July 21, 2024 What next?

Last weekend was the Open Gardens event in Iowa City. Twenty gardens in the Iowa City area opened their gardens from 4-8 on Saturday and 10-2 on Sunday. We were one of the gardens. 

We had a decent amount of visitors. At the same time gardeners in Iowa City mostly know out garden. The novelty of seeing a garden for the first time just does not exist. 

It was rather exhausting. I was literally on my feet for 4 hours in a row, talking most of that time. I did not feel like gardening for several days afterwards.

However the temperatures cooled off by midweek. We have had delightful mornings, down in the 50's. I would actually wear a jacket when I first would go out in the morning. We got our inch of rain for the week on Tuesday, giving us over 4 inches for the month. The hoses are rolled up but not put away.

It is time to think about what comes next. The ornamental kale is still growing in the greenhouse. The caladium gets bigger. I transplanted a hosta yesterday to a place on the east side of the house, that needed something.

So what is blooming? 

The last yellow orchid cactus bloomed last Sunday, just in time for some of the visitors.

It is time to think about bulbs for the fall. From experience I know that certain plants sell out. In fact I keep a sold out list. I look at it the next year and order it as soon as it is available. Monsella tulips are in that category.

This year I just ordered 5 lilium that were doubles. Exotic Sun had convinced me that doubles were ok.

Can I do a video?

This is a hardy hibiscus called Starry Starry Night.

I have seen several blooming around Iowa City this week. It does seem early.

The phlox give color to parts of the garden in search of color at the moment,

Here is the fancier caladium, planted less than two weeks ago.

This hydrangea has also started blooming.

This lantana plant is now in its second year. It wintered inside. I really am wondering how big it will get by October. I suspect we will bring it inside again.

This is a blackberry lily called Freckle Face.

It has rounded edges. Compare it with the next picture.

The white cattleya is putting up buds. It bloomed last year in July.

This is one of the adenium that has some buds coming. I am pampering it along with its 3 friend. Please deer, leave this plant alone.

Julia's recipe

Vichyssoise

Although we have not had a prolonged hot spell (so far), it is summery enough to put one in mind of cold soups. I have made hot potato soup to eat in cold weather: this soup can be served hot but it is excellent cold. This recipe is from an ancient version of the Joy of Cooking. 

The ingredients:

2-1/2 cups cleaned and sliced leeks;

1/2 cup chopped onion;

3 tablespoons butter;

4 cups peeled, thinly sliced potatoes;

4 cups stock (I used better than bouillion vegetable base);

2 cups 1/2 and 1/2 (or whole milk);

1/2 or more kosher salt; and

some black pepper.  

I started by peeling the potatoes. Then I cleaned the leeks (cutting off the green part and the root end; slicing each leek in half and rinsing each half to remove any dirt). After that, I sliced the leeks into thin half moon pieces.  

I melted the butter in a dutch oven, and then I added the leeks and cooked them over medium heat to soften but not brown.

Next I chopped the onion...

and added the onion to the leeks.

While the onion-leek mixture cooked, I sliced the potatoes using a mandoline. Very handy for getting uniform thin slices.

I used 1 russet potato and 3 yukon gold potatoes. I wanted the russet because russets break down easily and would thicken the soup. I wanted the yukons because they break down but less dramatically and don't thicken the soup as much.

Don't use red potatoes. They don't break down, which makes them good for potato salad, but not for soup.  

By the way, the mandoline guard is in the foreground. I did not use it for the first half of each potato, and I did use it for the back half of each potato. 

I added the veggie broth to the pot, follwed by the potato slices, the salt and pepper (about 1/2 teaspoon each).  

I cooked the soup until the potatoes were completely soft - maybe 30 minutes. Then I used a stick blender to turn the soup to mush. It ended up the texture of thickish applesauce.

Then I let the pot cool off and I put it in the refrigerator overnight. 

The next day, I ladled the soup into the blender, about 1/3 of the soup each time. I added 1/3 of the dairy and zizzed the soup up. The resulting soup was silky smooth. 

You don't have to cool overnight or use the blender. You could let the soup chill for an hour or two and then whisk the dairy in. 

In the bowl. It was a bit beige - if I had used chicken stock it would have been paler. 

If I had any chives or scallions on hand, I would have garnished.

We had egg salad sandwiches and salad and canteloupe. A nice summer dinner.

And of course, the leftovers were great. 

Odds and Ends

Damn- deer- There is a new family in the neighborhood. Julia was awakened several nights ago by the motion detecting light outside the kitchen door. It was almost midnight and she saw a large deer with antlers.

Friday evening, about dusk, Julia told me there was a deer on the back driveway, by all the sale plants. Since I was still dressed I went out to chase it away. I thought I was seeing double. Actually there was a large deer, without antlers, undoubtedly the mother in this group.

AND THREE LITTLE ONES- TRIPLETTS

Oh my. I expect they are just settling in to the neighborhood for the forseeable future.

I will get out the deer repellant, but I cannot spray everything.

The crazies in this state and this country are apparently doing well.

Pray for peace. Pray for an epidemic of good sense.

Pray that people will see that the emperor has no clothes.

Philip

July 14, 2024- an exhausting weekend

The local garden club, Project Green, is having its annual Open Gardens event this weekend. Our garden is one of 20 which is open to visitors from 4-8 on Saturday and 10-2 on Sunday.

Of course our garden is open all the time. I have suggested that visitors go to the other gardens first. They can always come to this garden outside of the published hours.

We have pointed to this weekend for a month, planning on getting the garden all ready for visitors. 

Scott tells me the garden looks good. I still see weeds. I also see various plants eaten by deer or rabbits. I guess the glass sometimes is half empty to me and half or more than half full to others.

(Saturday night) ....14,000 steps later I am tired. I was mostly on my feet for over 4 hours. I drank lots of water. It was close to 90. But the backyard has lots of shade. And I stayed outside most of the time. It is the going in and out of airconsidtioning that can be hard.

I think 50-60 people came through the garden. Some were people I knew. Some knew me from the IC Gardeners facebook posts. One person was particularly knowledgable about hoyas.  While I have maybe a dozen varieties I am not so good at their names. 

Four more hours today (Sunday). The day will be hotter but the hours, 10-2, might be cooler.

Here is a little of what they saw. This is a little orchid called Dockrillia wassellii is starting to bloom. It is a dendrobium. I showed it to only a few people. I was more impressed since it hardly ever blooms. 

Plant sales were decent yesterday. People liked the caladium, particularly the white ones. Next year we will do the caladium again.I will get more of the white ones. The name is candidum.

Speaking of caladium, the 50 new ones arrived this past Monday. They were planted by Tuesday. Some are already coming up, with the heat and humidity. It again rained a few inches in the middle of the week.

It really does make you tolerate the hot weather if you have plants that will thrive in it.

The coneflowers continue to impress.

Here is an view of the garden from the upstairs window. The paths did look good. Thank you Scott.

This is a Japanese Anemone, getting ready to bloom. Normally that does not happen until August.

This orchid cactus still has 4 buds on it. This bud will have opened over night. The visitors today will see it blooming.

I spend some time looking a lilium catagloues. This lovely double oriental lily is named Exotic Sun. I will definitely get more. I should do that today as the term "sold out" does begin to appear.

Julia's recipe

Summer fruit upside-down cake

It's stone fruit season. I gather that's what produce people call apricots and peaches and plums and nectarines and for that matter cherries. I like all kinds of stone fruit, and the season is not that long, as stone fruits don't keep. I found this recipe in a recent copy of Better Homes and Garden. It's a retro magazine, in so many ways, but I have had a subscription for many years and it doesn't cost much and it has pretty pictures of homes and gardens and it occasionally has a recipe worth trying. Enough defensiveness. On to the recipe. 

The ingredients for the fruit layer:

some stone fruit (I ended up using 1 apricot, 1 plum and 2 peaches);

1/4 cup butter;

3/4 cup brown sugar; and

2 teaspoons lemon zest (or 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest powder).

The ingredients for the cake layer:

2/3 cup almond meal or almond flour;

1/2 cup white flour;

1/2 teaspoon baking powder;

1 teaspoon cinnamon (or ginger);

1/4 cup butter;

3/4 sugar;

2 eggs;

2 tablespoons olive oil;

1/3 cup buttermilk or sour milk; and

1/2 teaspoon salt.

I used dark brown sugar, which led to a somewhat darkened final product. Tasted great, but if one used light brown sugar, the fruit slices would have shown better. 

I did not have a lemon, but I did have a little jar of Penzey's ground lemon peel. It was okay; fresh lemon zest would have been more assertive, flavor-wise, in a good way. 

I don't understand the olive oil. I think bumping the milk up to 1/2 cup and leaving the olive oil out would be fine. 

I don't keep buttermilk on hand. So when a recipe calls for buttermilk, I put 1-1/2 teaspoons (or so) of lemon juice in a measuring cup and fill the cup to the amount called for with regular milk. It curdles and becomes the functional equivalent of buttermilk. 

The recipe said to bake the cake in a 9" cake pan that is 2" deep. I don't have such a vessel. So I used my old (seriously old - a wedding present from a neighbor) castiron skillet, which is 9" across and 2" deep. 

I started by turning the oven on to 350 degrees. It was actually a bit cool last weekend so turning the oven on was not a ridiculous thing to do. 

Then I put the first 1/4 cup of butter in the skillet and put the skillet in the oven to melt the butter. 

While the butter was melting, I mixed the brown sugar with the lemon peel powder. Then I took the skillet out of the oven, swirled the butter around to make sure the sides of the skillet had some butter coverage, and sprinkled the brown sugar mixture all around. 

Note the potholder covering the skillet handle. Safety first. 

Next I started slicing fruit and arranging it on top of the brown sugar.

Apricots are free-stone, meaning that you can cut them in half along the seam, twist the halves in opposite directions and the fruit will come off the stone in two nice pieces. 

The plums were what might be called semi-free-stone - a little more trouble and the peaches were free-stone. Clingstone peaches are frustrating unless you are just eating them out of hand.

Anyway, I cut the apricot into thin wedges and put 5 slices in a line in the cent of the skillet.

I put 4 slices around the middle and ate the rest of the apricot. 

I added a ring of plum slices around the apricot and then used 2 peaches to make a border all around the edge.

I set the skillet aside and mixed the dry ingredients (both flours, the baking powder, cinnamon, and salt) in a little bowl.

Then I put the butter in a bigger bowl. It had been on the counter softening the whole time. I beat the butter to break it up (it wasn't completely soft!) for less than 1 minute, then added the sugar and the olive oil and beat the mixture some more. Next I beat the eggs in one at a time. 

When the eggs were beaten in, I added the dry ingredients. 

And finally I stirred in the sour milk. With a spatula. 

I used the spatula to scrape the cake batter over the fruit and to spread it around a little to make sure all of the fruit was covered.

The cake baked for about 45 minutes. I started checking at 35 minutes. I used a skewer to test. No glops of batter. Either nothing on the skewer or maybe a crumb or two. 

I let the skillet sit on the counter for maybe 10 minutes. Then I ran a knife around the edge of the skillet to make sure the cake was not sticking to the edges of the skillet. 

And I asked Philip for help. I was pretty sure I would not be able to invert the skillet onto a serving platter, so Philip did it for me.

On said serving platter. The cake tasted of the fruit and the cake layer was tender and mild and sweet. We served it in wedges with whipped cream, because who doesn't gild the lily when offered the opportunity?

A wedge with whipped cream.

Odds and Ends

The garden walk will soon be over. I did a good job cleaning up the back driveway.

More potting work will begin tomorrow.  

One of the Night Blooming Cereus has buds.

It did not cool off last night. It is 75  degrees at 6 in the morning. I find that to be the worst part of hot weather. 

Pray for peace. 

Philip

July 7, 2024- high summer is officially here

High summer is officially here. We know that because the cicadas are finally here. They are not the freight train as described in some places. That may still come.But they are the regular background noise, at least until the fireworks started, giving off their drum roll from across town.

At least for a few days there has been cooler weather. Actually much of this past week had below normal morning temeratures. Saturday morning it was in the upper 50's as the birds were up at about 5am. So was I. 

The rain continues. We had two inches Tuesday night, complete with tornado sirens. Apparently a barn was damages south of town. 

The orchid cactus continue to bloom.

This pink flowering one has been blooming for three weeks. The flowers last one day. They will bloom during the day.

The yellow one also has a few buds yet to bloom. Two opened Saturday night. This picture was taken about 8pm.

Joining the duo with the much anticipated buds, are the actually cactus. I will look again about 9:30 Saturday evening to see if they are going to open now. 

Here is a picture as dawn arrives today.

The weeds continue to grow. 

Yesterday was a tiring day. I was in garden by 6:15. We are cleaning beds, making them look good for some garden tourists next weekend. A place to start is to clean the edges. If you clean the edges it makes it seem more doable to clean into the beds. 

You want to make every corner of the garden looking its best. Maybe the goal should be to have it all presentable.  

We are still growing seeds for later this year. I planted zinnia seeds last weekend. I had almost 100% germination by Thursday. The 5 flats of ornamental kale are doing well, off site.

I am getting the back driveway cleaned up for the ongoing plant sale for the food banks. We just passed the $5000 mark for the year. Quite frankly I would rather be raising money for Democrats. But I made the decision to be sort of non partisan 5 years ago. 

This week we separated out the side shoots for the voodoo lilies and the sansevierias. Each sansevieria plant is pretty much for sure going to send up at least one side shoot each winter.

The lilium that survived the deer are doing well.

This is Pizzazz. The first of its variety opened yesterday.

This is Conca d'Or. It is listed as blooming in late July or early August. We may be a little early this year.

I think this is Anastasia. It does face down, unlike the previous two lilies.

The blackberry lilies have started. just in the last few days. That is another plant I think of as blooming in August.

I will write more about these plants in the next few weeks. 

I continue to splash the caladium around the garden. I had planted 100 jumbo bulbs. I have sold about 75. The remaining ones are down on the sale table. Those that do not sell are being splashed around in parts of the garden that are weeded.

Of course I have another 50 jumbo caladium bulbs arriving on Monday. I hope to have them up and moving into the garden by August 1. They are really interesting colors. I did not buy the variety named Frog in a Blender. I was actually a little put off by the name.

Julia's recipe

Zucchini Medley

It's farmer's market time, and so there is plenty of fresh produce to combine into tasty side dishes. I had zucchini, onion, peppers, garlic and tomato avaiable recently, and here's what I did with it. Nothing like fresh vegetables.   

The ingredients:

1 medium zucchini (about 2 cups, cut into chunks);

1 cup coarsely chopped onion;

1 cup peppers, cut into about 1/2" squares;

1 tablespoon chopped garlic (no need to smush);

about 1 cup of chopped tomato;

2 tablespoons olive oil;

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes; and

1/2 teaspoon salt (or more, as needed).

I started with the zucchini. The problem with this kind of vegetable medley is that it can get really watery. So I decided to dry out the zucchini. 

I cut the zucchini in half lengthwise and seeded it. Then I cut each half in half lengthwise again and chopped the resulting quarters into chunks, about 1/2" across. 

I made this dish when we were in Chincoteague, where there is a microwave. I microwaved the zucchini for about 20 minutes, stopping it from time to time to stir things around. The result was zucchini pieces that held their shape and were kind of dry. 

I don't have a microwave, so I turned the oven on to 350 degrees. I put the zucchini pieces on a silpat-lined 

rimmed baking sheet and baked the pieces for about 10 minutes. 

Further pictures below. 

Next, I cut up all the other vegetables, starting with the garlic. 

Here's the zucchini going into the oven.

Preparing the rest of the vegetables, each in its own little bowl. 

I put the olive oil in a non-stick skillet and added the onion. After a few minutes, I added the garlic with the red pepper flakes and salt...

followed by the peppers.

When the zucchini pieces were a bit dried out, I took them out of the oven. The zucchini pieces were a bit smaller and not wet. It took about 10 minutes. I checked on the zucchini part way through and stirred the pieces around.

I added the zucchini pieces and stirred everything around.

Lastly I added the tomatoes. No need to add any liquid, as the tomatoes were moist enough to do the trick. 

I put a lid on the pan and cooked the mixture for just a few minutes more. 

And here it is on the table. We had lamb chops and roasted potatoes and corn and salad. Great meal.

We had some roast potatoes left over, as well as some of the zucchini medley, so we combined them and they will be a lovely luncheon dish, warm or cold. 

Odds and Ends

We do watch a little baseball. This can be difficult as we are Chicago Cub fans. I had to chuckle at a story in the news Saturday morning. The Pittsburgh Pirates, like many teams, shoot off fireworks when one of their players hits a home run. Well, Friday night the Pirates hit seven home runs. Apparently they ran out of fireworks, before they got to the end of the hitting display.

The deer, after focusing on the lilium early in June, finally discovered a taste for the daylilies. I should have sprayed more. One nice clump of a hybridized daylily was munched the other night. They just eat the buds. Well this clump had one of those ditch lilies growing with it. Those deer ate the hybrid buds and left the ditch lilies alone.

One project for the next few months is to reduce the number of plants in several beds. There are just too many to look good. 

With all the rain the mosquitos are here. I really hate dousing myself with repellant before I go out in the morning. It helps if there is a breeze.

The world remains a scary place. I try not to peak out from under the covers very often. 

Pray for peace. Pray that the bad people do not get elected. Pray for whatever is the opposite of being tired. 

Philip