July Surprises

This week has brought me two sets of flowers I have never seen, from my hen and chick plant and from my spider plant. The hen and chick flower stalk is a little jarring -- making for an oddly asymmetric and top-heavy container. The mother hen plant will die after flowering, but fortunately there are plenty of chicks to take over. Some folks cut the stalks off, but I will keep it for now-- I want to try my hand at collecting and germinating the seeds.

Last fall, my son rooted a spider plant baby in a little dish of dirt at the Garfield Park Conservatory. He has long since moved on to more delicious plant projects (strawberries, blueberries), but I tended this little pot all winter. Now it has started to seriously flower. There are spider plants all over my office but I can't remember ever seeing a stalk with oodles of white flowers on it --there must have been at least twenty in the first flush and you can see in the picture that more buds are forming. I put the plant on my porch for the summer, so perhaps that is why it suddenly became so enthusiastic?

The other July surprise is my sudden change in horticultural fortune. A few weeks ago, I posted grumpily about the poor performers of my summer garden. Well, those plants must have been shamed by their cyber-scolding because they suddenly are showing signs of vigor and health. Above is my newly leafing Issai kiwi vine. Here is my once-bedraggled passion fruit vine:

Even my toothache plant has started to flower abundantly with these weird, wacky globes. No wonder this is also called an eyeball plant!

Lest you think my gardening luck has completely turned around, check out my fingerling potato leaves:

Now is this blight? This humid weather is a dream for fungal infections. As I have never grown potatoes before, I also wonder if it might just mean the plant is reaching the end of its life -- it flowered abundantly about 3 weeks ago. I may turn out one container just to see. Stay tuned....

Supermarket gardening

Is there a bigger racket in supermarkets than the herb section? Tiny little plastic boxes filled with a few wilted sprigs go for two or three dollars, sometimes more. With large herbs like sage or basil, that price can break down to over 10 cents a leaf. For anyone who gardens, even on a windowsill, it is shocking to do the math on the retail value of your herb plants. I look at my ratty, overgrown thyme patch and realize I've got close to a hundred dollars of culinary gold!

I carefully save my summer herb harvest in the freezer. I do like the look and smell of drying herbs. If fresh herbs aren't available, however, I prefer to cook with frozen. For tougher plants -- sage and thyme - I just freeze them in ziplocs with as much air pressed out as possible. The more tender leaves -- basil and parsley -- I freeze in oil as pesto. There is one herb, rosemary, that I can always use fresh, since it is growing away happily in my guest bedroom. I plan to try more of this windowsill culture next winter.

Sadly, I miscalculated with my sage this year. I ran out of frozen leaves a few weeks back, thanks to several dishes of chicken saltimbocca. I have some dried crumbly sage in a jar, which would probably do okay in a poultry stuffing. The recipe I planned to make this weekend is a parsnip risotto and, for taste and aesthetics, fresh or frozen leaves would be best. I guess I could cook something else, but I have a big stash of parsnips, so I really want to make the recipe. And, yes, I can be a resourceful cook and substitute ingredients. But on the first go at a recipe, I like to follow the prescribed method. Finally, sage is sage. If I use rosemary, it's not like I'm substituting yogurt for buttermilk.

I stood at the grocery store this morning, a sorry little box of sage leaves in my hand, eying the $2.99 price tag. I weighed my interest in the parsnip recipe against the shame of paying that much for something I grow for pennies in the summer. My son, always observant, remarked to me that he had found a "match" for my box. I expected this to mean he'd found other boxes of sage, but actually he had found a nearby shelf with organic herb plants on it, including sage. They are the earliest "gardener trap" plants that I have seen set out this year, luring the rookies (or the experienced but desperate) into buying plants way too early in the season. Many looked leggy and root-bound, but the pot of sage didn't look half bad -- a salvageable salvia, if I repotted right away. There were at least double the leaves on the plant as there were in the box. Price? $2.99. Even if I stripped all the leaves off the plant and killed it, I would break even. I only need a few leaves, though. So the rest of the plant can be nursed on the sunny windowsill alongside my rosemary. Score one for the supermarket: their gardener's impulse purchase trap worked. Is it just coincidence the plants are priced the same as all the herb boxes? How many other shoppers have done the same mental calculation this weekend?

My son must have really caught the supermarket gardening spirit, since after his apple at lunch he carefully presented me with 5 seeds that he wanted to plant. He insisted he had to grow a tree. They must have been talking about Johnny Appleseed at daycare this week. Now, apple seeds are tricky. I know they can be home sprouted, but, from what I've read, they won't grow out to be like the actual apple from whence they came. And, it will take a very long time to discover this -- years and years, in fact. Not the ideal toddler project, but my son was insistent. I surfed the Internet and came upon some charming stories -- a family who has an apple tree they rescued after it sprouted in their compost pile, a 30 year old whose grandma still has a tree he planted from a seed as a little boy. It couldn't hurt to try. I tried to convince him we should cold stratify and sprout them in a wet paper towel like many sites instructed, but he wanted a cup of soil, just like the other seeds we are starting. So now he has a little pot of apple seeds on his windowsill.

I suspect he may kill the seeds with the ferocity of his love....if they ever even sprout, given no stratification. He has already asked to water them three times, insisting they are "thirsty to grow". If this project doesn't work, I know there are other supermarket garden activities we can try, well beyond the standard 1970's avocado pit. In fact, we bought a pineapple this morning, and I had an inkling of a memory that the top could be rooted. I found many websites with instructions and several referenced the book Don't Throw It, Grow It! The Chicago Public Library system will have it in my hot little hands in a fortnight, so stay tuned. This is likely the beginning of a long gardening relationship with my supermarket.

When plants and food are better store bought

While I do always appreciate the handmade and homegrown, I am a sucker for florists' plants in full bloom. I love coaxing plants into blooming, but there is such a thrill when someone else does all the work under professional plant-growing conditions, and I get to enjoy the fruit, or blossoms rather, of their labor. For me, this red florists' cyclamen is a far superior gift to a box of Valentine chocolates. I spent my morning sipping coffee and appreciating the gorgeous leaves and flowers. My house is cool, so it may do well, though humidity is an issue. I'll put it near my fern, to remind me to mist.

I have also learned the hard way about certain store bought products being superior for cooking. The lesson came last weekend, when I decided to cook ahead and freeze some dumplings to eat on Chinese New Year. Yesterday was our Valentine's party and it went off quite well, if I do say so myself. Here's a picture of the sweets I made:

Of course, I overcooked and spent most of last night packing away all of the cheeses, roasted vegetables, cookies and candies, desperately trying to shoehorn one last container into the fridge. After an epic day of cooking, hosting and cleaning, I knew I would be left with little desire to dive in to my usual Sunday cooking projects. If I hadn't thrown the party, I would have probably spent all day making the insanely delicious Shanghai soup dumplings that I wrote about a while ago. Yet I knew I would not have the energy for dicing aspic. So last weekend, when I came upon a Fine Cooking article on traditional foods to celebrate the Year of the Tiger, I decided to make these dumplings and freeze them for a quick heat-and-eat meal in my haze of post-party fatigue.

The article waxed poetic on the authentic way to make dumpling wrappers, complete with instructions for fashioning a small rolling pin from a wooden dowel. To me, instructions for projects like this are nearly irresistible. I am a moth to the flame. Make a recipe harder and more intricate, especially in the name of authenticity, and I must cook the dish, no matter what hurdles are set before me. Obscure ingredient? Who cares! I have a toddler who loves quests of all sorts and gladly hops into the car seat for "dinner adventures". He has ridden with me to the ends of Chicago in search of specialty products. This particular dumpling recipe involved no such quest, but rather a time-consuming and generally unnecessary process of rolling my own wrappers. I could understand this coming in handy, especially when one lives in a region that has few supermarket options. But I live within short driving distance of multiple Asian supermarkets. They all sell locally made dumpling wrappers in generous stacks for less than two dollars. And, to be honest, Chinese cooking is popular enough that even my Grandma who lives in a small town in Wyoming can pick up won-ton wrappers at the local Albertson's. This general accessibility was yet another enticement for me to kick it up a notch on the DIY difficulty level and roll my own wrappers. I had a spare dowel, and all it took was a saw and some mineral oil to fashion the proper tool.

It will come as no surprise that the wrappers took hours to produce. Even with careful rolling by an experienced cook, they were uneven, misshapen and prone to tearing. Additionally, the recipe yielded about twice the filling necessary for the amount of wrappers provided by the dough. A reasonable person would have called it a day and made meatballs with the rest of the filling mix, but of course, this was just a siren call to try the wrapper-production process all over again. Sadly, my rolling skills showed no measurable improvement during the second attempt.

Eaten on the day of, the dumplings tasted great and held up okay when boiled, but did better when pan-fried pot sticker style. Most of the dumplings, though, were carefully frozen for today. This morning, I inspected our planned lunch and found that the dough had done something odd: each dumpling was encased in a fragile mosaic of frozen dough shards. The shards seemed held together by a thin web of dough, with the surface of each dumpling sporting a museum-quality craquelure finish. I freeze dumplings all the time, and I have never seen this happen with store bought wrappers. Nor does it happen with my frozen homemade ravioli, although, with an egg base, that dough has more structure. I tested a few of these morphed dumplings on the stove top and the filling promptly oozed out and made the water a chunky, greasy mess. I would post a picture of the dumplings except that I quickly threw them out in a fit of disappointment. So much for planning ahead -- at least we have tons of party leftovers! From this day forward, dumpling wrappers are a thing better store bought. Complicated recipes be damned! The year of the tiger has started inauspiciously from a culinary standpoint.

First germination of 2010

I checked on my first seed-starting projects of 2010 today and was excited to find some babies popping up! I started my Passiflora incarnata seeds a mere two weeks ago. My web research had indicated that germination could take months, especially for seed that wasn't fresh out of the fruit. As is typical of gardening advice on the web, germination instructions varied wildly: some sites recommended soaking seed in passion fruit juice prior to planting, some said to nick or pre-soak in water while others just said to plant directly with no foreplay. I suspect some of the confusion stemmed from people discussing "passion fruit" seed rather than the specific scientific name of the plant -- there is more than one Passiflora! The seed packet had minimal information, and said germination occurred at 30 days to 3 months, with only a 30% germination rate. I planted 9 seeds and left them on top of my fridge, which I hoped would keep it at a tight 70 degrees. Last week, when I pulled out my seed heat mat, I decided to stick the P. incarnata on there, as I suspected that even with the radiant heat of the fridge, my kitchen temperature was more in the 60's on average.

Ahead of schedule, I have two seedlings. Maybe more will pop up -- I am owed another one, if I am to trust the reported germination rate. I wasn't expecting such rapid progress -- now I am worried I started too soon. Fortunately, I saved some seed for this exact scenario -- when you are facing a spotty "days to months" germination prediction, one always needs to keep some reserves. I will be breaking out the grow lights sooner than expected, and hopefully I will have a nice healthy plant to put out in the spring. For all of the hand-wringing about the difficulty of propagating from seed, the Maypop passion fruit seems to be cheerfully resilient. Many gardeners in warmer zones complain about the plant's invasiveness, and by all reports the hardiness limits are underestimated. I will hedge my bets (if I only have these two seedlings) and stick one in a pot to bring in to overwinter, and one in the ground, close to the house to benefit from a warmer microclimate.

The other little seeds that popped up are my cacti -- I got a packet from Pinetree Garden Seed on a whim, and picked up a bag of cactus mix medium on sale at Lowe's. The seeds are incredibly small and must be sown on top of the surface since they need light for germination. I stuck these on my seed mat as well. At first, I had Saran wrap over the rectangular container, but when water condensed it drooped onto the medium. When I pulled up the wrap, little black specks were sticking to it, and I couldn't figure out for the life of me what was potting medium and what was a cactus seed. I scraped as much as a could back onto the surface, and put a seed starting tray lid on top. Here is the first germinator! The packet was a mix of several different types of cacti, so this is another "days to months" scenario. I will keep a close watch -- I may need to prick out the early risers and transplant to a different pot as environmental needs change.

Finally there are my hellebore, which are still in their cold stratification period. They currently inhabit the butter compartment of my fridge. I get to pull the bag of seeds and medium out on March 15th and send it into the homestretch of germination. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it works. If not, I have to repeat the 5 month warm-cold-warm process. Aargh! I am so desperate for some hellebore that I may just suck it up and pay the premium prices for a plant at the nursery. My passion fruit and cacti give me hope, though. Maybe my seed-starting stars have aligned for 2010.

The Christmas plant dilemma

In the wake of the holidays, I always face the decision of what to do with the various holiday plants that I have acquired over the season: the miniature pines, the poinsettias, the bulbs. Should I keep them, and nurse them along for another season? Am I hardened enough to toss them out without so much as a blink? I am loathe to trash them, largely because it feels so wasteful. Yet I have never been particularly successful at maintaining these plants for future use. No wonder, too, since most are tropicals, and ill-suited for my cold, dry house.

My worst case was a potted Norfolk Island pine that I received as a "Christmas tree" in the winter of 2005. I knew I couldn't maintain the light, temperature and especially the moisture levels that it needed to thrive. It plodded on for years in a sorry little corner of two different guest rooms, drying out all too often and dropping needles until it resembled a Dr. Seuss-like umbrella tree. Finally, I read an article by Gerald Klingerman, from the University of Arkansas extension, who advised a hilarious yet very wise approach: the "winter hardiness test". He writes, "Leave your overgrown Norfolk Island pine on the patio and see if it'll survive an Arkansas winter. Of course it won’t, but you can appease any feelings of guilt by saying you were doing it in the name of science." Done and done.

In the course of providing substandard care to multiple houseplants, I have learned that unless a plant is particularly delicate, it will soldier on despite a harsh environment and neglectful care. The plant won't thrive, but it will survive. My Norfolk Island pine is a testament to a pathetic, struggling survival. The only thing sadder than a house with no plants is a house with two or three neglected pots of sorry-looking specimens. These plants, dried out, leggy and sometimes infested with various blights, bring a funereal gloom to the house. The worst part is that I placed it in the guest room-- hardly a way to bring a festive, welcoming mood to out-of-towners.

So, now I face my poinsettias. Should I keep them? I could follow the instructions available on multiple gardening websites about putting them in a closet and giving them 12 hours of darkness each night. That way, I could make them bloom again for next year. The cheapskate and the budding botanist in me want to try. But what if they turn out sad and ugly, rather than the lush specimens I have now? I guess I can always try the "winter hardiness test". The larger lesson for me may be to just ask well-meaning gift givers to find a different "gardener Christmas present". Perhaps a packet of seeds, or a new trowel. And as for the other houseplants sitting around the house, I will keep the best, like my beautiful peace lily. But the bedraggled kalanchoe that was a Valentine's present three years ago just needs to go. It is certainly a sorry testament to enduring Valentine's love. But maybe, just maybe, I will find the right care instructions on the Internet and finally figure out how to get it to rebloom. I'm not ready to test it's winter hardiness just yet.