Cooking with Cucumbers

This year deer got into my bed and ate all my squash plants when they were just starting to bloom.  I was heart-broken and went off to HD and bought a gallon pot with 5 crookneck squash, my favorite.  It's been a couple of months and now the new plants are blooming and setting fruit, so I will get some squash very soon.  If you have never had home-grown crookneck squash you don't know what a buttery nutty treat you are missing.

Anyway, with a dearth of squash, I have to cook my abundant cucumbers.  Tonight I made stir-fries with them.    Here are some of the ingredients, but the cucumbers I cooked were really yellow North Carolina Pickles, which yield heavily.  I used them all up in cooking and didn't want to go pick more for a photo.  Also pictured are a great stringy non-fishy-tasting seaweed, Elephant Garlic, raw Turmeric tuber, fresh Shiitake mushrooms, and raw Ginger-

I peel and cube the cucumber, saute in water with the other ingredients above, I don't mind chunks of ginger and turmeric so I just chop them, as well as the garlic and mushrooms.

I added some celery, seaweed, soy sauce, and cubed roasted chicken with pan juices, since I have company, usually we eat vegetarian food.

It can be served over rice or buckwheat.  How do you cook your cucumbers?

Hannah

Wildflower Wednesday August 22, 2012

Welcome to Wildflower Wednesday here in the PNW.  Join Gail and other native plant aficionados on her blog Clay and Limestone!

Agastache aurantiaca that I grew from seed last year is blooming again, those sunset peachy colors are my favorite.  You can tell from the shape that hummingbirds would like these flowers.

They would look nice with some Verbena bonariensis, here washed out by the camera, so far I have been unable to germinate and grow Verbena hastata, which is native.

There are bright red inedible berries on Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, I love the deep green glossy leaves-

There are white insipid mealy berries on Gaultheria mucronata, Pernettya, also with leathery glossy green leaves, which has long wispy branches in my garden.

Gaultheria shallon, Salal, has ripe fruit and a few flowers still-

The berries are also ripe on the very lovely foliaged Cascade Oregon Holly Grape, Berberis (Mahonia) nervosa.  I just bought a plant of B. repens, which is stoloniferous, so hope it will spread and be a good ground cover.

Time to pick some more berries, in addition to the blueberries and blackberries.  Yum!
Hannah

GBBD- What's Blooming Now, August 2012

Welcome to August GBBD!  To see what else is blooming in other gardens around the country and world, go to May Dreams Gardens, hosted by Carol, who just celebrated her 2000th post!  Congratulations!

Some of the Malvas are blooming now, this one takes care of itself, Malva alcea fastigata-

A surprise was first-time bloom on Alcea ficifolia 'Antwerp' mixed, grown from seed a couple of years ago, which turned out to be a black red-

A Hibiscus 'Roselle' bloom is just opening, my first success getting it to bloom in a large container also containing a Moringa tree, and Cerinthe purpurascens.  Roselle is the plant from which comes the Hibiscus calyxes used as an antioxidant and colorant in teas like Red Zinger.  I updated the photo.

I hope to keep it alive by taking the container in this fall.  Also updated.

Next to it are blooms on my Kamo Eggplant, with a Sarracenia peeking in on the right-

Also on the deck are blooming a couple of geraniums I divided last year, in one of my favorite garden colors, peachy salmon.  They will spend the winter by my kitchen sink, hopefully in bloom.

Here is a self-sown Geranium pratense, the parent was Splish Splash; it gets rather tall-

Some roses are still blooming, here is my favorite Rugosa, Topaz Jewel, now about 6' tall-

The daylilies are winding down, but some Agastaches grown from seed this year are starting to bloom, the taller ones got deer-nipped-

Another rose, a ground cover type called Lavender Dream-

The herbs are blooming but I am going to save them for another post, so here is my last entry, Crocosmia or Montbretia, much shorter than Crocosmia 'Lucifer', and one of those super tough hard to kill plants.

Looming on the horizon are several days of near 100*F temperatures, so I will be properly commiserating with the rest of the country for a while.  I'm be doing a lot of watering.

Hannah

Daylily Seedling Bed

Well, they are no longer seedlings, but are all daylilies I grew from seed.  One parent was the garish and clown-like Erin Farmer (second row).  I've long since lost my old list of the other parents.  Daylilies are fun to hybridize.  I would mark the pod parent with a tag around the blossom stem with the pollen parent's name or initials.  I sowed the resulting seeds into seedling mix and chilled them in the refrigerator or a cold garage until they sprouted.  Some people soak the seeds in a weak Hydrogen Peroxide solution until the roots start to emerge, then plant.  They can be planted out the next spring.  Here is the extensive bed of seedlings.

This bed is in a drain field so gets lots of nitrogen and water.  The daylilies are tall because Erin Farmer is a 36" daylily in addition to all the nitrogen.  They tend to be weed-infested, with horsetail reeds, blackberry vines, and thistles.  They also tend to flop, but the sheer mass holds them up in the middle.

Here you can see the Erin Farmer influence, I like the color and the white midrib stripe.

Some have the color but not the long thin spider type petals.

This one is a spider type but more of an orange color, some are gold like the throat-

 So you see what a fascinating range of daylilies you can get from seed growing.  Pick a couple of  favorites and see what you can get.  This one has some white midrib striping but with the rounder ruffled edged petals, love those piecrust ruffles!

And finally for some tropical pizzazz, a twirly spidery cluster, 

Summer is almost 2/3 over, enjoy!

Hannah

Wildflower Wednesday July 2012

Welcome to my Wildflower Wednesday post, join other blogs for their wildflowers on Clay and Limestone, hosted by Gail, with delightful photos of pollinators on Joe Pye Weed.

I was pleasantly surprised this month to out of the blue discover wildflowers I had grown from seed a year or two ago blooming that I didn't even know had survived.  One such is a Rudbeckia from a mixed package of T & M seeds.

Agastache aurantica also surprised me, I thought it had bitten the dust over the winter-

Then there were the delicate blooms of Allium cernuum-

Limnanthes douglasii that I grew under lights bloomed much later than some that self-sowed from last year, these are very cheery and I hope they will self-sow more and establish themselves in my yard.  They were getting nibbled by deer so perhaps they won't be able to really spread.  In some areas in California they color the hills and are known as "Meadowfoam", and are inportant to pollinators.

I hope you are finding some native plants to brighten your gardens.

Hannah

Garden Blogger's Bloom Day July, 2012

Welcome to another GBBD, for more lovely flowers in bloom see all the posts at May Dreams Gardens, hosted by Carol.

I'll start off with a great little ground cover that I grew from seed last year and it bloomed in the fall and now, spreading to about a square foot already, Dianthus deltoides 'Microchips'-

The once-blooming roses are winding down, here is the last to bloom, Tuscany Superb, to see the others I posted for GBBD last month, click here-

Irises are almost done except the remaining Japanese ones, in form rather like ballroom skirts, here is Tuptim-

The daylilies are coming into their full glory, here are some double Kwanso with I think Jacob-

Here is Fooled Me

Clematis are blooming now, the earliest and last of my original 5 Park Clematis along with Jackmani, Niobe-

My favorite for lovely multi-hued blooms that are borne for a long time is C. venosa violacea

Jackmani is very reliable and vigorous, love that deep purple color, and floating in front are the very vigorous C. integrifolia, tiny light blue bells-

Long-coveted and added last fall only to be eaten to the ground by rabbits, Geranium 'Rozanne' is making a comeback under wire-

A new purchase that I saw on another blog and just had to have, since I'm starting some from seed but they won't bloom probably until next year, and this one is variegated as well as blooming, Knautia macedonica from HD.

A new annual I grew from seed this year and to my surprise is blooming now along with some Nasturtiums, is Cerinthe 'Purple Bells'-

A houseplant I've forgotten the name of, blooming-

The cool reliable return of Lychnis coronaria, in that intense vibrant magenta, the color that gardeners and growers tend to call all kinds of ridiculous other names even though it is ubiquitous-

And last for another vibrant color, Crocosmia 'lucifer' with a tropical splash hard to match-

Well, enjoy your blooms,   Hannah

Wildflower Wednesday June 2012

I was on a trip to Southern California on WW, so am posting late.  Catch other posts at Clay and Limestone, hosted graciously by Gail.  The last night of camping was in Big Sur at Limekiln Beach State Park, some photos here from a blog, a nice campground with a beach and also a walk through some Redwoods along a stream to a waterfall.  I unfortunately left my camera behind for the hike to the waterfall, but did notice some Aquilegia formosa in bloom, which are also blooming in my garden on second year plants I grew from seed-

Other plants I saw there were big mats of Oxalis oregana, and a Heuchera that especially liked making big mats covered with wispy white blooms on the vertical stones of the waterfall.

Another wildflower I grew last year that is blooming this year is Erysimum wheeleri-

Tellima grandiflora 'Fringe Cups' self-sows readily in my garden and blooms with greenish flowers with a fringed pink edge-

The orange-yellow native honeysuckle Lonicera ciliosa is blooming-

Thanks for joining me for some native wildflowers.

Hannah