SPRING 2023 - ROLLING THUNDER AND RAIN - HAPPY GARDEN

 It seems this year's rolling thunder and stormy rain brought all the nutrients the plants needed despite of the fact that all these rains caused flooding everywhere.  It brought some concerns to the water level of the levy that is about 100ft away from my home.  Luckily it passed by this time round.  The ground is saturated.  Fence post holes created during fence mending are quickly filled with ground water.  It took several days to a week before they subsided.  Plants in the garden seemed to be drowning.  Showing yellow leaves.   But the spring in late April showed some signs of letup that gave plants some breathing room.  Now in Mid May, they seems to be back to normal.  Seedlings are happily sprouting from the warm heat.  Peonies are really happy this year, so are the lotus plants.  There seems to be more grape flowerings this year on each new vine.  I want to see how successful the corns and melons will be this year.   

 

Well, that's what I wanted to blog, then, the month of May is gone and is already June.  So, I will write about June garden.  Thus far, this week's high temp of 91'F in Sacramento vs 65'F in Moss Landing are quite a contrast, but plants seemed to enjoy the extra long sun light and thriving.

I stayed one night at Captain's Inn at Moss Landing.  It was an interesting BnB two story house with no host; with Digital Key entry.  I was assigned a First Mate's room that is on 1st floor right next to the entry way  right before the stair way.  The house is really cute.  I don't mind living there. When I ventured outside to check out the garden, I found various cactus plants with whimsical surreal colors, and growing vibrantly at cold temp.  

So, here they are, my photo journal.

Interesting about the this Avocado plant is that it was grown from a seed of a mini size avocado.  After killing three of my Haas Avocado trees of which one of them did even produced Avocado, this one is live or die treatment.  I did not light up Christmas light during the winter like I did for others.  I barely wrapped it to keep from frost bite.  It seems to live.  I don't want to give it too much hope, but the natural rain water from this year is definitely helping all plants grow healthier than tap water.

My spring 'Pineapple' princess.  It is not a pineapple princess, but I gave it a name as such.

Waking up from winter.  Removed most of the coverings.  Chopped off the whipping cherry tree that never grew branches downward.  After a few years of babying it - finding out that it fruit instead of whipping the branches, and when the birds won't even touch its cherries growing and it just shade a lot of them on the ground to make a mess, it's time to go.

The fine leaf maple tree really loved the winter and spring rain.

Peonies are poppy up.

Lotus leaflets are showing up.

This particular peony changes color to light orange as its prime time is wanning.  Other peonies kind of becomes rusty and dry up and fades away.

My Purple rose.

Indoor Crysanthamum.

See the color change.

Roses

Corns

Melons and Veges

Chili Peppers

Peonies

Time for this Peonies to say adieu. 

Time for the other Peony to show off.

Corns are feeling okay in this planter.  Hope they will grow happily.

These are melons

The ball Cactus wants to show off, too.

      

Maybe I over seeded in one small container, but I am not a farmer.  Just wanted to see what happens.

I don't know what happened, but maybe it got a some weeder sprayed on it that I was using when the wind blew.  I hope it is a not a fungus disease.  I have never seen it happened on any of my lotus plants.

Yay! It bloomed.

What a Beauty!

 

 

My gardens solar light night show.

Plants found at Moss Landing, Captain's Inn.

Backyard view

Back home, my garden was okay.  The sunflower has skyrocketted to 6 ft.

Wow! My Cherimoya tree got flowers!!! 

Found out on the internet that the flower can change from male to female?  Had to hand polinate?

This is the Female.  As it is explained on the web, it hardly has enough room for a bee to visit.

That's all for now.  Will post more updates later.

HOME FRIED POTATO CHIPS - Nothing New

 I always enjoy watching a new kitchen tools of this and that doing its work for what it is made for and the story of Thomas Edison who invent tools, gadgets, and machines, etc. with the intention to help his mother - to alleviate her from labor intensive chores, etc.   Maybe that's why they say, ".... is a "Mother" of Success..."  maybe that's not the true sense, but regardless it brought back the memory of the day when I watch in wonder what is going on when a group of my mother's friend came to our house for what seems to compare to today's tupperware party.  It was back in the 60's.  Everyone sat in a circle and was presented this plastic containers with lids.  All the women's eyes lit up with joy.  I was not sure what the big deal was, but I guess it was.  Because they all took purse out and bought one to take home.  I also noticed the joy and the same 'eyes lit up' when my father brought home an electric rice cooker - National brand, then, the washing machine.  I think the washing machine was just amazing.  Our family's dearest housekeeper... naaa, she was more like our nurse mother, a family member.... was very delighted to see the washing machine.  All she had to do after it finishes washing is to hang up all the clothes on the bamboo poles and hung them out to soak up the sun.  Really Cool.  In the kitchen, beside the plastic container with a lid that became a star, I think the kitchen knives of all sizes are the boss even to this day.  There are vegetable slicers and peelers, too. I like them all.  But, my mother can skillfully slice the cabbage into thin hair threads effortlessly with her Chinese cleaver knife.  The thinly sliced cabbage threads melt in mouth served next to the hamburger steak meal with TONKATSU sauce and rice.  I remember it was a big deal when the potato chips showed up at our local candy stores.  It was sold by weight.  50 YEN (Japanese YEN) back then, woul buy you 5 slices of potato chips.  I recall when we lived in S. Viet-Nam, my oldest sister came home one day from her French cooking class and made us the fried potato chips.  The potatoes were thinly sliced and fried.  We really loved the snack.  I thought that was amazing.  Well, here in U.S., we get a small bag of potatoe chips for 95 cents and family size for $4.99.  We don't have to slave over washing the potatoes, peeling, then slicing them, then, to decide to follow icing them or not or fry them twice or not.  Just go to the store and buy a bag.  Unfortunately I need to control the amount of salt consumption, so I tried to make the potato chips myself.  I only remember that my sister told me that they need to be sliced very thin.  Then, it will puff up during frying.  Well.  I tried.  Of the 20 slices, maybe 5 will puff up.  The rest seems to be limpy.  I don't want to know how or what they put in the manufactured potatoe chips to keep the potatoes 'dry' in the bag, but I am happy to have the 5 slices of crisy chips.  

I wanted to buy the Mandoline slicer for many many years.  But unlike in Japan, the price of mandoline slicer have been very high until just recently I was able to buy one within a reasonable $30 for a mandoline slicer that can even do a crosscut potatoes.  Not that I need the crosscut slicer, but it was a good optional feature to encourage me to buy it.  So, with my mandoline slicer, I made my own potatoe chips.  Wow, one potatoe, two potatoes... you lost count after frying them into tasty potato chips.  3 potatoes are easily consumed in no time when it turned into potato chips.  I checked the Internet on the history of Mandoline slicer, and it associated itself to the French Guillotine inventor Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin.. https://kitchenproject.com/history/Tools/Mandoline/index.htm  C'est intéressant; ЭТО ИНТЕРЕСНО; HONMA??  Regardless, I even watched at the famous "The Kitchen" restaurant in Sacramento, I watched one of the chefs use the Mandoline to produce even and consistent slices of ingredients. Cool, I thought.  So, why not for my kitchen.  I love it.

Be very careful and never run your fingers across the blade to test its sharpness.  It is extremely sharp like SHINKEN.

OISHII DESU!! Delicious!

 

LEMON TART - MY WAY

 I have been buying a bag of Lemons and wanted to make Lemon Tarts.  But I know how sweet the little tart square can be and all that calories... hmmm....  So I came up to limit the size of each tart.  It could have been baked in a baking sheet, then, fairly and squarely cut into nice litte cubes or into size that I wish.  But I've done that and I thought why not use a small tart pan, but I cannot find the pan!! After searching for it high and low, I decided to use the madeleine pan.  The side curves and could hold the filling.   And here is the result.

  

So far so good.

As they cool, the filling sink down.  The bottom looks good, too.

The taste?  Tangy, lemony, and sweet tart.  Just right.