January 12, 2025- Week #7- Let the fun begin

Winter is here. But we try to stay positive.

The way I look at it, the indoor time for the garden is about half over. 

Indoor time sort of starts the first of November. Certainly by that date the great plant migration should be over. The orchids and the hoyas and the sansevierias and the jades are inside. Many have gone to the office.

By April 1 Spring will be officially here and the first spring bulbs should be blooming. In some years there are spring bulbs by March 1. Do the math, That is 5 months, max. And one of those months is a short month.

We are just about half way between November 1 and April 1. 

Seeds for 2025 have germiniated.

I planted lettuce on January 1, 2025. The first lettuce was up 3-4 days later. I planted lupine last weekend, along with some old lantana seed. I have had success in the past with growing lupines from seed. Not so much with lantana.

The first lupine broke the surface yesterday. I do love a seed that grows right away.

Last week in the contest 

the winner was...

the white tree peony.

Here are all the votes

Week #7

#1 Snowdrop Wendy's Gold-  with friends

Snowdrops can almost be like tulips to the 17th century dutch. It is possible to get caught up in a mania, as you begin to look for more and more interesting varieties.

This particular variety is Wendy's Gold. It is only available from a specialty nursery, or from a friend.  It is special for having a gold top and little gold markings in the flower.

There are 4-5 varieties that are in common commerce. You can buy them for 50 for $34. Then there are the hundreds of other varities. Before you know it you could spend $50-100/ per bulb.

The botanical name for snowdrops is Galanthus. That is the genus. They are native to Europe and the Middle east. They have been around for a long time, appearing in Greek botanical tracts. Snowdrop mania is centered in England.

They are about the first spring bulb. They can emerge as soon as the ground thaws. In my experience the yellow winter aconite are right there with them.

Along with other spring bulbs they disappear by early summer. You do have to remember not to plant something where you have planted the snow drops.

One source for fancy snowdrops is Carolyn's Garden.

https://carolynsshadegardens.com/category/snowdrops/

Snowdrops are listed as deer resistant. This follows since they are about the first flower of the late winter. If they tasted good to critters, they would never have survived. Most of the other early bulbs are like that. 

#2 Blue Camassia-May 5, 2024

Do you know camassia?

It is a spring bulb that blooms later than the usual spring bulbs. It is a genus of plants in the asparagras family. It was put there sometime in the last century by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group. Heard of them? They are a group of international biologists  that catalogue plants into the niches where they belong. They have a website

https://www.mobot.org/mobot/research/APweb/

Back to Camassia.

Blue Camassia was a crop grown by indigenous people  in the Pacific northwest. The bulbs were harvested and cooked for a long time. They taste a little like sweet potatoes. Lewis and Clark mentioned surviving on Camassia bulbs.

Apparently a white blooming variety is toxic. The wikopedia suggestion is to harvest them when they were blooming.

The plants in our garden have been there for a long time. That probably means over 20 years. I have both the blue and the white varieties. 

#3 Red Coneflower

I thought at one time to keep track of coneflower names. It did not work. There are now so many.

If I think about changes in the world of gardening in the last few decades the developement of coneflowers would be on the list. It used to be (maybe 25 years ago) that there was the wonderful wildflower, the purple coneflower. There were a few other wildflowers that was taller and yellow.

Well, the hybridizers have been at work with coneflowers. Terra Nova nurseries in the Pacific northwest was a big one in this area. I bought some plants from them 25 years ago, which you needed to do in quantity. They were proud of the fact they had more laboratory space than greenhouse space. 

One new garden catalog had four pages of coneflowers.

#4 Cactus July 27, 2024

I received a cactus plant about 20 years ago from a neighbor. The original plant is in the bonus section. I love plants with a connection to a particular person.

This blooming plant was about 10-15 years old.

The original cactus grew, produced offshoots, and then finally bloomed. 

If is no surprise that they like full sun. This will put some limit on how many I can have.

I like them for many reasons.  The flowers are amazing. The buds are also amazing. The plants increase in number rather quickly. They do have to come inside for the winter. Once inside they need little care. I take a bunch to the office where they winter in the south facing windows.

I was not sure whether to include the following information. But it is part of gardening. Let me just say that this plant will not be in the contest again. Sometime in August, this past summer, this plant and 2 other largish cactus, disappeared. Gone. Taken. Those three were all  the cactus I had that were of blooming size.

So I now have some little ones. I will just have to wait, to include them in the contest in 2029.

Only one other time in 40 years has a plant been taken. That was probably 20 years ago. That was a large red orchid cactus. All that was left behind was a cigarette butt in the street. 

In both cases they had bloomed in a wonderful way not long before they disappeared. 

#5 Japanese Anemone Honerine Jobert

August 24, 2024

This great plant is described as a low maintanence perennial.

I planted it at least 15 years ago and it has spread slowly, crowding out competitors.

It is an ideal plant for the late summer, fall garden.

The type of plant is commonly called a Japanese Anemone, but appears to have come from China.

This white one was "discovered" in a garden in France in 1858- hence the name, Honorine Jobert.

It was the Perennial of the Year in 2016.

It blooms later than the pink variety that is so common in my garden.

One thing is interesting about the difference in varieties. The pink kind has a very different leaf than this white variety. HJ has a smoother leaf. This allows you to tell which is which before they flower.

I really like the green globe in the center of the flower.

Bonus Section

Here is the first snowdrop from 2024. It was up on January 5, 2024.

We had the big snow on January 10, 2024. The tree next to the house is the pink dogwood.

Cactus

This was the plant in 2007.

At its best in 2016. The flowers would open about 10pm.

This was also 2016.

This might have been the first bloom in 2011

Right now

The flower of the week is this new paphiopedilum. I brought it back from Chicago several weeks ago. It is Paph. wardii var alba. 

Here is the paph that bloomed last year, emerging now for its annual presentation.

This week we  had to put up with more utility digging. You garden in the parkway, this is another hazard, 

Julia's recipe

Asian noodles with eggplant.

Another Asian noodle dish, also from the NYT. This one is vegan, for those of you who lean that way. As with many Asian recipes (and many NYT recipes), this is pretty fast and very savory. Apparently it is an adaptation of another Asian noodle dish that includes pork. No pork here, eggplant instead. Works for me.  

The ingredients - first, the sauce:

3 tablespoons soy sauce;

3 tablespoons rice vinegar (or black vinegar if you have it);

1/4 cup tahini (or Asian sesame paste if you have it);

1 teaspoon (or so) smushed garlic;

1-1/2 teaspoon (or so) grated ginger;

2 tablespoons chile oil or crisp; and

2 teaspoons sugar. 

Next, the ingredients for the noodle part:

1 package soba noodles;

1 eggplant (about 4 cups cubed);

2 tablespoons regular oil;

1 tablespoon soy sauce;

2 scallions;

1 cup of roasted salted peanuts; and some salt and pepper and sugar. 

A few notes: If you use unsalted peanuts, you'll need to adjust the salt in the final dish. You can garnish with cilantro. Not in my house, but maybe your people are not so hostile to cilantro. You can use Sichuan pepper instead of or in addition to black pepper. I don't have Sichuan pepper. A slightly hilarious note to the recipe says you can use egg noodles instead of soba noodles, but then your dish wouldn't be vegan. Noted. 

First I made the sauce, by smushing the garlic and grating the ginger and then putting everything in the sauce list into a small-medium bowl and stirring it up. 

Not sure why there are two pictures of the sauce preparation stage. 

Next I prepped the eggplant. The eggplant looked pretty good, but once I peeled it, I saw a few bruised places which I cut off. 

I don't always peel farmers-market eggplant, but winter eggplant have probably been on the road for a while. They could have been waxed or coated otherwise so I peel them. It also means I get a good look at the eggplant flesh and can deal with soft or bruised spots. 

I put a big pot of water on for the noodles and cleaned and cut up the scallions, separating the green bits from the white bits. 

I heated 2 tablespoons of oil in a big skillet and added the eggplant, 1 tablespoon of soy sauce and 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper. 

The idea was to cook the eggplant on medium high heat until the eggplant was colored and kind of done. 

I covered the pan, and I took the lid off and stirred the eggplant every minute or two. 

I will not put soy sauce in at this stage next time. It didn't impart much flavor and it actually interfered with the eggplant cooking. 

When the eggplant was mostly brown (about 5 minutes), I added the sliced white part of the scallions and another 1/2 teaspoon salt and a pinch of sugar (maybe 1/2 teaspoon) and another pinch of pepper (maybe 1/4 teaspoon). I stirred for 30 seconds and then turned it off.  

Actually, the water came to a boil while the eggplant was cooking and I put the noodles in the water. They cooked for about 7 minutes, which means the noodles were done just a couple of minutes after I turned off the skillet.

The potholder in the background is illustrated with a map of our part of eastern Iowa. What a good idea. 

I drained the noodles and put them in a nice serving bowl. Then I gave the sauce another stir and poured it over the noodles. 

Then I poured the eggplant mixture on top of the sauced noodles. And spread it around a little.  

Then I garnished with the sliced scallion greens and 

the peanuts.

On the table. 

On the plate. 

We served this with salad and berries with yogurt. 

The leftovers were good cold the next day. Cold noodle dishes are a thing. 

So if you're thinking vegan, here you go. Or vegetarian, and you can use egg noodles. Or meat-based, you can add a bit (say 1/4 - 1/2 pound) of ground pork and cook it with the eggplant. 

Odds and Ends

I am looking to the future. Gardening will require that. It is seed planting time. Today I might try some more lupine and maybe some coneflowers. I avoid the seeds that recomment placement in the refrigerator. I also wait on seeds that might germinate in 90 days.

When will it be spring?

Last year there were bright little winter aconite, in February.

This snowdrop was blooming on February 4.

This aconite was blooming on February 8.

I really should not look at these pictures. 2024 was a crazy garden year.

I should not think that Spring will come in February.

But it will come.

At some point.

Pray for peace.

Pray that we can all survive the next 4 years.

Pray for relief, for those in the way of fires.

Paradise can change to hell overnight.

Find your something to do to make this a better place.

Enjoy the flowers. 

It is always good to hear from you.

Philip