Thrivers

So, in contrast today's earlier specimens that are on the cusp of extinction and hanging on for dear life, there are some little ones that seem to be quite happy, despite the lack of rain.

Clown violet - upside down, but you can see its face.  One of the transplants from the prior weekend.

Clematis - second mini-wave of one.

Same clematis - slightly wider perspective.

Morning glory?  I think that's what this is - not sure; it came up on its own.  I had thought it was a chopstick bean plant initially; clearly not so.  Now I am trying to figure out why friends don't let friends grow morning glories, as one other garden blogger once wrote.  Are they so very bad?  Very Georgia O'Keefe, don't you think?

Mandavilla buds.

Alyssum.  Oddly, these are magenta - the alyssum we had last year was white.  Did it cross with something?  Not sure.

 

Now looking at my thrivers, seems my floral color palette tends toward the purples and reds.  Maybe I need to be adding some warm colors to the mix.  Or would that just be too busy?  Will ponder and give it some thought....

 

 

 



Lifeline

There's been no rain in days and days.  It might be climate change; it might be an aberration.  The usual summer pattern of hot, humid, and hazy, followed by a downpour to break the soupiness, just has not borne itself out this year.  Not always so bad - sometimes a humid day is simply followed by a lovely, pleasant, drier day - don't look a gift horse in the mouth, right?  Flip side is there is no rain.  Leading to some of the flora not holding up so well.  Looking to be in rather critical condition, frankly.

I was raised in the Confucian Buddhist tradition.  We put up photos of our departed on the family altar, on death anniversaries, to celebrate the life that was.  The tricky part is to find a photo in later life that is reflective of the departed, but no so advanced as to be frail or evoke sadness - one seeks a still robust photo, but if there is just a frail photo, well, that is better than none.  So, on that note....

Calabrochoa.  The now-horizontal one was quite vigorous in its other pot, before I transplanted it to this bigger planter.  Leaves have yellowed, but it still seems to be blooming, so perhaps not all is lost.  During this dry spell, I have been administering doses of water.

Hibiscus transplants.  The one on the right looks shriveled and dry.  But maybe, just maybe, some of the roots are still alive and kicking under the soil.  These, too, get water administered to them.

Japanese maple transplant.  Note leaf on the soil, with one of the formerly two leaves, fallen, to the right side.

And then this established hydrangea.  When I water it, there is too much at once, it all dribbles out of the bottom of the planter - wasted water, sadly.  How to slow down the rate at which the water can be administered?

Then I remembered my little seed plug containers, with the tiny hole for slow drippage.  Plugs are spent or will not germinate, but at least the flow can be controlled, somewhat.

So a few of the plug containers are at the bottom.  The first few drained more quickly than I would have liked, but then the subsequent ones barely drained at all.

Water still in the plug container.

Slightly better photo - despite the incorrect orientation.  Note smudge = water, reflecting the light.

So there we have it.  Hopefully it will perk up the plants when we come through.

Late Summer Meal

Harvested the tomatoes.  I was determined not to let them rot or wither on the vine without being able to eat them.  There's not been enough rain this summer.  The tomatoes seem to be holding up for the most part, and who knows, maybe the lack of water has even concentrated the juices, but my worry is they will start to shrivel.  The leafy herbs have been prone to shriveling.  So some of the pots got hand-watered today.  Maybe they'll need that tomorrow too.  Haven't managed to get a new hose attachment yet to replace the leaky one, but since there is still water in the catch buckets, might as well use those.  But the tomatoes were still hanging on, and, actually, the weight of one cluster seemed to pull the plant lopsided, so definitely harvest time.  (Not sure whether that will allow the smaller ones to get bigger, or allow them to ripen them from the current green.)

So this morning's task was to go grocery shopping and get some mozzarella to make the meal, and to make some upcoming meals (going to try a vegetable gratin, since I have bread crumbs lying around from an old, stale loaf).

Ready for harvest. (Photographed with flash.)

Same tomatoes - natural light; no flash.

More for the harvest.

And more.

The tomato harvest, with some basil.

Final meal - Caprese salad, dressed with some old McDonald's Paul Newman vinaigrette, over a brown rice/quinoa mix, seasoned with Trader Joe's lemon pepper.

Now, it won't stop me from trying to grow more tomatoes next year, but these were not so phenomenal that I notice a different from supermarket-purchased tomatoes.  The mythical home-grown difference did not pan out.  It could be that it's the strain of tomato - I have no idea what these are.  They are the stray ones that took root when I spread compost onto one of last year's tomato planters (none of the "plugs" that I tried actually to cultivate in that planter took) - the "western" designated tomato planter that I mentioned and photographed in an earlier post.  Perfectly lovely and fine, just not phenomenal.  I am waiting for the sweet grape ones that we had last year - those seeds took, and there are little tomatoes forming on the vine in the other planter.  We'll have to wait and see how they turn out.

All in all, not a bad meal.  I had thought I would have it for Sunday lunch.  But the late morning whole wheat everything bagel with sundried tomato cream cheese (so, so much better than the vegetable cream cheese - much more umami; not quite the same as the light lox spread, but totally workable and very tasty in its own way) pretty much lasted me through the afternoon (and then, I suspect, caused me to need a bit of a nap).  So the harvest meal got pushed to dinner.

And during the MTV video music awards, I even managed to make my breakfast overnight oats for the next week.  So hopefully that will give me a good head start.  Maybe it'll even make up for the fact that I did not manage to do any work this weekend....

Good Eats

And then after my somewhat productive weekend of settling in the new transplants, last Monday night there was my attempt to be normal and cook myself some dinner.  Truth be told, I probably would not even have tried it midweek, with the way work has been shaking out these days, but since I knew I had our annual neighborly dinner on Tuesday, and we promised to bring dessert, I thought I'd leave early and attempt to do some grocery shopping for THAT - try to home-make a dessert - and that allowed me to get a tomato and a chayote for Monday night dinner.  Probably a bit cliché for a working woman - I wouldn't even think of taking some time to do something good and healthy for myself, but yet I'll do it for my neighbors.  Ah well, however it happens, I'll be grateful that it happens.

So, for my dinner, I already had some fried tofu stashed in the freezer from a weekends-back trip to Chinatown with the parental units.  And then there's the shiso - yet to be truly harvested.  And I had the powdered tamarind soup base in the pantry. So that formed the basis for a vegetarian version of gia ba ba - a tamarind-based dish that my Mama makes, with pork, and the tamarind soup base, eaten with a good condiment-side of strong nuoc mam that is garlicky and spicy.  Well, in my vegetarian version, the chayote and tomato rounded out the soup, no nuoc mam, but some good grinds of the Trader Joe's lemon pepper, all over a bed of brown rice with quinoa.  It was my first time trying that grain mix (I've had it at restaurants), and it was tasty and easy in the rice cooker - definitely a repeater.

So the food pix....

Harvested shiso - I didn't bother to wash it.  It's all organic, right?

 

Shiso leaves stacked and ready to be chiffonaded.

 

 



In the pot on the stove, cooking away.

 

In the bowl = dinner.

And next day's dessert didn't turn out half bad.  A nectarine and blueberry crumble.  Other than the fruit (which I bought the Monday night), I was able to make do with ingredients I had on hand - yay me!  I put it all together in the morning before work, let it rest in the fridge during the day, and asked sissy to put it in the oven an hour before our invitation - it baked while she went out to pick up some ice cream to go on the side. 

 

It's a quite lovely tradition, our annual neighborly dinner.  My next door neighbor, Ms. V, started it by inviting us over.  This year, our newest neighbor, Mr. B, hosted it.  We ate outside on his terrace.  He had a light, and that has inspired me to go ahead and get that done for mine, at some point.  Anyway, Ms. S was there as well - we sat out for 4 hours.  Just lovely.  Unfortunately, it's rarer than one would think to know one's neighbors in New York City, let alone socialize with them. 

 

We are very luck in this little corner of Yorkville.

New Transplants

A week behind on this post, but hey, so it goes....

Last weekend we headed out to Queens to do some tile shopping for my parents' kitchen, which turned out to be a wonderful opportunity to rescue some plants.  As I've mentioned before, my mother is the master gardener.  But then the plants go off and do their own thing - they grow in cracks, they grow where they'd otherwise be mowed down, or there are little runts that will never make it among the alphas in mama's garden.  And, since I have empty spaces, they come back home with me.

So, if I may, I'd like to introduce the new little ones.

 

In the bag in which they were transported - most prominent are a few hibiscuses and lilies of the valley.

Intended home of the hibiscus - a little weedy.  There used to be a hibiscus in this planter - the one on the blog cover.

Uprooted weeds, turned under, in hopes they will compost themselves and support the new transplants.

One set of lilies of the valley - transplanted into a pot behind the sweet grape tomatoes and Husky red tomatoes to the left, and the planter with the honey suckle and calabrochoa to the right.

More lilies of the valley - to the right and behind the bird basin, to the left of the planter with the old Japanese maple.

Bag with the little clown violets.

One of the fingernail flowers was sprouting in the Japanese maple planters; it got moved to this little pot where the calabrochoas were springing up, those having moved in with the honey suckle.

The calabrochaos - in with the honey suckle.  The calabrochoas growing in the little pot at the foot of this planter were a surprise - none reared; they came in on their own.  None of the seeds that I TRIED to cultivate actually took.

Planter in the corner - the trunk belongs to the deceased Japanese maple. The clown violets were transplanted; one may have been the offspring of some of last years.  There's a little violet, too.  And then the transplanted new Japanese maple - reared by my Mama and saved for me.  Although, it's not looking so robust here.

 

Hibiscus - three plants transplanted.  The center one is definitely the strongest, and my Mama gave me some of its native soil.  The one on the right looks ok, but it was growing in a crack, and when I tried to uproot it, roots did come out, but the main root also was stripped and scraped; a little worried about this one.  The tiny one on the left should be ok.