The Empty Cabinets of my Mind

Idyllwild and Lake Hemet

 

Idyllwild and the other Mt San Jacinto attractions are about 10 degrees cooler than the flatland towns below, more in the winter when there is snow.  

The water in the lake has been low, but it is still pretty, with fish jumping up into the air and ducks swimming along the water's edge.

I took these pictures on a Wednesday and planned to have lunch after, but was surprised that almost all of the nearby restaurants were closed.  After an intensive search I found one that was open, but closing in ten minutes.  They graciously found us a table anyway and provided good food and attentive service.

 

Parking near the Lake is free with a forest pass.  There are restrooms, benches, and picnic tables.  During the last week of September the weather was perfect for visiting this area.  

 

 

 

 

 

Mourning Babies

Here are the two fuzzy babies that the Mama and Papa mourning doves took turns raising in a nest in my tiny west garden in July.  The first few days after the eggs hatched the parent dove's feathers fluffed up and out to completely cover the tiny babies, but day by day a few fluffy feathers started showing and then a pair of eyes.  In a few days they will have flown away.  

 

Mourning Dove Hatchlings

Cannot see them yet:

The mourning doves have been taking turns sitting on their eggs for about two weeks now, and after they hatch it said the babies will become visible in 4 or 5 days, and then the babies and their parents will all vacate the nest in about 12 days.  This is my first time seeing this so it is kind of a thrill.

A Green Pepper and a Red One

I will wait until this one turns red before picking it to eat. 

 

This one is ready and will go in my omelet tomorrow. 

Busy in the Garden

Despite humidity and triple digit heat all this week, I have been very busy in the garden

There is so much to learn and my latest fascination has been with Common Chicory. which I featured in today's NoteDex recipe card.

 

 

Another chicory recipe I'd like to try would incorporate it into a salad with orange vinaigrette and roasted walnuts tossed in maple syrup. 

 

Amazing Air Radishes

Veggie Stock

The purple air radish (raphanus caudatus) pods turn green when cooked and taste more or less like green beans. 

I like them in egg-drop soup  with edible chrysanthemum and Sugar Ann Peas, as well as my yellow pear tomatoes which  overwintered in the carport. 

Beware of the Name Magilla Perilla aka "Balmagpurp"

I have been extolling the virtues of Shiso on my gardening blog of late, and wanted to put a note here, too, that there has been some confusion about Perillo/Shiso vs Colleus both being called Beefsteak Plant.  It is an important distinction because one is an aromatic culinary herb that can be used as a wrap, in soup, in salad, or to make wonderful tea, whereas the other may or may not actually be toxic (or hallucinogenic), and is, in any case, decidedly not tasty.

If you want to get really lost in somebody's blog, try looking just about any plant you can imagine up on The Belmont Rooster, which is now the first place I go to find information about a plant that is new to me, or one about which I have a question.  I just did that.  I saw some pilea plants that dearly wanted to come home with me from the market just yesterday.  So I did a search for "Belmont Rooster Pilea" and this page came up:

Artillery Plant

The second photo down on that page shows the little Pilea cushioned between 2 bricks to keep the wind from blowing it over.  I can relate to that since high winds knocked a few of my huge air radish and tomato plants over yesterday despite their having been tied down.

 

Recipe Cards

Here is a screenshot for the NoteDex android app which is a database for 3x5 notecards.  Although the program is still under development, I am getting some use out of it.  

After reading a recipe on a blog called Fork to Spoon, I decided that I would try a variation of their oven-baked style oatmeal prepared in an air fryer.  I had read another blog which suggested mixing egg with oatmeal to make a sort of pancake that could be cooked on a griddle and then presumably reheated, but for some reason I just could not make myself try it as much as the writer said it was good, quick to prepare, and healthy.  However, the Fork to Spoon recipe claimed my attention because of the strawberries.  

I simplified the recipe, and on the back of my card listed how much of what went in as liquid ingredients (which I blended all together instead of layering the fruit, and then as dry ingredients (simply stirred together in the bottom of a bowl).

The front of the card explains that after pouring the liquid ingredients over the dry one, we wait 10 minutes or so, then stir and pour into paper muffin cups before baking at 320F for 10 minutes in an air fryer.  Clicking on my photo will make it large enough to read.

This is oatmeal, with less sugar than a muffin.  It is soft and moist, but it holds together well enough to eat out of the paper cup, so there is no dish to wash.    The egg adds nutrition, but is not noticeable in the oatmeal.  

According to Fork to Spoon, after baking these will keep in the refrigerator for a few days or can be frozen and then taken out the night before to thaw in the refrigerator before doing a quick reheat in the morning by microwave or air fryer.  Truly a grab, eat, and run food, and it tastes just like oatmeal.

 

 

More Like Little Trees Now

 

My camellia bushes had taken over.   So starting from the ground up I cut off branches until two trash barrels were completely full.  The rest will have to wait until after trash pickup.

Apparently, tea can be made from any variety of camellia. I think these are Japonica, which is said to make a robust black tea, but I haven't tried it yet.   

I have light pink, deep pink, and red flowers, and would like to get some Large Leafed Camellia Sinensis for their fragrant white blossoms as well as for leaves to make tea.  I am not much of a tea drinker myself, but I feed it to my kombucha.  

This project allowed me to try out some of the gardening tools I have been acquiring.  The folding bench is not only handy for keeping my bearclaw saw and ratcheting pruners out of the dirt, but it is invaluable for helping me safely up from my rocker work seat aka Wobble Stool.   I read reviews from people who said their wobble stools  tipped over and they fell off.  That does not sound like fun!  My trick is putting the bench behind the stool and with both hands on the  handles for support I can easily move up and down from the higher bench to the lower (and wobblier) seat.  

This house came with some furniture that did not appeal to me, including very heavy chairs.  I replaced almost all of them with wobble stools.  That gave me the idea to try something similar in the garden.  To my surprise they did have just such a thing, so I bought one right away and am very glad I did. 

 

 

I am in Love with Elephant Bush

When my cousin let me have clippings from some of the succulents in her back yard, she probably had no idea how lifechanging that was going to be for me.  Neither did I.  This was shortly after I had stumbled across a few articles about Eco tourism at the Shamwari Private Game Reserve near Mozambique.  Holding armloads of cuttings from one bush that I particularly liked, I thought back on my reaction to seeing photos of what the South Africans know as Spekboom.  A world away I could not help obsessing over this apparent superplant that we call Elephant Bush hereabouts.  How happy I was to suddenly get a whole bunch of it!

 

I haven't had it long enough to see if it is going to live, but I left some cuttings in water to root and some in potting soil, and more outdoors. Rumor has it that these are hard to kill, but only time will tell.  Considering how many I planted, some of them at least are bound to survive.  

This one is Portulacaria Afra Green, but a few days later I bought a pot of Portulacarie Macrophylla (Mammoth), and then one called Rainbow, which has lighter colored variegated leaves (Portulacaria Afra Variegata).  

One of the big attractions Elephant Bush plants have for me is that not only elephants, but people too can eat the leaves.  Whether they are delicious depends on which variety you nibble on, the time of day, and I guess the temperature.  The first time I tried to eat a raw leaf from the Afra Green, it was not just not tasty, it was pretty awful.  But when I cooked a few leaves they were quite pleasant as was a bit of tea that I brewed from leaves of the Macrophylla.   This emboldened me to taste a leaf from the Variegata and that one was truly was delicious.  I went back to Lowe's and bought another pot of the Variegata.  

Apparently, Portulacaria has a nutritional profile similar to purslane, but additionally it presumably improves air quality if grown indoors.  

April 4:  Update on the Portulacaria Afra cuttings.  Just a few days short of a month after I put a number of the Elephant Bush cuttings under grow lights to root, some in water and some in potting medium, roots appeared on both types of cuttings.  It is also evident that the branches I stuck in the dirt outdoors are rooting as well, because the plants are all looking good.  

I have not tried baking the traditional Spekboom muffins with the leaves of this plant yet, but I did put a few leaves in cornbread to give it a nutritional boost. I cooked the leaves first.   

Another thing that is really fun about this plant is that while it is drought tolerant, if it wants water it lets you know by shriveling up its little leaves which plumb back up again when it gets enough.  Growing in pots, good drainage is necessary.  I suspect that Elephant Bush stems can be grown indefinitely indoors in water the same as other succulents, since if the water is kept clean (and maybe aerated once in a while) there would be nothing to rot as in soil that is too wet.  In any case, I will try it.