May 20, 2018- a garden makeover

Alert
I was going to let you vote, as usual, for which pictures you like this week. Last night I discovered that Blogger has apparently removed the poll gadget I have used for ten years. I think I am suppose to create my own.  I have not much good with computers. I can fix some things. Mostly I get frustrated. I still will try. So far just frustration.
I will work on this for next week.
Philip



It is a wonderful time in the garden.
This picture was taken last Sunday morning, in one of those moments when the light goes all funny. You can see the emerging hosta that soon will dominate the garden.

It is not the "best of times." We have had that twice already this spring.
First was when all the early spring bulbs had come up. There were no weeds. No bugs. And everything was new. Nothing had yet finished blooming. All immediate gratification.
Second was when the bluebells were in full bloom. They were everywhere. They danced with the daffodils and the hosta. They filled in the everywhere, and you were not even aware that some of the early bulbs were finished.

It is now a time to go to work and give the garden a makeover.
Here is what that entails.
First a lot of the blue bulb foliage needs to just be cleared away. That would be the scilla (squill) and the bluebells. I just go through with the trowel and chop it off at the surface. I have to do this for virtually the entire garden. The blue bulbs are not really disturbed. Actually if they get moved around a little they do not seem to mind. I do not disturb the foliage from the rest of the bulbs, like daffodils, snowdrops, or aconite.
Since I have hosta everywhere this cleans up their spaces, making them much more presentable. In the case of the little hosta it actually makes them more visible.

As the old foliage gets cleared away it is also the first systematic effort at going after the weeds. They are not a real problem in much of the garden. There are patches however. Sometimes the makeover actually involves resetting certain areas.

With the foliage gone then you can start splashing in color. There are the annuals. I planted little zinnias yesterday in one area next to the street. I have found they will put on a show until frost. I also planted some white impatiens in with some new hosta.

Waiting in the wings to make big splashes are the caladium. About 30% of the pots now have sprouts, including the pots I just threw outside. It is about as warm outside as inside at this point.

In the midst of this garden with old spent foliage there are the flowers here and there.

The little iris have been nice.
The lupines have started.
The Siberian Iris should start in the next few days.

And I will show  you the tree peonies.

Last week's pictures

The full voting was:
White little iris  12
Dramatic little bearded iris  12
Small bearded iris with blue beard 10
Red and Yellow tulip 9
Pink rhododendron 8
Pinkish tulip 7
Bluebells with hosta 6
Iris cristata 6
Gisela, the orchid  6
Green tulip  5
Camassia 4
Another tulip duo 3

This week's pictures

No voting this week. Computer problems with Blogger. Here are the pictures I had selected before I could not post the poll.

#1 Really yellow little iris.

The little iris are finishing. It seems like the flowers were somewhat limited. I have many first and second year clumps. I need to expect that. I will just resolve to keep adding a group each August to bring new colors along the street, during this somewhat quiet time in the garden year.




#2 White tree peony

The first of three of these white ones bloomed on Monday. They were done by Thursday. It was a remarkable lesson in how quickly beauty can be gone.
In this picture you can see a bunch of yellow pollen on the white leaves. The bees were having a field day.
There are more pictures in the bonus section. There is also a closeup coming up.


#3 Yellow hibiscus

This potted plant was indoors all winter. It celebrated being outside by blooming.


#4 Trillium grandiflorum

This is the biggest flower of the 4-5 Trillium varieties I have. It starts by being white, and fades to pink. Quite a number of flowers change color like that. Bluebells often start out pink.






#5 Little for-get-me nots

These are some of the smallest flowers all year long.

#6 Pink Tree Peony

This lovely tree peony flower is on the biggest tree peony I have. I got it from White Flower Farm maybe 15 years ago. It mostly stays the same size. It had maybe 7 flowers in its best year maybe 11 years ago. This year it had 3. I think it does not get enough sun. It gets plenty of sun until about now. With the leaves coming out on the Sycamore Tree it is shaded half the day.



#7 Red/orange Iceland Poppy

Iceland poppies are about the most photogenic flower I grow. The 25 in the one clump I planted 3-4 weeks ago is now having maybe a dozen flowers each day.

#8 Yellow Iceland poppy

I found this flower interesting in how not busy the center was. It is rather tame. Wait for the closeup on the previous flower.


#8  Center of the tree peony

Words are not needed.


9 Center of Iceland poppy

Busy


10 Tall Pink Bearded Iris

So you cannot vote on any poll. You can just enjoy, and maybe make a comment or send an email.

Bonus Section

Here are more tree peony pictures;



The biggest one did have 6 flowers this year. The fourth one is struggling in the heat. I has grown a lot but did not set a bud this year.

Here is perhaps the best of the tree peony closeups. It is just too much work at this point to swap out the pictures.

Imagine this picture with a colored background. How about a black background.



Here are a few otherIceland poppy pictures.

Julia's recipe

Chicken Posole

I was not familiar with posole until recently when I saw a recipe in the Iowa City Press-Citizen. It looked good, and it also looked fast, so we tried it, the first time as per the recipe and the second time with a few tweaks. Here is the tweaked version. By the way, according to Wikipedia, posole (or pozole) means hominy or a stew-soup dish which includes hominy. And as you will see, that's just what it is.  I had never, to my knowledge, purchased, cooked or eaten hominy. Not from my part of the world. It was a pleasant surprise.

Here are the players: tomatillos, scallions, jalapeno peppers, cilantro, lime juice, garlic, salt, onion, oil, cooked chicken, chicken stock, and hominy. Not shown, but useful: corn meal.

Step one was prepping the tomatillos - a new vegetable to my kitchen which turned out to be easy to work with. I took off the husks, rinsed them off, cut them in half, cut out the little cores (like tomatoes) and cut them into 1/6s. I ended up with 3+ cups. Then I chopped the jalapenos roughly, seeds and all. (I am not sensitive to jalapenos. If you are, wear gloves or glove substitutes like the plastic bags that newspapers come in.) I ended up with about 1/4 cup of jalapeno pieces. I cleaned and cut up scallions until I had about 1 cup. I cleaned and coarsely chopped some garlic, ending up with about 1 tablespoon. And I washed and picked over one small bunch of cilantro. I know cilantro is controversial in some households. Philip is usually against, but he reports that in this dish it is just fine. Give it a try. Or if the opposition is insurmountable, try some parsley, I guess.

The tomatillos, scallions, jalapenos and garlic went into the food processor and were processed until they were not chunky anymore. Then I added the cilantro, plus 1 tablespoon of lime juice, plus 1 teaspoon of salt, plus 1 tablespoon of regular oil. More zizzing, until it was sauce-like.

Here is a picture of the mixture before the cilantro was added.

I turned aside from the green stuff, and I cut up a big onion until I had 1 cup in a medium chop. I heated 2 tablespoons of regular oil in the yellow enamel pot and added the onions plus about 1/2 teaspoon of salt. I cooked the onions on medium (no sizzling, please) for about 5 minutes.

Then I added the green stuff to the pot and simmered the mixture for 10 minutes. Then I added the chicken stock (4 cups) and simmered for another 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, I chopped up the cooked chicken (4 cups) and drained and rinsed the big (28 ounce) can of hominy. I added the chicken and the hominy and 1/4 cup cornmeal. I made sure that the cornmeal was thoroughly mixed in and cooked the whole pot for another 5 minutes.

And there it is, green and a little spicy and very tasty. If you have cooked chicken and chicken stock, it can come together in less than an hour.

Some might serve with cheese or tortillas or tortilla chips or chopped cilantro or scallions. I decided not to push my luck with more cilantro and cheese seemed odd to me. But if you are feeling like garnishing, apparently it's part of the tradition.

Or you could serve grain - rice or maybe quinoa if you're feeling Mesoamerican.

There are endless variations: tomatoes instead of tomatillos; serranos or habaneros instead of jalapenos if you like heat or poblanos instead of jalapenos if you don't; shredded cooked pork or beef or turkey or probably fish instead of chicken. Always hominy.

Philip reports it is exceptional cold for lunch.

Odds and Ends

The days grow longer.
I was outside yesterday morning at 5:40. It is just about the best time then. I find that a jacket is needed until I have been working for maybe 20 minutes.

Gnats. They have been out this week. Cheap vanilla is suppose to keep them away.

Fish in the pond. I got some little fish for the pond the other day. They should enjoy the many little tadpoles I added last weekend. Of course they could be duck food.

Rain- we need it again. I find myself watching the radar, even paying attention to cloud cover. Even if it does not rain if it is cloudy it is a good time to transplant, plant things.

Ducks- the netting seems to be working. It is down to the water level every other day or so. I see that as an indication that they tried to get in.

So much to do.

We do have a 3 day weekend coming up next weekend.
Philip