April 15, 2018 The roller coaster continues

Welcome to the middle of April.
We started the week with snow. We had a high last Sunday of about 35. Here was the backyard on Monday afternoon.

There are places on the computer, in the newspaper, or on your phone, where you can look at the 6-10 day weather forecast. While we were waiting for the snow to melt this week, we knew there was  warm weather coming. As predicted it was nice on Wednesday,  on Thursday, and not so bad on Friday. It was even 70 degrees on Thursday.
Several mornings I was able to  do a few things in the garden, before we took a walk in the neighborhood. That was all before we went to work.

I really do like to do garden work with a short attention span. That means I just wander around with a trowel and either transplant something on a whim or weed some dandelions that do such a good job of surviving the winter. Along the way I might stop to straighten some bricks.

As I think about this last week we  slept with a window open Thursday night. For about a day we did not wear our winter coats to work.
However...
all week there was this little snowflake that stayed in the forecast for Sunday, today. That placed a damper on any celebration of the warmer weather.
So here we go again.
Saturday was rainy and 40 degrees. It was tolerable at times outside, as long as I had on my winter coat and hat.
This morning as I put the finishing touches on this post, there is a dusting of snow in the yard. The high for today is predicted to be 34 degrees.

I can only imagine how people in Minnesota feel. I understand that their snow was measured having to use 2 numbers.
I guess Minnesota will be like last year in Maine. There may be daffodils in June.

All Star voting

Last week was a contest between winners from all the contests we have had on this blog. There have been 11 winners before this year.
In your voting last week the winner was the winning flower from 2017, the wonderful red orchid cactus.

Here was the full voting.


Fiery orchid cactus 12
Pink Poppy 11
Pink waterlily 8
Leucojem trio 8
Purple Iris 6
White water lily 6
So many crocuses 6
Double bloodroot 1
voting total 33

This week's contest

This week I have decided to try the team competition. I have done this a few times before. I think you have liked this. These pictures are all taken from the recently ended picture competition.
I do understand that some colors have more players. That just represents that there were more pictures in that color group in the contest.

Here is team Yellow



Here is team Blue.




Here is team Red.





Here is team Pink.




Here is team White





There you have many of the pictures from this past season, grouped by color.
Which color group do you like?
This week, as there are only 5 teams, you must vote for only one.

Bonus pictures

The garden is really moving forward, even it is moving slowly.
I spend much time just wandering around picking up sticks. When I do that I look for things.
There was the first primrose flower.
The epimedium are still hiding.
The trillium are emerging.
Here are some pictures.

This is a pink corydalis. It blooms at the same time as the squill or silla. They make a good combination.
I must plant more.
I just put them on the "more" list. There is a category for spring bulbs purchasing. When it is time for planting them, all the bulbs will be long gone. I must just plant them in the general areas where they should come up.

I should mention that I do put colored straws by the location of the larger established pink plants. I would not want to plant some annual right in that space.

Corydalis come in other colors. There is a yellow that blooms much later.

This white trio was really nice. It is likely that this was one bulb that divided.

This is a little established squill plant. Squill, like the aconite, make a carpet over time. The isolated individual plant is nice too.

Here is the carpet starting.

The blue carpet starts by the house and then flows down the yard, towards the pond. This occurs because the plants by the house are protected so can be as much as two weeks ahead of the rest of the garden.

Here you have a row of purple crocuses.

Here is one of the early hellebores, still maybe a week from being fully open.

Color contrasts are always good.

Editorial note from Philip
This recipe right here. It is really good.

Julia's recipe

Lime Bars

I like lemon desserts - lemon meringue pie, lemon pudding cake, lemon bars. I was thinking about making lemon bars when I realized I had two limes on hand from the previous week when the fish dish we made did not actually need to be garnished with lime wedges. The recipe below is a combination of the recipe from Betty Crocker, the old sensible stand-by, and Cook's Magazine, the O.C.D. folks who are often too fussy to be useful. In this case, Betty Crocker was not enough, and Cook's Magazine was too much, and I think the recipe below is just right.

I started by making shortbread, which is the bottom crust for lemon (or lime) bars. I put 1 stick of somewhat soft butter (that's 1/2 cup) in the mixer with 1/3 cup of powdered sugar.
I mixed the butter and sugar for a few minutes so that the butter was completely soft and thoroughly blended with the powdered sugar. Because I use salted butter, I did not add salt. If you use unsalted butter, add 1/4 teaspoon regular (not kosher) salt. Then I added 1 cup of regular white flour in 1/4 increments, with the mixer on low to avoid the flour blizzard.

After the flour was all mixed in, the mixture appeared as in the picture - kind of gloppy.

I dumped the mixture into a sprayed (with no stick spray) 8" square pan. I pressed the dough all around, building up a bit of an edge on all sides and trying to make the dough even.

Then I put the pan into a 350 degree oven and baked it for 20 minutes. At the end of that time, the crust was still pretty pale with some  brown parts along the edges.

While the crust was baking, I put 4 eggs into the mixer bowl. I did not bother to wash it. I added the zest of both limes, which came to about 2-3 tablespoons and the juice from both limes which came to just under 1/2 cup. I also added 1 cup of white sugar and a pinch of salt.

I mixed all that up until it was well-blended

Here is the crust, pale with some browning.

I poured the egg-lime-sugar mixture onto the warm crust and put it back into the 350 degree oven for another 20 minutes. I checked it after 15 minutes, but it wasn't quite done. It is done when you touch the center, and the filling is solid to the touch.

Here is the pan of bars. They were tangy and sweet with a shortbread crust and tiny flecks of lime zest. Smoother and more mellow than lemon bars, although I still am partial to lemon bars.

You could this recipe with lemon zest and juice and it would be terrific.

If you are a non-gluten person, you can make shortbread with gluten free flour. It will take a bit more than 1 cup. Something about the structure of the flour.

Betty Crocker's recipe called for no zest, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and 2 eggs. Structurally sound, even with 2 eggs, but boring. Cook's Magazine called for 1/4 cup of zest, 2/3 cup of juice, 7 egg yolks and 2 eggs plus 1/4 cup of whipping cream. Over the top. And you had to cook the curd on the top of the stove and then strain it and then bake it. Yeesh. So I added zest, split the difference more or less on eggs and juice and used Betty Crocker's bake-only method. The bars were delicious.

Odds and Ends

Dates to remember

Spring comes to Iowa- How would you know?
One way to know is that there would have to be some period of time, like a week, where there is no winter weather advisory, anywhere in Iowa. We are not there yet. There are winter advisories today.

When will the first daffodil bloom in the garden? Who knows? I think from the size of the buds  it will be about Thursday of this week.
I can report that there are daffodils in Iowa City. Mostly they are protected by some wall. South side daffodils would be the first to bloom. There is an entire line of them by the University Student Union, on the protected south side.

Project Green garden walk- This year  our garden will be on the walk- June 23, 2018 is the date, which is a Saturday.

Election day- November 6, 2018. That is 205 days away.


I have recently discovered a garden program on television-well sort of on television. It is called Gardener's World. It has been on BBC for quite a while. Many episodes are available on Youtube, which we just figured out how to get on our TV. There are years of these shows available. We just watched a 30 minute show on Spring coming to whatever part of England the show comes from. They talked about dividing snowdrops. Did you know that right after snowdrops bloom  is the time to do the dividing? I have done that.

It is always possible to find something new in the garden this time of year.
Yesterday, April 14, I just noticed that the pink orchid was coming up. It was just barely up. It was in the contest this winter. For years it reliably came up with two stalks. Then last year there were 3. Well this year I found 4.


The caladium came Thursday. There are a lot. I started potting them up in gallon pots. I stopped at 24 yesterday.  More today. This is something to do when it seems best to stay inside. (The secret to potting things when it is raining is to have dry dirt stored in a shed or garage.) Those pots will have to stay inside for at least a month.

To make room for the caladium I will have to kick many plants outside. The time for that is when the temperature stays above freezing at night. All 60 of the Iceland poppy seedlings went out for 3 days and 2 nights this past week. They are back inside as we are to get two nights down to 25.
Maybe they can go back out late in the week.
Sometime they can go out for a few days, but come in when a freeze comes. They need to stay sort of close to the garage.

Stay warm.
There will not be any open window in our house this evening.
We might have another last fire in the fireplace tomorrow.
Do come by if you are in the area. The spring bulbs are really a joy.
Philip