August 28, 2022- Garden cleanup begins

It is that time of year for garden cleanup. Perhaps this is just different way of saying it is time for some organized weeding. There are some differences. 

First of all, one thing  must be clear. This is not be just another way of saying the garden is shutting down for the year. There is a lot of garden and gardening left to be done. We may not get a frost until late October. That means that annuals will last until then. Many houseplants can be outside, some enjoying a fall bloom. I think about the bougainvillea. 

So left me define garden cleanup. Certain beds, such as the ones where there are daylilies and iris, are largely done for the season. This time of year they are bound to be a little ragged. So I cut the daylilies and some of the iris plants down to maybe about 6 inches. I then weed between the plants, adding some compost to the beds to supplement the soil. Actually the weeding is a lot easier once the foliage for the perennials are out of the way.

Cleaning a bed can provide some  instant gratification. The ragged bed looks clean. At that point I can consider how to fill the empty spaces. For example yesterday we went to the greenhouse west of Wellman. I got a few flats of pansies. Remember pansies? They withstand a frost and will keep blooming into November. Then as a bonus they often come back in the spring.

There are focal point plants in any garden. There are also plants that create anticipation. At the moment the anticipation is building for this one fantastic plant.  It has not bloomed before.  It has at least 11 buds at the moment. I think they will bloom in about two weeks. They may well bloom at the same time.  There is even a second round of buds coming after that.

Here are the buds.

Here is the next round.

This of course is a very large Night Blooming Cereus. I have smaller ones that currently are hanging various places. This one was trimmed rather extensively maybe in 2021, before I got it. It had been repotted not long ago, which is good.

There are two flushes of buds developing. The biggest, and ones I first noticed about a week ago, are now aa little longer than an inch long. I have counted 11 of these buds. One question will be how long will it take for them to bloom. This is that fun question with many buds. One bud that comes to mind is amaryllis. Orchid buds can take months to bloom.

The next set of buds are barely 1/4 inch. You saw the picture. You look for them on last year's growth.

Let me write a little about this wonderful plant.

1- The name Night Blooming Cereus is used for a number of plants.

2- The one that I think is the most correct is epiphyllum oxypetalum. Epiphyllum is the genus. Oxypetalum is the species.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphyllum_oxypetalum

I know this in part because I belong to a facebook group for epiphyllum fans. I like the group because it is international. It is a connection. Sometimes it is helpful to think I am part of something beyond Iowa. 

3- The plant comes from southern Mexico.

4- It has long vine-like tendrils that are perhaps 4-5 feet long at this point. On the pictured plant they all grew over the winter. I tried to keep it dormant but it would not listen. This picture is from February, 2022. They tendrils were reaching the ceiling.

I was given this plant last year. It had gotten too big for the previous caregiver to move around. (I try to avoid the term "owner." I do not "own" my plants. I just take care of them and sometimes money is involved.) Moving twice a year is necessary if it is to spend the summer outside. It has to be inside for the winter. This is the picture from September of 2021 when it first arrived. It is on all those leaves in this picture that the buds are forming.

5- It blooms for me in August and September. It bloomed for the first time in the garden in 2012. It blooms in the early evening. Well, actually it starts to open about dusk. It is fully open about an hour after it is completely dark. In late July that is 11 o'clock. By the end of September that is more like 9-9:30. It really is done by morning. Maybe you can see it before it fades if you are up very early.

This year one plant bloomed on July 23, 2022. 

6- I am fascinated by the idea of a plant trigger, setting off the reproductive cycle. I assume it is some combination of shortening days and perhaps a cool spell. It dipped down to 54 on June 19. Could that have started the cycle that had the plant bloom a month later? It was 53 on July 27. Could that have pushed the plants to start budding now?

Sometimes that "trigger" starts the budding process in different plants in different parts of the yard. Sometimes that goes all the way to blooming on the same night.

7- Most of the time I have to take the pictures of this plant in the complete dark. These pictures are from past years. I should add that the iphone camera does not particularly work on night pictures. I have to dust off the Canon in the closet for flash pictures at night.

One year was special. 

These pictures were from about September 23, 2018. It is the one time in ten years when I could photograph the blooming flower during daytime. There was even a blue sky. It was 45 degrees that morning and had only gotten to 67 the day before. Between the shortening day and the cooler temperatures the flowers stayed open until almost noon.

Another plant that is sometimes called a NBC bloomed this week. It is Epiphyllum hookeri. It has a very different flower from the oxypetalum. For one thing the flower stays open into the morning. (It does fade by noon.)

Other pictures from this week

This was about the last bloom from Starry Starry Night.

This bougainvillea flower was all alone on the plant. This weekend I moved it and the other big one to a more sunny location.

 

Baby lettuce.

The best zinnia. 

Julia's recipe

Spicey lamb patties

This recipe is from a cookbook by Joanne Weir called From Tapas to Meze. The cookbook includes recipes for what the author calls "small plates" from all around the Mediterranean. Some of the recipes are solidly appetizers, some salads, some soups and some, like this one, are capable of being the main course. I like lamb in all forms, but some cuts are pretty expensive (lamb chops and leg of lamb, for two). So I am always on the lookout for good things to do with ground lamb. Here is an example. 

More ingredients than usual, but nothing too out of the way:

1 lb. or so of ground lamb;

1-1/2 cups chopped (fine-ish) onion and scallion (or all of one or the other);

5 tablespoons of olive oil (divided);

1/2 cup panko;

1/4 cup wine (I used white. Red is fine, but dry not sweet);

about 1 tablespoons smushed garlic;

1 tablespoon or so of orange zest (although, frankly, I don't think it made a real difference);

2 teaspoons ground cumin;

1 teaspoon ground coriander;

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice;

1/4 teaspoon dried thyme;

some chopped up parsley;

1/2 cup flour;

1/2 teaspoon of sugar;

1 big (28 oz.) can of diced tomatoes;

 1/3 cup kalamata olives;

salt and pepper. 

Like I said, a lot of ingredients but pretty standard. 

I started by chopping up the onion and scallion and taking my herb scissors to the parsley. And I zested the orange and smushed the garlic. 

I scissored up maybe 1/4 of parsley, and I set aside 1 tablespoon for garnishing.

Next, I heated 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a large non-stick pan,

I cooked the onions until they were soft.

Note: The recipe wanted me to soak soft bread crumbs in wine and then squeeze the bread. And the recipe wanted me to toast whole cumin seeds, coriander seeds and allspice in a dry skillet and them let them cool and grind them up. 

I thought both of these steps were too much work for a regular home cook. So I used panko and ground spices.  And I reduced the amount of wine to 1/4 cup to go in the sauce. 

Here I am mixing the parsley and smushed garlic and orange zest into one heap. 

I put the heap of parsley etcetera into a big bowl. I added the onions, panko, lamb and ground spices (plus the thyme). And about 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt and maybe 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper.

I gently kneaded the mixture until everything was pretty well integrated.

I put the bowl in the refrigerator for maybe 30 minutes. Shorter than the recipe's suggestion, but a brief chill is good. 

I poured the flour into a shallow (but rimmed) plate and added a bit more salt and pepper - less than 1/2 teaspoon of salt and less than 1/4 teaspoon of pepper. I stirred that around with my fingers.

Then I took the lamb mixture out of the refrigerator. I used a medium-sized disher (a/k/a ice cream scoop) so the balls would be about the same size. Then I rolled the 16 balls to make them a bit more compact. 

I put the rest of the olive oil in the skillet. As I worked with the meat, I turned the heat up to medium-high.

I put the balls, one by one, onto the floured plate and flattened them (but not too thin), flipping them over to get flour on both sides. 

I gently placed the floured patties into the skillet - which was not too hot or too cool. 

Some patties in the skillet. 

I don't think I needed more oil, but you might. The pan should not dry out completely. Add another tablespoon of oil if you need to.

I peeked at the underside of the patties after maybe 4 minutes, and they were golden brown. I flipped them and cooked them for maybe 4 minutes on the other side. 

The patties did not all fit in the skillet at the same time so I had a clean plate to put the cooked patties on.

After 7 or 8 minutes of cooking, the patties were mostly if not altogether cooked. I was not worried as I knew there was a bit more cooking to come, in the sauce. 

When the patties were all cooked, I opened the can of tomatoes and poured it into the same skillet (which contained some flour for a bit of sauce thickening and some nice stuck-on lamby bits). I added the bit of wine and some salt and pepper.

After I let the sauce cook for about 10 minutes, I put all of the patties in the sauce and simmered the patties gently in the sauce for another 10 minutes/ 

I fished all of the patties out of the sauce and put them in a nice serving piece. I poured the sauce over top. Then I garnished with the 1/3 cup of kalamata olives and the last tablespoon of parsley. 

We served the patties with orzo. I made this on a Saturday, so we also had sweet corn and salad. And melon.  

If you want to make this on a weeknight, you can make the meat mixture ahead of time and chill it overnight. 

As you'd expect. the leftovers were delicious. 

Odds and Ends

It is almost fall crocus time. Last year the first one emerged on September 2. That is coming right up. One important feature of fall blooming crocuses is that they can be planted now and will bloom this fall. They sort of come pre-chilled, ready to grow. I just ordered about one hundred bulbs. They really are not that expensive. I will worry about where to put them when they get here. I think I will plant many of them in the front sidewalk bed, after I cut back the daylilies. There are many spring aconite bulbs in there. That will not be a problem. Those bulbs will not mind being disturbed a little.

We went to the Greenhouse down by Wellman yesterday. I really like to support family owned greenhouses. I got another hoya, 2 sansevieria, and some pansies. I have been described as a serial enthusiast. That could be a problem because, at the moment, two of my favorite types of plants, hoyas and sanseveiria, have to come inside in the winter. Far better to get enthusiastic about something that stays outside. Maybe I should think about fancy bluebells.

We could use some rain again. There was a little (1/4 of an inch) during the week. I spend far too much time watching the weather radar. When I do that it always seems like the storms come close but go some other way.

The Iowa City Farmer's Market celebrated its 50th anniversary this weekend. It is rather special. It does become a real social event. 

There really is so much to do in the garden. And then there is politics with requests for money at every turn. One does have to draw some lines as to who you will support. I do have a rule at the moment. Whatever I spend on the garden I must match with a political contribution.

Pray for peace and reconciliation. And fairness  and tolerance. To add to that list there is kindness.

Maybe, just maybe...

Philip