Succulent Redux

I'm really digging succulents these days. Growing up in  1970's California, I didn't think succulents were anything special. They just were--everywhere. Especially the ubiquitous jade plant. Now they are stirring up memories--like those of my mom's Sunset magazines, with all its pictures of terraced gardens, natural, modern interiors, and "new" western food. My mom planted those gardens, decorated accordingly, and made those recipes.

 And now I'm appreciating the colors, textures, and lines of the succulents too.

A gardening friend let me clip these starts from his large succulent garden early this morning and I arranged them all in a tarnished brass pot that I picked up in Damascus, oh, about 24 years ago. As they grow, I plan to replace the larger plants with smaller starts. Who knows were it will all lead... I haven't had much time for creative endeavors lately, so arranging this living bouquet was very satisfying. 

Garden Journal~July 2013

Life has been full and the weather has been warm, so I'm spending little time in the garden these days. I'm very grateful to Dear Husband, who keeps the water flowing as best he can in this desert land; water management is a significant job in Mafraq during the summer months. Dear Husband waters the garden twice, maybe three times a week, in the early morning or evening hours, when the garden is out of the heat. Though it is hot during the daytime hours, the garden has been a welcome refuge for Dear Husband in the early morning hours and for both of us in the evening.

I've done just a bit if dead heading, fertilizing, and I've had the joy of harvesting basil on a daily basis. It's basil in sandwiches, salads, pesto, and our favorite summer recipe,  Basil  Balsamic Chicken.

Fresh Basil-a-Plenty

We have begun a daily harvest of tomatoes. They're not as sweet as I had hoped they would be. Some in our family say they enjoy the tart flavor, but I'm already exploring strategies to grow sweeter tomatoes.

The first summer bloom of my new-this-year coneflowers, begun from seed this winter. I think this is the Mama Mia variety, which I expected to be a darker pink, but as it has bloomed it looks pretty much like my other standard variety coneflowers.

The lily border blooms are brightening our front walkway.

My flower beds are still  sparse, but the perennials I started from seed are starting to take off. The Jupiter's Beards bloomed for the first time last week.

I think that Verbena Bonariensis will win the award for the Best New Perennial. It is easily and quickly grown from seed, enjoys full sun, and is relatively drought tolerant once established. These plants are already mature even though I began them from seed this winter. I've heard they re-seed themselves, offering many new starts each season, so I plan to share this one with other gardening friends..

Our little fig tree, planted by Dear Husband in the fall, has already begun bearing fruit. I enjoyed the first ripe black fig from the tree at breakfast this morning. It was delicious. It looks like we'll get about twenty more figs this summer.

One of my two Agapanthus plants is blooming steadily, offering me a cheery greeting when I walk out the front door.

It doesn't look like much yet, but I am hopeful that this perennial sage bush will amount to more by next spring. Begun from seed this winter, it is on it's second summer bloom. It's another hardy, sun loving, drought resistant plant.

We've enjoyed moderate summer weather this far, but the temperatures are heating up. August and September are the months the garden usually goes into survival-mode. It will be interesting to see how things fare this next month.

Edit: I just noticed that I missed making a Garden Journal entry for June.  That must have been due to traveling.

Garden Journal~May 2013

Last month I did my first Garden Journal post as I thought it would be interesting to document the progress of our gardening efforts and to begin a record of what blooms when. Below is the right side of our garden, one month later. All my bulbs have finished blooming and now the perennials are taking the stage, though many of my seedlings are still too small to provide any visual pleasure. I'm just trying to keep them alive by giving them enough water and protecting them from snails. I've lost a few small plants, but most of them are thriving.

Dear Husband added four teucrium  bushes, drought resistant plants with silver/green foliage and lavender flowers.  They should grow another foot or two, providing a visual wall between the garden and the front concrete wall.

My tomatoes, which were three to six inch seedlings a month ago, have produced their first blossoms this week. Lesson learned: I had a few extra seedlings, which I threw out after I planted the garden. I should have saved them as pests destroyed a few of my seedlings. The basil is doing well, too, and I'm trying to resist picking it too much so that it can really take off. I know that pinching off basil encourages new growth, but I was hardly giving mine a chance to grow!

I planted a few  varieties of tomatoes, and their plant shape/height is quite different.

My healthiest coneflower is slowly blossoming--the flowers are slow to open, but they do last for a long time. I planted a number of coneflower seedlings this spring in two different colors, but I don't know if they'll mature enough to bloom this season.

The Russian sage has bloomed. It was already established before Dear Husband erected the canopy--it's sort of half in/half out, but unless it gets a lot bigger, I don't think we'll have to relocate it.

The left side of the garden has a few mature perennials and lots of seedlings.

The Grosso lavender plant that I stowed away in my carry-on luggage last September has survived and I'm enjoying its first blooms this week. The mature French lavender has finished its first bloom and I've cut it back. The Hidcote, begun by seed a few years ago is blooming, too. I used to be proud that I started these from seeds, but I've since learned that you "shouldn't" start lavender from seed as the plant quality in unreliable. It's better to propagate from an existing plant or buy a plant that has been started that way. 

The Leonotis has just begun blooming, providing a nice contrast to all the purple blooms I seem to favor.

Below is one of of the salvia plants I began from seed. While some garden pest has gnawed away at a few bottom leaves, the plant is otherwise thriving, albeit with a weird half-albino leaf thing going on. I've searched around on the internet to see what the problem could be but haven't yet come up with anything. If anyone knows, please inform me. I have a couple other seedlings grown from the same pack of seeds but none of them are affected. Ironically, this is the biggest and otherwise healthiest seedling of the bunch.

Garden Journal~April 2013

We will enjoy our first summer in Mafraq this year, and so made extra efforts to finish planting our garden. We moved into this house and yard in the fall of 2011, and at that time I planted only the perennials that I brought with me from Amman, so those are the most established. Last spring, I didn't add much of anything as we would be in the States the entire dry, hot summer. The garden went into survival mode, with a friend keeping the bare minimum of moisture on it.

I returned to Jordan last fall, ever optimistic of making my garden bloom, with a dozen seed packets and several live lavender plants. I transplanted the lavender plants in the fall; the Giant Hidcote and the Grosso, below, are faring the best and have lots of new growth on them. Already blooming is the french lavender that I brought up from Amman. I added the small phlomis bush this spring

Dear Husband put up our canopy a few weeks ago. It has been in storage since moving from Amman. I added a few red geraniums for color, and there is a potted mint plant in the back. The Russian sage is half in/half out of the canopy--we'll see how that works. It doesn't seem to mind so far, so I will leave it for now, hoping that it doesn't attract too many bees when it blooms. To its left is a small lantana with bright pink flowers. It is very drought resistant and should do well in its sunny spot.

The ranunculus are on their way out, but the irises are looking great. I still have lots of empty space in my flower beds, but they are fully planted now with the white plastic yogurt containers marking and protecting the seedlings I transplanted on Friday: blue salvia, verbena, coneflowers, and coreopsis.

Dear Husband marked off two herb/tomato beds for me. The soil level is raised just a little, but the main purpose of the wood is to mark off the beds. Right now they hold fifteen basil plants, three beet plants, and about 25 tomato plants. I'm pretty confident about the basil plants, but it is my first attempt at vegetables. I'm pretty sure my soil isn't up to par, even with the compost and peat moss we added. I 'll continue to add compost and coffee grounds. Please feel free to share any tips you have for growing tomatoes!

The pomegranate tree is bursting into bloom

The other flower bed, also a work in process, but anchored by the ever-blooming lavender.

Quotidian Fall

What has kept me from posting on my blog these past weeks? I'm not sure. Some autumnal puttering, maybe. I've adjusted to the subtle cadence of fall in Mafraq; until yesterday the temperatures remained summer-like, leaving only the changing afternoon sunlight to remind us that fall and then quickly, winter would be here.

We had a nice cloudburst last week, a brief deluge of precipitation strong enough to wash layers of summer dust from the leaves. Though it has been too warm to be out in the garden doing the fall work of planting and clean-up, I've admired the fresh greenery from the windows. It's funny, I hardly even notice the iron bars on my windows until I take a picture of them. I've a view of a lemon tree from one kitchen window, and and two olive trees from the other.

From my bedroom window, I enjoy a view of the pomegranate tree, preparing to drop its leaves, lemon trees, a few remaining flowers. The top of the tall pines which guard the garden wall provide refuge to many birds whose songs reveal their presence even as they hide themselves from sight in the amongst the needles and branches. The weather is cooling this weekend, so I plan to get all my fall bulbs in this week. Olives harvest will begin as well.

A plant nerd, I delight in discovering the botanical name of my garden plants. This is not always easy as garden plants sold in Jordan are not marked. I've had this plant in my garden for several years and always referred to it as a bee balm, as it looked like other bee balms I has seen in family Lamiaceae (mint family). Thanks to an Amman garden shop whose Facebook page I recently discovered, I now know that this drought resistant plant, native to South Africa and southern Africa, is  Leonotis leonurus, also know as Lion's Tail and Wild Dagga. Its orange blooms provide a bit of fall color, such as I am used to.

 Leonotis leonurus, Lion's Tail 

Tulbaghia violacea

My "lillies" are still blooming and it turns out that they are actually in in family Alliaceae, which explains why their leaves smell like garlic when I handle them. I've discovered that I can use them in salads, perhaps like chives, though I've not yet tried them.

Tayta's face continues to heal (11 weeks post-op here). The swelling is still subsiding, though at a slower pace than before. We hope to schedule her revision surgery this summer.

Lavender Nursery

Along with the bulbs I hope to plant a few more lavender bushes in my garden, and another Russian sage bush.

Dear Husband has been having knee problems this fall and had to give up his/our morning running routine. He purchased this new step machine in Amman last week as a substitute and we've all been trying out it. It seems effective and we hope it will be a good substitute for running, at least for the time being. Dear Husband moves it to the sun room, facing out into the garden, when he uses it so that he can at least have the sensation of being outside while he exercises. I joked with him that if we were in the States, we could probably buy something like this at a garage sale for a song as so many people sell exercise equipment at garage sales. (I noticed my reflection in the mirror in this image--not quite as artistic a portrayal of the artist as in van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait, and completely unintended.) At least it is compact, only taking up about 1.5 square feet of floor space.

In the kitchen, we're enjoying  a new fall soup, Red Lentil Coconut Soup, and I've finally mastered the basic sourdough bread recipe, using a San Francisco Sourdough starter gifted to me by a friend. Sourdough bread from San Francisco is a fond food memory from my childhood and I have a particular association of sourdough bread and visits to Fisherman's Wharf. 

Spring Color

Just when I thought there could be nothing lovelier than the first narcissus of spring...


...the ranunculus appear and steal the show.





Both Artist Son and Tayta proclaimed that I should "plant more!" next year, prompting a search which led here, to Eden Blooms. Their prices are great, and ranunculus rhizomes are so small and light, I'll be able to pack some in my suitcase when we return to Jordan at the end of the summer.

Edit: another good site with many helpful tips for growing ranunculus

Humble Harvest

Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram;
The marigold, that goes to bed wi' th' sun,
And with him rises weeping; these are flow'rs
Of middle summer, and I think they are given
To men of middle age.
~~~

Shakespeare, Winter's Tale

I am particularly taken with this humble harvest of hidcote lavender as it is the first harvest of two small bushes I began from seeds a couple springs ago.

In Which We Are Vegetable Gardeners

In Jordan we love to grow flowers in our garden, but due to the lack of water and relatively low vegetable prices we've never attempted vegetable gardening. However, the house where we are staying until the end of September has a small but well situated vegetable garden and last week was harvest time. Truthfully, we are not really vegetable gardeners but merely vegetable harvesters. The homeowners planted the crops before they left for Alaska in April and programmed their drip hoses to water without even so much as a flip of the switch by us. We have done nothing but harvest the literal fruit of their labor.

Tayta has never worked in a vegetable garden before and delighted in finding treasures amongst the vines. And although she can identify fig trees, olive trees, and caper bushes, she surprised me by asking me the name of this crop:

Yikes! She didn't know what a corn stalk looked like. Not a popular crop in Jordan, corn is primarily used for feed. It is sold in the supermarket but I don't buy it as it has never tasted like anything but feed corn.

Our bountiful harvest
Enough for us, some friends, and a couple of neighbors

The tomatoes are amazingly large and delicious. I've been eating tomato sandwiches for lunch every day for the past two weeks or so. Family and friends are asking me to discover the secrets of growing such beautiful tomatoes. Theirs, carefully tended, are not amounting to much this year, and "mine"--at least for this month--are plump and plentiful. The real gardener, in absentia, claims his secret is neglect--the bushes haven't been tended since April (!), but I'm prying further. There must be some yet undisclosed tomato gardening knowledge that he can share.

And here are a couple Armenian cucumbers we missed picking the first time around. Salad for a week!

So, what to do with our bumper crop of tomatoes besides make tomato sandwiches? If I weren't feeling so transitional I would make salsa or pizza sauce. Instead, I determined to use these fresh and/or give them away; I've made two new and well received tomato dishes.

~Tuscan Bread Salad~

Last week I made this salad twice, a modification of this recipe from the Food Network.

Ingredients

• 8 large vine ripened tomatoes, cut into large cubes
  
• 8-10 cups cubed artisan bread (I used sourdough), cubed, a little stale, and lightly toasted in the oven.
  
• 1 small red onion, thinly sliced
• a couple cups cucumbers, cut into cubes
  
• 2 teaspoons minced fresh garlic
• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
  
• 1/2 cup Italian extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 /2-1 cup fresh basil leaves, chopped thinly
  
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

In a large bowl, mix the bread with the garlic, oil, and vinegar, and let sit for 15minutes at room temperature. Add the rest of the ingredients toss to combine. Serve. Delicious!

~Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup~

This recipe was easier to make than I expected it would be when I first read the title. Neither the peppers or the tomatoes require peeling and everything is given a final whirl in the blender. I found this recipe in "Cooking With Paula Deen", a magazine which comes to the house in which we are staying. As usual, I've modified the recipe.

Ingredients

• 2 red bell peppers, seeded and cut into strips
  
• 2 T. olive oil
  
• 1 cup chopped onion
  
• 4 cloves minced garlic
  
• 10 medium tomatoes, chopped
  
• 1 cup chicken broth
  
• 1-2 tsp. salt
  
• 1 /2 fresh basil leaves, or 1 tsp. dried basil
  
• freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 2 T balsamic vinegar

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil , arrange pepper strips on the sheet, and bake for 15-20 minutes or until soft and a little brown around the edges. In a large pan, saute the onion and garlic in oil. I add a couple teaspoons of sugar when I saute the onions and garlic so as to caramelize them. Add the tomatoes, broth, and salt, and cook for another 10 minutes or so. Puree tomato mixture, roasted peppers, and basil leaves in a blender. Return to pan and add the balsamic vinegar and freshly ground black pepper.

This soup was good served with open faced broiled cheese sandwiches or toasted sourdough bread.

Garden Art

Today as I was doing the morning dishes--well, actually the evening dishes, but I was doing them in the morning--I admired one of my blooming foxgloves from the kitchen window. And as I appreciated its form, slender and reaching, and its color, creamy white blooms and green foliage, I noted that the concrete wall with peeling paint that served as its backdrop did nothing to enhance its beauty. But, wouldn't a black backround look nice? And, the sunlight was hitting the foxglove just perfectly. I left the dishes to search for a piece of black fabric, and after pressing out the wrinkles, I taped it to the wall behind my foxglove.

Foxglove

I guess this is what you call flower portraiture. Pleased with the result of my foxglove picture I set my eyes to searching out other blooming forms and colors which might likewise be enhanced by my black fabric and just the right amount of sunlight. The pink ranunculuses growing nearby were a bit spindly as far as ranunculuses go, but all the better for my picture.

Ranunculus

I think I've found a new angle on an old hobby.

Dazzling Dahlias

Planting dahlias in the garden was Tayta's idea. She is still learning the names of all the garden flowers so she called these daffodilias for the first half of the summer.