April 28, 2024- full speed ahead

April is just about over. The cool weather of the last month has meant the garden is back to about normal. As I post this it is raining. We have had over an inch. 4 inches plus in April. 

The little iris started to bloom at the end of April. That is about when they were blooming last year. 

This was April 29, 2023

This was April 24, 2024.

Julia has been in Maine all week. That means dinner time might last 15 minutes. More time for the garden.

Mornings? It is getting light out by 5:45. We got that hour back they took away whenever that was.

I was  in the garden yesterday morning by 7. I was tired by noon. However, yesterday we had one of the best food bank sales day ever. Over $400. I think we have passed $2000 for the year.

I was tired which corresponded with the fact it warmed up- to almost 80. When it cooled off I got a second wind. And dinner could wait. 

I potted lots of stuff. At the end of the day I was potting Japanese painted ferns. There is more to tell and to show you.

But first- lets have another vote.

This week it can be about little bearded iris. It is their season.

#1 Orange

#2 Yellow

#3 Black

#4 White with Blue beard

#5 Yellow frilly

#6 Brown and Blue

#7 Yellow with White and Blue beard

There you have some really nice little iris, all from this week.

Right Now

Here are the very best species tulips. They are called Little Beauty. As soon as the bulb catelogue arrives I will order more. How about some more called Tiny Timo?

Some of the late daffodils can be appreciated all the more as the rest fade. I do need to deadhead, but that is low on the to do list.

As I have said, everything goes well with bluebells.

The pink dogwood really is rare. When we got it 30 years ago we were told Iowa was not the zone for dogwoods. That is why it was planted with some protection from the north winds.

This pink rhododendron in the front yard gets bigger every year.

Our house is a pink sandwich, with the rhododendron in the front and the dogwood in the back.

Some epimedium foliage is rather nice.

This is a kind of fritillaria, called uva vulpis. I would not make that up.

This is a Ttree peony seedling. I had enough of them that I decided to pot some up. You still see the seed attached. 

Planting anything that will need another 3 years to bloom is a challenge. 

I actually dug up a clump of tree peony seedlings. They all had the seed attached. Time will tell how easily they pot up. I have to decide it I am ready to get some outside seed, with different colors.

I put a couple unsold amaryllis next to the hosta Montana Aureomarginata.

The old reliable tulips on the raised bed really looked nice yesterday.

This is a primrose. I would love to have a lot of them. That means more than 10. I actually grew some from seed a few years ago. They are still alive. I pulled out some of the aconite yesterday that were surrounding them.

Here are those peony seedlings, now in pots.

This tree peony is going to bloom in the next few days.

Julia's recipe

Bagels in Maine

When I was in college in Grinnell (Iowa) in the late 1960s, my friend Tommy wanted a bagel with cream cheese. Cream cheese I knew, but I did not know what a bagel was. Off we went on a road trip in east central Iowa in search of a bagel. None in Grinnell. When we got to Newton (west of Grinnell, bigger town), the folks at the bakery asked if that was some kind of Jewish roll. Tommy said indeed it was. They shook their heads and suggested we try Des Moines. I am not sure we drove to Des Moines. I do recall we returned to campus empty-handed.

Times change. Another Grinnell guy opened Bruegger's, which I think is mostly Midwestern chain of bagel bakeries. Good bagels. I am visiting Portland, Maine at present, where Katie and Elisabeth and our lovely grandchildren, Christopher and Maisie, live. One of the top-ranked bagel bakeries in the USA is right down the street. No need to make our own bagels with the good stuff nearby, but we did anyway.

Just before I headed for Portland the Iowa City Press Citizen published a recipe for bagels for the home bagel maker.  Times change. I took the recipe with me to Maine, and we made bagels. They are easy to make, and take about as long as it would take to make a loaf of bread. And they turned out to be tasty and chewy, like a bagel should be, with or without cream cheese.. 

The ingredients:

3-1/2+ cups bread flour;

1-1/4 cups warm water;

1 package dry yeast;

4-1/2 teaspoons sugar; and

1-1/2 teaspoons salt.

Later on:

more water; and

1 tablespoon baking soda.

This is a job for a stand mixer. I measured the bread flour and salt into the bowl and stirred it up. 

Meanwhile, I put the sugar, yeast and 1/2 cup of the warm water in a pint jar to get yeasty and bubbly. That takes 5 or 6 or 7 minutes. 

When the yeast had yeasted, I added it to the flour/salt along with the other 3/4 cup of warm water. 

I mixed these ingredients until they were combined. 

Then I switched to the dough hook attachment and let the mixture work for 8 minutes. 

If you are doing this by hand, you will mix the ingredients with a big wooden spoon and then knead the dough on a lightly floured counter. 

By the end of the 8 minutes, the dough was stuck to the dough hook. It was smooth and elastic - kind of stretchy. 

I sprayed a big bowl with nonstick spray; pulled the dough off the hook and shaped it into a ball and plopped it in the bowl. I flipped the dough ball over so it was lubricated all over. 

I covered the bowl with a tea towel and let it sit for an hour. It doubled in size, but still had a firm texture. 

I punched the dough down, gently and let it sit for 10 minutes. 

Then I cut the dough into 8 chunks. I patted the dough out into an oblong shape on a lightly floured counter. I cut the oblong in half and then each half into quarters. 

Maisie helped me roll each chunk of dough into a "ball." 

I put a pot of water (with the baking soda) on to boil. The water should be maybe 2-1/2 or 3 inches deep in the pot. 

And I turned the oven on to 425 degrees. 

After we made the balls, we stuck out thumbs into the middle of each of the balls. Some of us had bigger thumbs than others.

Then I pulled the bagels gently to enlarge the thumb holes, approximating the normal bagel shape. 

That's Maisie's thumb in the foreground.

More thumb work. 

We put the shaped bagels on a sheet pan, covered the sheet pan with the same tea towel and let the bagels rest for another 10 minutes.

After the 10 minutes, the bagels went into the boiling water for 45 seconds on the first side and maybe 30 seconds on the second side. I had a big oval pot that accommodated 3 bagels at a time. 

That's me timing the bagel bath. 

As the bagels finished their baths, I moved them to a cookie sheet.

Ready for the oven. They are kind of oddly shaped. Next time (and there will be a next time, both here and in Iowa), I think I will pay more attention to the shaping of the balls.  

As soon as the last of the bagels emerged from the bath, the cookie sheet went into the oven. They baked for 10 minutes, then I flipped the sheet around and bake for another 5 minutes. 

The recipe in the ICPC said bake for 20 to 25 minutes, with the note from the columnist that even 20 minutes was too long in his oven. I agree, but I recognize that ovens vary. 

So bake for 10 minutes and then take a look. They will need to go longer so flip the baking sheet and stay close to keep checking

Here they are, out of the oven.  At 15 minutes, they were cooked through but not much beyond that. Which is what we were looking for. The bagels were a bit taut and shiny on the outside and pleasantly chewy on the inside. Good with cream cheese or butter or jam. 

Give bagel baking a try.

Note: You should use bread flour. Bread flour has more protein than all purpose flour and way for protein than cake flour which makes for a firmer and I think chewier product. 

Odds and Ends

Julia comes home Monday evening. Between now and then I will have to do something with all the baskets of clean laundry. I really cannot fold fitted sheets. I suppose I could put them back on the bed.

The red legislature has gone home. They should not be back until next January. It was particularly bad this year. Graduated income tax? Gone. It did not even generate much of a fight. The governor wanted it.

Diversity programs at the State schools? Gone

Funding for private and religious schools? Done- but that was last year.

Abortion rights? Hangs in the balance, waiting for the Iowa Supreme Court.

It was a cool April.

The two dips to 26 degrees caused some worries. However those temperatures were limited to the low lying areas.

As the anti war college demonstrations grow, I cannot help thinking about college demonstrations 54 years ago. We were young once. 

I do sometimes wonder what our demonstrating would have been like if we had cell phones and/or video cameras.

I took some of the hoyas outside yesterday. The low temperature in the ten day forecast is 43. They are huddled under the crabapples which have leaves at this point. 

I pay close attention to leaf developement these days. That dictates when other inside plants can go outside. The linden tree is the first of the big ones to suggest shade.

The bluebells are still going. But the end is in sight. What will come next?

Pray for peace. And reconcilliation. Is it wrong to pray for the end of the red legislature?

It may be an inside day today. Of course if the rain stops it will be good weeding weather.

It is always appreciated when I hear from you. Thank you Layne for writing from the Keukenhoff flower show.

Philip