April 1, 2018- Spring is here and it is April Fools Day

Welcome to the Mears Garden Blog. It is Springtime in Iowa. It is also April Fools Day.

The Winter Picture Contest comes to a close and for that reason this week should get top billing.

We have a winner.

It is pink and comes with accessories. It even has spots.

It is the pink lily with butterflies.

Here is the full voting, with first day's vote listed first.
The lily took the early lead and held on throughout the week. There were a few votes for the Night Blooming Cereus that were cast in the last 48 hours. That made it interesting. It was not enough.

Pink Lily with Butterflies  12-15
Night Blooming Cereus  8-13
Red Anemone    7-10
Toad Lily  6-9
Total 33-47

Each picture received considerable support.

And the Winter Picture Contest comes to a close.

But we will continue to write and at this point will give you mostly real time pictures. That should go on most of the year.
I will usually find a few pictures and give you a chance to pick what you like.

Real time

It was a week of ups and down. Actually there were downs and ups. Actually there were downs and ups and then downs.
Last weekend we had snow, heavy snow. While it was only 4-5 inches in Iowa City it was enough to really slow down any enthusiasm for spring. It also slowed down the entire spring progression in the garden.
There were then several days of sunny weather with temperatures getting close to 50. The snow melted. I was able to get outside a little, rejuvenating some of those brain cells. I  tested out some of those dormant muscles. I even potted up some hellebores that were too close to a nice epimedium. There really is nothing like just getting you hands in some dirt, and soaking in some sunshine.
Baseball started for real, even though it didn't quite seem right that it was starting in March.

Now, it is the end of the week. On Saturday there was wind and falling temperatures all day. We had a fire in the fireplace last night. At one point I told Julia that it was really not bad working in the garden, as long as you had your winter coat on.
It got down to close to 20 this morning. The average high temperature for this coming week will be 40. Actually as I look at the nine day forecast, 5 of those days will have highs in the 30's. The lows will stay close to 20. There are even some nights that get a little below 20. We are talking the ground refreezing.

I went back and looked at the post for the end of the contest last year. It was March 26, 2017.  I mentioned that for the first time there was no frost in the forecast. The garden was exploding. Well, this year plants are coming up. I found the first emerging trillium the other day. But the hellebores are not yet blooming. Some are up no more than 2-3 inches. There are no daffodils yet. Somehow I do not think there will be much progress this next week.

Post contest voting

But in all of that cooler weather I was able to find you a few pictures to consider. Some people like to vote all the time. Please understand that voting is optional. But keeping score seems to be hard wired somehow. So you can distinguish this from the "winter contest" at this point you can vote for the two you like the most.

#1 Snowdrop in snow

This was last Sunday, after the snow. The sun came out and it was rather pretty, in a very non spring way.


#2 Winter aconite in snow

They do call it "winter aconite." The flowers emerged from the snow, and were not really effected by the snow. This week will let us see how they are effected by repeated hard freezes.

#3
Color spectrum

At this point the whites and yellows have been joined by some purples and blues.




#4 White crocus with little friend

The white crocuses just came out about Friday. The squill are appearing everywhere.




#5 Aconite group

There are clumps of aconite. You can see the seedling at the top of the picture.

#6
Really purple crocuses

The blue squill let you see how really purple these crocuses are. The variety is probably ruby Giant.


#7 Tricolor crocus, with bee

The tricolor crocus was in the very first week of the contest, way back in November.


There you have a cross section of the garden at the moment. The aconite are wonderful. I think I might get another 1000 this fall. That would not cost that much. They really need to play a bigger role in the front yard.
The snowdrops and crocuses and squill are all playing nicely together.
And at the moment this combination could last for another two weeks.
You can vote if you wish. You can vote for two.

Bonus pictures

I am just learning to use the panoramic feature on my new camera.
Maybe I will try to replicate this picture in 2 and 4 weeks.

Here is another little spring flower just about to bloom.

This was one week ago, after the sun came out.

Here is another shot of the aconite. It gives you a better feel for how small the flowers were.

More snow and aconite, with the aconite all closed up. They do that when it is below freezing.

Julia's Recipe

Baked Apples

Baked apples are an old-fashioned, and that's okay. They can be served plain or with cream or yogurt or, I imagine, ice cream. Good in all variations. And easy to prepare, although they take a while to bake. It has been cold lately, and having the oven on and the house smelling of baking apples is pleasant.

I started with 3 apples, medium to largish. Your choice of apple will make a difference. Firm apples take longer to bake; soft apples cook faster. I used Honeycrisp, which is a firm sweet/tart eating apple. You could use Macintosh which is soft and tart. I would advise against very firm tart apples like Granny Smith unless you are prepared to commit to a very long baking time. And don't use red Delicious because they are not good in any application. Galas or Fujis or Pink Ladies or Johnathans would all work. Use your favorite apple unless your favorite apple is red Delicious and then you should rethink your taste in apples.

I started by cutting at an angle around the top and taking out the stem. The sliced-off top part is a snack for the cook. Then I used my melon baller to dig out the core and seeds. If you don't have a melon baller, you can use a metal teaspoon (measuring spoon) which is a good size and shape or a regular teaspoon. Do not dig all the way through and out the bottom!

Another picture of core excavation.

Once I had the cores out, I used a potato peeler to take a ribbon of skin off all the way around.

I filled to former apple core cavities with 1 teaspoon of sugar, 1 teaspoon of honey and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon.

You could use all honey and no sugar or all sugar or brown sugar instead of white or maple syrup. Unless you have a big problem with cinnamon, I do advise using it. You do not need to use much of anything - less than 1 tablespoon altogether. Of course, you could use more sweetener and that would taste lovely too.

Then I put my apples in a baking pan not too much bigger than the apples. I added 1/2 cup of white wine and I/2 cup of water and 1 teaspoon of sugar. I have used orange juice or apple juice instead of wine and that is good. No juice on hand today, so I used a bit of white wine.

The apples baked for about 1 1/2 hours in a 350 degree oven. Softer apples (Macintosh, Cameo I think) would cook faster,

The apples were done when I could poke with a bamboo skewer and meet minimal resistance. You could use a sharp knife if you are skewerless. They're good for dessert and great as leftovers for breakfast. And pretty healthy too.

Odds and Ends

My de Caen Anemones arrived Friday. The are funny looking dried up bulbs. The instructions explain that you can probably not tell which is the up side. So you are to plant them on their side. The up side cannot go wrong that way.
They are soaking overnight before I start some inside.
I could plant some outside, when the danger of a hard freeze was over. Well, we are going to have many hard freezes this week.

I ordered another spinny thing last weekend. It arrived Friday. I am not sure the ground will be soft enough to push it into the ground.

That's it for this week.
I hope you enjoyed the contest.
Philip