Wasn't the weather last week unbelievable? Tuesday alone took about a week's energy out of our plants; they went from looking lush to looking heat-struck all in that one day. We keep our water for the plants in a big plastic barrel, and the water felt like bath water on Tuesday evening. It was a day that stressed both the plants and the gardeners!
The Yorkton in Bloom Competition Tour takes place on Thursday, July 28. There are two tours, one leaving at 9 a.m. and one leaving at 1 p.m. Please meet at the Yorkton Public Library (Broadway location), and everyone will travel together from one location to the next. I'm sure you'll get lots of gardening ideas, and you can share the pride of all these gardeners and their beautiful entries.
And be sure to mark this down on your gardening calendar: the Fruit, Flower and Vegetable Show is Tuesday, August 9 at St. Gerard's Parish Complex on 3rd Avenue. The show is from 2 p.m. - 6 p.m., and your admission price includes coffee and dainties. This show offers interesting displays and exhibits, and it's a relaxing, fun way to spend the afternoon. That's Tuesday, August 9.
There, those are the most pressing announcements that I wanted to share with you. I hope your garden is doing well; the rain and the heat have certainly helped everything along. It's very encouraging to see the vast amount of dragonflies, very good for keeping the mosquitoes under control. Slugs have been at our hostas again, bravely making their way over woodchip mulch to their targets. So the other day, we sank a small container of beer near the most chewed-up hostas. I felt sure that there would be a full dish of slugs that went to their drunken deaths; however, the next morning there were only six slugs in the dish. Still, that's six less, I guess. The battle continues!
Did you ever wonder where some of our more exotic gardening ingredients in the kitchen come from? One of our favorite TV chefs is Ming Tsai: he always uses flavorful, fresh ingredients, and the other day he was using wasabi as the star ingredient for each dish he prepared.
What is wasabi? Wasabi is an exotic, eastern relative of the brassica family. It calls Japan home, and is surprisingly difficult to cultivate elsewhere. Wasabi likes to grow along tranquil Japanese streams. For cultivation, the root is dug up, much like horseradish. Wasabi is not very handsome: it is a gnarled root that might not tantalize your visual palate. However, wasabi has a big, flavorful personality to make up for its lack of beauty. Because it is so difficult to grow, wasabi is very expensive, as much as $100 per pound. So when you and I buy wasabi paste, chances are that we are buying the more economical substitute of horseradish, mustard, and green food coloring. Still an acceptable substitute, flavor-wise, but likely not the real thing.
Wasabi packs a lot of heat; chili peppers contain heat in their oils, but wasabi brings us heat through aroma first. I learned this little factoid: that because the smell of wasabi is so pungent, researchers are trying to figure out how to use is as a "smoke alarm" for deaf people!
Let's try some exotic garden ingredient in our cooking this week! Have a great week, wear a hat, and protect yourself against mosquitoes!
