Puttering. Heat. Bean Care. Drip Irrigation. 7.31.22

It's above 100F now.  I didn't feel like going outside to check the thermometer when it rose above 90F.

I installed drip emitters for the last row of bush beans, and placed cardboard mulch next to the row.  I also installed drip emitters for the four o'clocks.  They were looking droopy in the heat. mI was hauling ten buckets of water each day.  These emitters have a stated 1/2 gallon per hour rate, six inches apart.

The other bush beans looked so dry.

So I cut cardboard strips to cover between the rows.  There wasn't enough, so I also cut kraft paper.  Spring was too wet for kraft paper - it rotted.  I think summer will plenty dry enough for it to last as long as needed.

I thinned the beans in the container planter, taking out about half of the plants.

Coreopsis is blooming now.  First year from seeds.

I Made A Willow Tripod For Thunbergera. 7.31.22

 Thunbergera was one of my bucket list plants this year.   They are finally taking off and growing vines.  They must love this heat.

I made a tripod using willow sticks.  It's about three feet tall.  I bet they will climb it in a month.

The plants have lots of buds.  The first flower opened yesterday.  

Echinacea With Visitors. 7.31.22

This echinacea continues making more flowers.  It's really a remarkable flower.

There are four other echinacea plants, that I started from seeds. I don't think they will bloom this year.  They are building up to bloom next year.

Cleome Is Not What It Looks Like.

 Somewhere I saw cleome listed as the plant most likely to be mistaken for something Willie Nelson probably had too much of.  But it's not.  Not even close.  It's just a flower.

Once it's blooming there is no mistake about it.  I think it's funny, but I do worry about nosy, loopy neighbors calling the sheriff.  It will need another month to start blooming.  Then they are very nice,

Pizza, Cast Iron Skillet Method. 7.30.22

It's nice having an outdoor stove to do this.  It's too hot otherwise to be heating up the kitchen.

First the dough.  I make it in advance and refrigerate until used.  Easy, 3 cups bread flour, 1 1/4 cups water, 1 1/4 tsp salt, 1 tsp yeast.  I add the yeast and salt to the water, plus one cup of flour, mix.  Ket sit a while for the yeast to activate.  Maybe 15 to 30 min.  Then mix in the other two cups flour, knead 7 min using dough hooks.  The original recipe said don't knead but I like it that way.  Cover bowl with plastic wrap, and let it rise until doubled.  I can probably get away with using half as much yeast, it would just take another 30 min to double.  When doubled, put the covered bowl in fridge.  It can be used in one to 14 days.

It's way too hot to make pizza indoors.

Rufus wont even come out to see what the crazy guy (me) is doing out in the heat.

The chilled pizza dough is much easier to roll out, than fresh made.  I divide it in half. I roll out one half larger, to make a thinner crust pizza.  That goes onto a greased cast iron tortilla griddle.  I roll out the smaller, thicker half for the greased cast iron skillet.

The sauce is one cup plain tomato sauce, plus 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp minced garlic, 1 tsp Italian herbs, some pepper.  Then mozzarella.  The toppings are mushroom, and paper-thin sliced onions, garlic cloves, summer squash (mandolin and good safety glove).  The garlic cloves and mushrooms are drizzled with olive oil before adding to pizza.  The squash gets a good sprinkling of seasoned salt and pepper, then toss with olive oil and some Parmesan, and add to pizza.

Preheat oven to 500 F, and have tray on top rack,  I start that when rolling out the dough.  Then put the cast iron tortilla griddle and skillet containing the pizzas,  on the burners and cook on medium to high flame.  I use setting 7 out of 10.  After 4 to 5 minutes, transfer to hot oven.    

Bake about 7 minutes.  That's not usually quite enough.  I turn on the broiler then and bake two more minutes.  Then remove from oven.  Hot, hot,  use good mitts!

Then sprinkle on oregano, and those are very good pizzas.  I forgot oregano this time and didn't notice LOL.

If there is left over the next day, heat a cast iron skillet on stove top, lightly oil, fry pizza slices for a crisp crust.  Very tasty.

Working on a Quilt Top. 7.29.22

 Here is the star quilt in shades of grey and blue.  I arranged the pieces to see how it would look.  There will be many changes in how things are arranged.

 Some of the star blocks will be moved around.  Also, I think I'll  change the light blue  diamond on the lower left block to something different.  

I actually have mixed feelings about this one, and it's not even done.  I like the design a lot.  But I think I should have used richer colors.  Maybe I'll do it over with something deeper.  

But, first it needs to be completed.

Four O'clocks (8 am) . 7.28.22

 The four o'clocks really came into their own.  But despite their name, are blooming g at 8am.

Kitchen Garden. 7.28.28

 Kitchen garden is looking pretty good.  The peppers are just beginning to produce.  The tomatoes need a little more time.  The beans are growing nicely.  Squashes are setting some nice squashes for winter and summer types.  The Orchard Baby sweetcorn is a dwarf type, and is a little taller than Rufus.   The sauce tomatoes seem less  vigorous than last year, bit I don't need that many.

Rudbeckias, Coreopsis, Echinacea, Gallardia. 6.28.22

 All of the Rudbeckias that I started early, during the winter, are blooming furiously.

The Coreopsis just started blooming.

The new echinaceas are not blooming yet.  One from the past couple of years just started blooming.

All of the Gallardias are blooming too.

Latest Beans Sprouting. 7.28.22

 These were the last beans I planted.  I had covered them with cardboard to keep the seeds moist in the 90s heat.  I planted them 5 days ago.

 Now I have them covered with fencing to frustrate birds.  If they survive,  I want to add a drip line.

Zucchini Cookies. 7.24.22

 I usually have zucchini fries from the air fryer, or stir fried zucchini, or zucchini fritters, or...  but this time  I made lemon zucchini cookies.

Not bad!

The Bush Beans Are Germinating. And I Planted Some More. 7.23.22

 These were planted 16 Jul.  I raised the anti-bird screen to give them room to grow.  Every seed germinated within about four days - pretty good I think.  They will need to be thinned next week.

I planted a row of beans where I dug potatoes the past couple of days.  It's a little exposed but also a little protected, from deer and rabbits.  I will try to protect them with more fencing once they grow bigger.  This finished off the packet of fast growing "Contender" beans.

There was a little more space, so I also planted some seeds from an old packet of "Roma" beans.  I actually like those a lot.

Tomorrow is expected to be very hot.  I don't want them to dry out, so after watering them, I covered the row with cardboard to keep them moist.

It's late for planting bush beans, but climate is changing and the extra warmth might speed them up enough for a good harvest.

Flowers. 7.23.22

 Mixture - sweetpea, lavender, coreopsis ready to bloom.

More tigridia among the squashes.

More Crocosmia.

Bees love shallot flowers.

I brought a few indoors.

Harvesting More Garlic. Lorz and Music. 7.23.22

 Today I harvested the rest of the garlic.  I also cut off the tops of the garlic I dug up a week ago and have been letting dry out.  These are the hardneck Music Garlic that I have been growing for a decade.  This time, I grew ten rows of eight plants per row.  There were also some volunteers, which were much smaller because they were in clumps instead of individual plants.

Music has jumbo size cloves, much easier to peel than grocery garlic.  It has a strong garlic flavor.  The bulbs keep nearly a year in a cool dry place.

I also harvested the Lorz garlic.  Like Music, Lorz is Italian.  I had these in half wine barrels.  They were on the drip system, but I made a mistake.  I should have stopped the irrigation for these a couple of weeks ago.  The ground was too moist, and the papery husks tear too easily when wet.  We'll see how they dry.  

The Lorz garlic also has jumbo bulbs and jumbo cloves.  I'm interested to see how they dry lut, and how they taste.  They are described as strongly flavored too.

Softneck garlics can be braided.  I read they keep longer than hardneck.  That's why I decided to try them. I'm very impressed with the size of the bulb and the beautiful purple blush.  From the two bulbs that I bought mail order last fall, there are eighteen now.  I will set aside three or four to plant this fall, in addition to continuing the Music garlic.

Squash Flower and Honeybee. 7.22.22

 I think the squash flowers are among the nicest.  It's nice to see some honeybees now.

The Buttercups and Dakota Dessert squashes have a lot of developing fruits now.  Especially the Buttercups.  The Costata Romanesco  is making countless, rapidly growing fruits, and the Saffron yellow summer squash provides a new one each day.  Galeux and Fordhook are all male flowers so far.

Sweetpeas Blooming. 7.22.22

 The sweetpeas are actually pretty nice.  I think about 1/3 survived starting from seeds and transplanting, if that many.  Then they were slow to take off.  But now they look very nice.  Across the yard, the red ones also look nice.