Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, Dec. 30

Happy New Year, almost!

From Don in Kansas:

Last year's very red cattleya is blooming again. Unlike this year's, the older plant's flowers are unequivocally red in every light.

The first of this year's new orchids bloomed this week. It's another red one; nice, but not what I was expecting. The dealer's notes indicated that it would likely have flowers in the magenta-purple range, but while it does have a bluish cast in some light (but not in sunlight or with the on-camera flash), it looks red to me. The other new ones probably won't bloom for a year or two. When they finally do, one should be white and the other spotted.

(As usual, when WordPress resizes pictures to fit the column width, it also makes the colors duller. Click on the picture to see it larger and with more accurate color.) . . .

Both of those orchids are absolutely gorgeous.

You might want to follow Don's suggestion. . .

Edible Gardening/Putting Things By

Surprise! Real produce in winter!

Sorry to send this to you so late, Katy, but here are the last green beans, some of the prolific cherry tomatoes still going strong, one little pomegranate on the volunteer plant, and some of the fall/winter figs still on the tree slowly ripening as they dry out and the leaves start dropping. And baby Swiss chard. Nan in AZ

Volunteer pomegranate? Let us know how it tastes!

They look great!

Lovely.

Update to last week's Meyer Lemon content: The story of how the Meyer Lemon endangered citrus trees in America.

Putting things by:

Food to have on hand just in case . . .

Hi KT: just saw your green beans 'n' maters recipe, and it reminded me of something I've been practically living off of lately, my own whatever-you-got-handy concoction I call Texicajun vegetable medley. Very simple, very easy: one can of french-cut green beans; one can of white corn; one can of original-recipe Rotel; a whole shitload of butter; and a liberal sprinkling of Tony Chachere's Cajun seasoning. Toss it all into a saucepan on medium heat, stir occasionally as it simmers, then eat the hell out of it. It's shockingly good stuff, trust me.

Mike from ColdFury

Sounds easy. Maybe even when the lights have gone out.

Ah, Nature

This lovely may have laid eggs by now:

Apologies for not seeing this email, it's been quite a year. Hoping you had a very Merry Christmas and wishing you all a Blessed New Year.

Sua Sponte (Professional Lurker)

Time for Catalogs

Cozy up to the fire and plan for next year's garden:

Botanical Interests

carries chocolate cherry tomato. Great for fall, when the nights cool off. Lovely botanical illustrations on the seed packets.

Burpee - New for 2024

See also these seasonal plants - Wintergreen (edible) and Hellebores (poisonous)

I actually tend to go for the old regulars more than the new stuff from Burpee.

Park Seed

Sunflowers, Big Yummy Tomatoes, watermelon Top Gun

For folks in the PNW, Nichols is having a sale.

What catalogs are you looking through?

Puttering

A reminder that quilters can sew the tops and bottoms of their quilts, then take them to someone who has a computerized longarm quilting machine for fancy finishing:

Gardens of The Horde

What's going on in your yard or garden? Still got decorations up?

Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

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Week in Review

What has changed since last week's thread? Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, Dec. 23

Any thoughts or questions?

I closed the comments on this post so you wouldn't get banned for commenting on a week-old post, but don't try it anyway.

posted by K.T. at 01:22 PM

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