September 1, 2024- great weather

Welcome September 

Some say this is the best month. That is not just because my birthday is in September. It is cooler in September. Certainly this past week has given me a real appreciation of temperatures in the 50's. Several days midweek the bank said it was 100 degrees when we left work. This long weekend the lows will see lows in the 50's. The cool continues into this next week, with even a 47 appearing in the iphone weather forecast.

It was glorious gardening yesterday morning. We had an inch of rain Thursday night. The ground was so workable. I am ressetting some of the dwarf iris beds.

The garden has certain places where there is an infestation of creeping bellflower, aka the zombie weed. The formal name is campanula rapunculoides. It gets into everything in its path, growing a root that can become the size of a carrot. You cannot weed it from the surface. You have to dig the entire area up and then, by hand, separate out the weed from the iris (or whatever.)

So I am resetting the iris beds, doing 5-10 square feets at a time. There is a lot of stooping involved.

But thinking about little iris is the motivation. Remember them? This actually is the time to divide and replant them. You want to miss the heat of the summer, but have enough time for roots to settle in.

In the background of the picture of the bed being reset, you might have noticed the fall crocuses. They started last week and are now all up.

This next picture will likely show up in the contest this fall.

These first ones are actually colchicum. What are they exactly? Well, they are in the colchicum genus in a family by almost the same name. They grow from a "bulb like corm." How that differs from a corm or a bulb I am not prepared to puzzle out today.

I just dug up some colchicum up to sell. What was underground looked like a bulb that was maybe 1.5 inches wide. 

I have the pink ones, which I think are called Giant. I got them probably 25 years ago. That is long enough for me to have spread them around the garden.

In the spring they send up daffodil like foliage, with no flowers. In the fall they have only the flowers.

They are rather expensive. That would be $4-5/bulb.  This compares to the real fall crocuses that are much less than a dollar per blub.

There are white ones, which I should get at some point. There is one nice thing about colchicum and the actual fall crocuses. You can buy them now and they will bloom right away. (As oppose to most bulbs which you buy in the fall and then they bloom in the spring.)

They are sometimes, such as in this blog, referred to as fall crocuses. Colchicum are not actually in the crocus family. (There are fall crocuses that are actually in the crocus family.)

Colchicum are often the first thing to show up in the new garden season. This was from December 22, 2023. (We had a very warm winter.)

These pictures are from 2007-2008

This double colchicum is called Waterlily. The picture is from 2008. It has not survived. I know. I know. I should get some, even if they are $5 each. Actually the double white one, called Alboplenum, costs over $7.

One difference between colchicum and fall crocuses is that the fall crocuses do not send up their foliage in the spring. 

Here are other pictures from the week

This lupine is mostly finished. It has been suggested that I particularly save some of its seed. Maybe it would produce a real reblooming lupine.

This bloomed yesterday.

You have seen this for several weeks. I show it to you to get an idea of how long the flowers last.

Several individual buds on the Night Blooming Cereus are growing. I am waiting for the big flush to develope. I hope that the cooler weather will trigger that big bloom.

Sometime the bougainvillea will bloom in the fall, with the changing temperature.

Here are some seed pods of the blackberry lilies.

Julia's recipe

Cornbread with corn

As I have said, we buy usually buy a dozen ears of corn every Saturday during sweet corn season at the farmer's market. So we usually have have leftover sweet corn. We occasionally set a couple of ears aside to steam and eat later in the week. But there is still more, which I cut off the cob and freeze or cook with in the following week. Recently, we had enough corn kernels to freeze one quart with about 1-1/4 cups left over. Kind of leftover of the leftover. I had thought about making cornbread with corn in it earlier this summer. I had run across a recipe on the internet, but I did not like it so much. The resulting cornbread did have corn kernels in it, but overall the cornbread was of the dry and crumbly variety. Not what I was looking for. So this time, I turned to my favorite cornbread recipe - moist cornbread, the recipe for which is on my blog. I tweaked it some and the resulting cornbread was great - moist and somewhat soft (as opposed to dry and crumbly) with the added pleasure of corn kernels.  

The ingredients:

1/2 or maybe 3/4 cup flour;

1/2 cup cornmeal;

3 tablespoons (or so) polenta;

1 teaspoon baking powder;

1/4 teaspoon baking soda;

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt;

1 egg;

1 cup yogurt;

2 tablespoons regular oil;

2 tablespoons honey; and 

1 cup (or maybe 1-1/4 cup) corn kernels.

If you don't have polenta, use more cornmeal instead. I think the cornmeal adds a little bit of texture. I had about 1-1/4 cups of corn kernels. Don't use more than that. But don't use less than 1 cup.  

First I measured the dry ingredients into a big bowl. I whisked them together thoroughly.

I added the egg, yogurt, oil and honey and whisked some more.

I turned the oven on to 350 degrees and used vegetable spray to lube up an 8" x 8" baking dish.

Lastly, I added the corn kernels and mixed them in with a spatula. 

A little bit of judgment is needed here. Corn off the cob can be wet. My corn was wet. I had started the batter with 1/2 cup flour. After mixing the corn in, I decided to add another 1/4 cup of flour. 

The batter should be kind of loose but not thin. If that makes any sense. 

I scraped all of the batter into the prepped ban, smoothed the top with the spatula and put it in the oven. 

It baked for about 40 minutes. I started checking for doneness at 30 minutes - poking the cornbread with a skewer. At 30 minutes, the skewer came out with batter on it. 

On the table with some pieces missing. On the first night, not long out of the oven, the cornbread was a bit soft (but fully cooked). I ate my piece with a fork. Philip pulled his piece apart into halves - top and bottom - and ate them out of hand, each half with a dab of butter. 

We had our cornbread as a side with a vegetable/parmesan frittata. And green salad and blueberries with yogurt. 

The cornbread firmed up as it cooled, and the leftovers were absolutely eat-out-of-hand, with or without butter.     

Odds and ends

What is your favorite month? And why? I do think September would make the top 3.  I think my favorite month would be April. There really is nothing better than the early spring garden, with the warming temperatures. The worst? Maybe July or February.

Corn sweats. Who knew?

https://www.ktiv.com/2024/08/27/corn-crops-responsible-high-humidity-across-midwest/?fbclid=IwY2xjawE7--lleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHedIX1snZeLpQ4PhgBaU3gUbLIWEnxWrBeFprXvF01DJyy3DXqlYPcECnA_aem_FDrmKqKSEgLaXq7eqCxW9g

The plant sale for the food banks continues. I sometime wonder if it takes too much time. I do love it when people bring stuff. I also love finding money in the mailbox when we come home for lunch. (That is the designated drop box,)

I worry about the future. Who doesn't. After a good rain the worries seem less overwheming.

The cabbage worms were busy this week. Here is a picture of the little kale plants. There is also the picture from last December. That is the goal.

One can list the signs of fall.

One would be falling leaves. Our trees drop their leaves over a 3 month period. The crabapples have started, along with the buckeye. The sycamore will wait until November.

Pray for peace.

We live in such a disfunctional world.

And now polio peaks out from the past.

Pray that we keep that crazy person away from the power he so desperately wants.

Find some small way to do something to make it a better world.

It is always good to hear from you.

Philip