So I added 1 tablespoon of olive oil (or maybe a little more) and then the mixture loosened up.  

I pulled the sheet pan out of the oven, set it on the cold stove again and used a basting brush to drizzle/dab to mixture all over the food, shown below. I shook the pan to move the food around: the potatoes and brussels sprouts did not need to be cut side down anymore. 

I put the sheet pan back in the oven for 10 minutes, and it was done. 

While the food was still on the sheet pan, I cut the sausages into something like bite-sized pieces. I did not want to contend with an entire sausage on my plate.

On the table. It was sausage-y but with some hints of mustard and brussels sprouts. Potatoes basically taste like what they are cooked with, in this case sausage. 

We had green salad and berries, which made for a nice contrast of texture and flavor. 

Philip had leftovers cold. He said they were good. 

Odds and Ends

March is ending. It was a little frustrating.

The first half of the month it was above normal. With the very warm February, everything was popping up early.

Then it went to below normal for the last two weeks.

We had freezes but nothing like the single digits of the temperature dives in February.

On top of the cooler temperatures was the change in the time. I lost that hour in the morning I had been spending outside before work.

At this point nothing is up that cannot withstand a freeze. (Below 28 or so.) The hosta are emerging but are tight in their little sprouts. I can worry when they are up and the leaves unfurled. At that point they can be nipped.

 

I am learning what the deer like to eat. Tulips and daylilies are a certainty. Lupines, not so much.

It really is going to be a wonderful lupine year.

I am trying to avoid the front pages of newspapers.

Catlin Clark continues her run. Only one team can win it all.

It was a glorious day yesterday. I puttered around in the garden. I weeded. I dug up plants and put them in pots. I sold some bloodroot. I talked gardens with visitors. Some were new to gardening, some not.

Seeing and hearing from friends is what keeps me going. 

Pray for peace. 

Philip