October 14, 2018 Closing down the garden

We are now someplace else. Yesterday we flew off to Virginia. We had some good seafood, said hello to the ocean, and spent a quiet evening reading mystery novels. We are staying in the house where my father was born. We have gotten away for a week.

Back in Iowa....
The outside is almost done.
Dry weather finally arrived, after 11 inches of rain in a week. That was the rain total in my rain gauge during that first ten days of October. "Officially" it was more like 6 inches.
With the dry weather comes the cold. My goodness we have had swings these last two weeks. It was 87 and 80 the last two Wednesdays. Thursday night got down to 38. The forecast had been 33. With the cooler temperatures came a wind. We went from no jackets with the windows open to a light jacket to a heavier jacket.
There has been a 29 in the forecast scheduled for Monday night. (Actually as I look this morning that is now only 31.)
An actual freeze means no indoor plant can be outside. Many will shelter in a garage. Perhaps it was not be that cold. Perhaps they can go back outside for a few more weeks after that cold weather has past. But the expected lows for the week are likely to stay in the 30's.


Midweek there was one day when the sun came out when we went home for lunch. These lovely fall crocuses were out. What an unexpected surprise.

The Japanese anemones have hung around to the end.

This tiny cactus on our window sill bloomed this week.

Here are a few last zinnias. I should not be so pessimistic. It may officially get to 29 in the low lying areas. But sometimes the fact we are not in a low area, and there are still leaves on some of the trees, means our flowers miss the frost.
I really do love speckles.

Solid colors can be good.

I really like the shapes of the individual flowers on the annual asclepias.

Here is an enlargement from  the anemone picture.

Julia's recipe

Middle-Eastern (I think) Beets

I like beets - plain or marinated in green salads, pickled with or without the addition of onions, even Harvard beets although they are a little fussy. Several years ago, when Katie lived in Brooklyn (NY, not IA), we visited her and had dinner in a Middle-Eastern (maybe Iranian) restaurant in Manhattan, somewhere near the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as I recall, where we had a lovely dinner including a dish of beets and yogurt and mint. When we came home, we tried to replicate it but it was not the same. More recently, with some extra beets on hand (an impulse purchase at the farmer's market), I tried again, and we liked the result. Probably not as good as the restaurant version but quite tasty and easy.

Here are the players: 6 medium-sized beets (about 3 cups), 2 scallions (about 1/4 cup), 1 cup sour cream, 1/2 cup chopped mint, salt and pepper. That's it.

I started by simmering the beets in water (boiling stage first, then turned down). The beets were done when they could be easily pierced with a knife. This can take as long of 45 minutes, depending on the size of the beets. Make sure the beets are covered with water as they cook, as this will make slipping the skins easier.

When the beets were done, I cooled them under cool water and slipped the skins off. This needs to be done promptly or the skins will become harder to remove. Actually, I let the water boil down and there were a few spots on some of the beets where the skins would not slip off, so I used a carrot peeler to remove the stubborn patches of beet skin.

Then I cut the beets into little cubes - about 1/2" pieces. I ended up with about 3 cups of beet cubes.

I put the beet cubes in a bowl, and cleaned and chopped up the scallions, slicing them in half lengthwise and then into thin slices crosswise. I ended up with about 1/4 cup of scallion bits.

Then I washed, dried, sorted and sliced the mint. In my store, the mint leaves came attached to stems. And a few of the leaves were bruised, hence the sorting. I rinsed the leaves and patted them dry, then stacked up the leaves and sliced across. I ended up with about 1/2 cup of mint leaf pieces.

I added the scallions to the bowl and then started adding sour cream. I started with about 3/4 cup, but that was not enough, so I used a full 1 cup. After I added most of the sour cream, I added the mint and then the last of the sour cream. Last, I added about 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and pepper.

Here is the finished salad in a nice bowl. It is bland and earthy and tangy and minty all at the same time. And pink!

This salad would be good with a vaguely Middle Eastern dinner of lamb kabobs or pitas or with a vaguely Indian dinner of curries. We served it one night when we were having the last hamburgers on the grill dinner, so as a side, this dish is versatile. Especially if you have made an impulse purchase of beets.

Odds and Ends

Here is lower City Park last Sunday.

















I find it interesting how some hosta hold up well into the fall, and some not.
This is hosta June. It is one of the best.

Here are coleus cuttings.
I will bring in cuttings from several annuals each fall. The grow and multiply during the winter, and then go out in May.

If it were not to freeze or even have a frost until we return in a week, I will get more cuttings. Why not?
Coleus root quite easily. Little plants are easier to keep over the winter.

Slowly the plants fill up the house. Here are some of the smaller crotons.

Here is the Zinnia patch on Thursday. I wonder if they will survive the week.

The zinnias actually get a little more sun this time of year as the leaves slowly fall from the elm tree overhead.









That is it for this week. We are off to the east coast to enjoy some seafood and the beach in Virginia. We plan to top off the week with a trip to Longwood Gardens.
We will return to Iowa next Saturday.
I will see whether the freeze actually came as predicted.
Philip