December 15, 2019 . Week #3 Picture contest

Welcome to the Mears Garden Blog.

This time of year we have our winter picture contest.
We have just finished Week 2.

December is half over.
It is almost the Winter Solstice.
So many of my plants have now been inside for two months.
They have perhaps another four months to go.
Sometimes that seems like a long time.

Winter is here.
There is no way to hold it back.
We had a quick 2 inches of snow that mostly people ignored.
The temperature dipped down to 8 degrees midweek, but mostly we cannot complain.
But otherwise it was in the 40's.
Mostly I worry about snowflakes on the weather app.
As long as the roads are clear I can live with cold.


It has been a busy week.
How strange is that?
We live in such a busy world.
Busy, busy, busy.
Did't Kurt Vonnegut have some comment about that condition.

Our daughter Katie is in town with Elisabeth and Christopher.
Katie has worked for the Episcopal Church for a long time, doing disaster relief work. For the last 3 years she has also been studying to become a priest. She goes to school in New York City a few days a week.
Yesterday she was ordained to be a deacon, at the Episcopal Cathedral in Des Moines.
It was quite a celebration. There was a lot of pomp and circumstance.
What in the world is "pomp" and where did the word come from?
Can you tell us Pat?





Christopher watched. He liked the that thing on the bishop's head.














Christopher was able to get close to the action.













This coming June she will ordained again, and will become a priest.






Here at the house Christopher, who will be 3 in January, has helped with cookie making.























But let me talk about flowers and the picture contest.

Here was the winner in Week 2.
It was the pink/red orchid cactus.

The full vote was

Crocus 5
Tulip 7
orchid cactus 14
winter aconite 0
Pastel zinnia 12

total  38

The pastel zinnia was a strong second. With 32% of the vote the zinnia is in a strong position to get one of three wild cards, as we quietly think about picture playoffs in 12 weeks.

Week 3

So let me present the contestants for Week 3.
This week will be "Doubles Week."
Each picture will have 2 flowers.
It is a slightly different dynamic.
For years in the contest (which has been going for 13 years)  I was something of a purest. There were only pictures of a single flower. I did not allow closeups either.
How restrictive.
The contest also gives you a broad color spectrum, even if the time frame is compressed.

#1 Purple Pasque flower (April 20, 2019)

The pasque flower is from the genus Pulsatilla.
It is found in the wild in this country.
It is the State flower of South Dakota.
It is sometimes called the prairie crocus.
Some species are native to other parts of the world.
How did that happen? I do not know. Maybe the seeds came over on the famous land bridge to Asia.
I do remember being in the Rocky Mountains and seeing its version of this plant, at altitude.

Look at the center of the top flower.
It has this remarkable purple thing in the middle.
I will show you more in the bonus section.

#2 Monsella tulip (April 25, 2019)

If you want color here it is. For even more color see the bonus picture of this image.
This has always been one of our favorites.
Unfortunately, like many tulip hybrids, it does not last more than about 2 years.
At the same time if the weather is cooperates (does not get really hot) the flower will last for a week.

#3 Double Bloodroot  (April 16, 2019)

If this is not my favorite flower in the entire garden, it would certainly be in the top five.
That is an interesting thought.
Mostly I do not think of it that way.
I have favorite hosta, or tulip.
Mostly I do not compare between types of plants.
Mostly I pink my favorites from the ones that are blooming right now.

This is the double bloodroot.
It is a hybrid grown from the spring woodland wildflower.

The genus for bloodroot is Sanguinaria.
The species for the regular bloodroot is canadensis.
That is a clue for its primary location.
They do grow all over the eastern part of the country and into the Mississippi embayment.
Embayment? I guess that term was used in Wikipedia since the Mississippi used to be a bay. Whatever.
Here is the place of all knowledge.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanguinaria

Apparently the seeds for the single bloodroot are spread by ants.
I am told that the flowers of the single bloodroot produce pollen but not nectar.
Apparently this disappoints many a bee.
Wait a minute. What is nectar? Where does nectar fit into reproduction.
I will put this down as a question to answer later.

Like so many good things in the garden the plant is poisonous.
Apparently that means that, as they say in the article, they taste bad to "mammalian herbivores."
What? I think that means the rabbits and deer will not eat them.

I got my first double bloodroot in 2009. I grew this nice clump from  2009 to 2016. The clump just kept getting bigger. Then about 2016 it did not come up.
I found a source and ordered more the next year. I planted them in different parts of the garden. They have come up the last several springs. They do give the impression that they are getting established.

The double variety will last much longer than the single variety.
They will last as much as a week, even longer if you have a clump if some start at different times.

The plants also last for months, making it easier not to plant something right on top of them.

#4 Daffodil with orange center (April 17, 2019)

What a splash of color.

I mostly have lost track of the names of my daffodils.
I have been growing some now for 30 years.
They mostly do come back each year, unlike the tulips.
This pair really captured my attention as I was looking through my pictures.
As with some other pictures in the contest I was really torn between this picture and a picture of the same variety as a single flower.
That picture is in the bonus section.

#5 Yellow tulip pair (May 2, 2019)

I love this pair of tulips.
They appear to be dancing.
There are one of 3-4 tulip groups around the garden that do in fact come back every year.
They bloom at the same time as the bluebells, which dominate the garden like no other plant during the year.That means they are tall.
The other plant in the background is the winter aconite.

And of course, they are yellow.



There you have it. Week 3.
Vote away.
Let me hear from you.
Tell me what you like.

Bonus pictures

More pasque flowers

I love how the flowers are so hairy. I assume that has some function. I wonder if google would answer if I asked why are some flowers hairy.


I have not found pasque flowers to be very hardy. This one clump however is 3-4 years old and just keeps getting bigger.

They do come in other colors. There are red ones and even a white one. I have grown them but they have not survived.

More Monsellas.

Here you have total color.
Imagine a big picture of this.





In this picture you get that contrast with the early spring brown background.

Daffodils

Is that not a wonderful picture.
The light. The color. The fact that there is no little speck of dirt some where.

Bloodroot

This is the large clump as it appeared in 2015. It did not come back in 2016.
I have been replacing it ever since.
So far the replacements are doing nicely.
This picture however shows you the goal.










This is actually intended to have a slightly pink color.

















Here is one that is somewhere between the single wildflower and the double one.






















Here is the single. You have to see it quickly because it will only bloom for 1-2 days.














A clump of singles.

















A clump of doubles in 2019.

Julia's recipe
Roasted Potatoes

Here is the link to all Julia's recipes that have appeared on the blog. Really- all of them since she started posting several years ago.
https://mearskitchen.wordpress.com/


This is a simple recipe. However, I was a way old person before I understood how to make roasted potatoes or other roasted vegetables. And this week is a bit complicated with visitors from Maine so a simple recipe fits the bill. Roasting vegetables seems to me to have become a thing in the last 10 years or so, during which time I learned to roast Brussel sprouts and cauliflower and asparagus and even carrots. Did we really just boil everything before then?




Roast potatoes takes 3 ingredients: some potatoes (preferably red, although white or yukon gold or even purple will work. But not russets!), 1(or 2 if you are roasting lots of potatoes) tablespoon of olive oil and some kosher salt. That's it.

First I turned the oven on to 425 degrees.











I started by washing the potatoes (no need to peel) and paring away any odd places (like sprouting eyes or bruised places). Then I sliced the ends off (too much skin in the skin-to-potato ratio) and sliced the potatoes into thin (1/8 - 1/4") slices. If you have a vegetable mandoline, this is a good time to use it. I don't so I just sliced. I had 6 medium potatoes which yielded about 4 cups of slices.








I poured 1 tablespoon of olive oil over the potato slices in the bowl. Then I bounced the bowl around, vigorously but not so vigorously as to end up with potato slices on the counter. This spread the oil around so each slice got a little.















Next I took out a big rimmed baking sheet with a silpat. If you don't have a silpat, use parchment. Stickage is a problem so use something to keep the potatoes from sticking to the baking sheet. Use a rimmed baking sheet rather than a cookie sheet because even a little olive oil oozing off the pan would not be good.

Then I sprinkled the whole sheet with kosher salt. I used my fingers and felt professional. It took about 8 big pinches of salt to cover. Note that some of the potatoes look whiter and some look yellower - I had some yukon gold and some red.



I roasted the potato slices for about 20 minutes and then used a fork to flip them over and then I roasted them for another 10 -15 minutes.

At that point, all of the slices were spotty brown, some browner than others, nicely salted and kind of crispy, as may be seen in the last picture below.

You can cut the potatoes into wedges or if using small red potatoes, cut them in half. Same oil and salt routine. Start them all cut side down flipping them over after the first 20 minutes.

This same approach can be used with thin slices of sweet potato or with little cauliflower or broccoli florets or green or yellow beans or asparagus. Or probably with cardboard or shoe leather.

We served the roasted potato slices with salmon. Sometimes with chicken or meat loaf.

I have no information on leftovers because there never are any.

Odds and Ends

Here is a visual way you know there is a small child staying in the house.

Date countdown 


So today, December  15, what are some landmark dates, and how far away are they?

December 21, 2019- 6 days- the winter solstice- the days will start getting longer-

February 3, 2020- 50 days- the Iowa caucuses

March 21, 2020- 97 days- by some calculations this is the first day of Spring 160 days

November 3, 2020- 324 days- election day

Have a safe week.
The light is coming.
Things will get better.
Philip