Summer Flowers and Mold / Yaz Çiçekleri ve Küf

The main reason I haven't written much about flowers lately, besides my being a squash-obsessed lunatic, is because with all the rain, followed by the sudden heat and humidity, lots of things just didn't do very well. We went through a wave of heat and humidity here that nobody can remember the likes of. Clothes mildewing in closets, carpets molding on the floors, cocoa molding inside its packet. It's been unreal!

İstanbul'lulara, bu yaz yaşadığımız sıcaklık ve nemi anlatmaya hiç gerek yok. Dolaplarında küflenen elbiseler, yerlerde küflenen kilimler... Hepimize geçmiş olsun! Bahçeyi de etkiledi, bu kadar sıcaklığa dayanamayan bitkiler yok oldu. Fakat en endişelendiğim Pacifik Hibrid İrisleri turp gibi!

I lost two of my Geraniums in the upper garden, which are usually tough as nails and which I've been growing for years. Who knows, maybe they'll come back in the spring.

And it's still too early for chrysanthemums, but I have several new ones from seed that should bloom this year. Patience.

Ironically, the plants I was most concerned about - the Pacific Hybrid Iris - have done famously; they've grown and spread beautifully!

One other plant that did do well in the heat was the Rudbeckia (Black-Eyed Susan) above, that I'd completely forgotten about! I'd planted the seeds last year, they came up, grew a bit, and I never got around to planting them. This spring there was one left, and for some reason I'd gotten it into my head that it was a Gaillardia. It was stunted from its stint in the skimpy amount of poor soil left in the pot, but it rallied! I suppose it's a "common-as-dirt" sort of plant but if you grow up in the Midwestern US, these are such a major part of late summer that you almost can't not have them.

Çok başarılı bir bitki, tamamen unuttuğum bir Rudbeckia oldu. Bunlar büyüdüğim ABD "Orta Batı" bölgesinde yazın sonunda açan vazgeçilmez bir çiçek. Yerel adı, "Karagözlü Suzan"dır.

In keeping with the color scheme, the Coreopsis tinctoria is doing a good job of seeding itself around the garden. I love plants like this; they just find themselves a comfortable niche. Still, I grab the seeds and scatter them in other places to see if they'll like it there as well. The original seeds were a gift from my friend Rabia in New Mexico, and they're everywhere now!

New Mexico eyaletinde arkadaşım Rabia'nın verdiği Corepsis da sıcak, nemli havada çok mutlu. Bu tek yıllık bitki en rahat olduğu yerleri bulup kendiliğinde çıkıyor artık, yine de tohumlarını yeni yerlere de serpiyorum.



In other non-squash areas, the old pomegranate at the end of the upper garden has set fruit for the first time since I arrived here two and a half years ago. I hear tell that its fruits are not all that good, but it's still nice to see them.

Şimdiye kadar meyvesini hiç gördüğüm nar ağacı bu yıl ilk defa meyve veriyor. Duyduğum kadarıyla çok lezzetli bir nar olmamasına rağmen varoluşuna sevindim.



Of course there have been squash happenings as well. The Seminoles started setting fruit late, but there are now at least 13 on the vines, which have nearly reached the upper street level; enough to attract the curiosity of passersby. Some of whom have come down and asked about them, and assume they're just some sort of ornamental gourd. But I've promised seed to a couple of people, so Turkey's cucurbit repertoire may soon be expanding. Here's a rather bad picture of Seminoles climbing the dead apricot tree. The fogginess isn't just because of the backlighting; it was because of the humidity; the temperature differential was enough to cause my lens to fog up in the wet-blanket humidity.

Kabaklar gelişmeye devam ediyor tabii. Seminole kabakları, meyveleri nispetten geç oluşturmaya başladı fakat şimdi en azından 13 tane oldu. Bitkiler hemen hemen sokak seviyesine ulaşıp, geçenlerin dikkatine çekmeye başladı. Birkaç kişi, hiç görmediği bir süs kabağı sanarak inip sordular. Şimdiye kadar en az iki kişiye tohum vermeye söz verdim. Türkiye'nin kabak repertuvarı genişleyecek demek ki!



The acorn squash have already started to mature; I so identify them with autumn that it feels a bit strange to be eating them in the heat of August! The heat wave has passed and though we've had no rain, the water that I give them does stay around longer. Now the acorns have begun to set fruit again, so I suppose we will have some for fall/winter as well! One of them has also thrown a very strange looking cristate stem, which opens an entire bouquet of flowers every morning. So far they all seem to be male. I decided to take the picture in the evening so the flowers wouldn't obscure the flattened stem.

Palamut kabakları şimdiden olmaya başladı. Bu kabağın tadını öylesine sonbahar ve kış aylarıyla özdeşleşmişim ki, Ağustos'un sıcaklarında onları yemek biraz tuhaf geldi. Sıcaklık geçmişken, yine meyve oluşturmaya başladılar. Bitkilerden bir tanesi botanikte "ibikli" olarak tanımlanan bir gövde yaptı, her sabah bir demet açıyor, ne yazık ki hepsi erkek. Gövdenin tuhaf şekli görünsün diye akşamda çektim fotoğrafı.



Aw, who am I kidding? I'm just too lazy to get myself down to the garden early enough in the morning. Besides, despite my earlier concerns over male flowers with skimpy pollen, the bees do seem to be doing the job, as witnessed by the trio of acorns here.

Akşamda çekmemin aslıl sebebi, sabah saatlerinde kalkıp inmek için fazla tembel olduğumdur. Ayrıca az polenli erkek çiçekleri kaygılarım bir yana, her halde bu mevsimde çok çiçek bulamayan arılar çok iyi yapıyorlar işini!



But aside from the Seminoles (which I haven't actually tried yet), the star of the show this year has been the Bungkan squash. Not only is it prolific - setting more fruit again - but it's beautiful, like a gray raku flying saucer with a stem nearly ten inches long, and so far is one of the most delicious squash I've had. The fruits weigh about four or five pounds each; the flesh is firm, deep yellow and rich in flavor. I've sauteed it with onion, sage leaves and olive oil, and used thin slices of it in a Thai red curry. I also want to try it in the yogurt soup called borani in the Hatay area as soon as I can get the recipe from my Hatay friend who left us to get married in Denmark!

Daha tatma fırsatım olmadığı Seminole'ler bir yana, bu yılın yıldızı, Bungkan kabağıdır. Sadece verimli değil (o da yine meyve oluşturmaya başladı), meyveleri çok da güzeldir, raku adlı Japon seramiğinden yapılan uzay gemilerine benzetiyorum. Koçanı da upuzun, yaklaşık 25 cm, her kabak aşağı yukarı iki - iki buçuk kilo oluyor. Hem de yediğim en lezzetli kabaklardan. Eti sert, koyu sarı renkli, yoğun lezzetli. Soğan, adaçayı yaparağı ile zeytinyağıyla kızarttım, hem de bir Tayland körisine ince dilimlerini attım. Hatay'da yapılan bir tuzlu yoğurt çorbası olan boranide de denemek istiyorum. Danımarkalıyla evlenip kaçan Hataylı arkadaşımla konuşur konuşmaz tarifini alırım!

The Last Squash Report! Son Kabak Raporu!

I promise, from now until planting season I will write nothing more about winte squash! Well, maybe not.

Here are some of the squash from the garden. The Rouge Vif d'Etampes produced nicely but with the exception of one, they didn't display the flat shape that is supposedly characteristic for the variety. They also were not nearly as tasteless as I've read, and one made a pretty decent soup.

Yemin ediyorum, ekin zamanı gelinceye kadar balkabaklar hakkında bir daha yazmayacağım! Belkı... Buyrun bu yılın balkabaklarından birkaç tanesi. Rouge Vif d'Etampes, çok güzel üretti fakat bir tanesi hariç o cinse özgü basık yayvan özelliğini göstermedi. Okuduğum kadar tatsız da çıkmadı, bir tanesinden çok lezzetli bir çorba yaptım.

The Futsus impressed me; despite the fact that I got them into the ground way too late they produced a lot of squash. I've already eaten several, but I decided to wait for a while before eating any more to see if they sweeten up. I cooked them stuffed with apples, with a little nutmeg, cinnamon, brown sugar, butter and a little orange juice. They do have a slightly different flavor but I would have never thought "hazelnut."

Küçük gri Futsu'lar beni çok sevindirdi, çok fazla geç ekmeme rağmen yine çok ürettiler. Bir kaç tanesi yedim de zamanla tatlanacak mı diye bekleyeceğim. Fırında elma, biraz tarçın, muscat cevizi, tereyağla doldurup, biraz da portakal suyu ekleyrek pişirdim. Harika! Biraz farklı bir tadı var fakat her yerde okuduğum "fındık" tadını ben duyamadım. Reklam abartısı her halde.

The biggest disappointment was the Marina di Chioggia - I only got two! The reason is no mystery - a pack of dogs that came into the garden and decided to dig right where they were growing, snapping off two of the best runners. The quality is really nice though and I'll plant it again next year.

En büyük hayal kırıklığını, Marina di Chioggia ile yaşadım - sadece iki tane verdi! Sebebi ise mechul değil, bir köpek sürüsü bahçeme girip tam yetiştiği yerde kazarak en büyük iki sürgününü koparttı. Kaletesi son derece güzel ama, gelecek yıl da kesinlikle ekeceğim.

My housemate was down in his home town of Aydın, and brought a pack of seed that is supposedlyl of the preferred variety there. Turns out the company is in Istanbul but generally the squash sold here come from Adapazarı, and are dark gray, resembling the Australian Jarrahdale pumpkin but less glossy and more irregular in shape. It makes a great pie. But there are other varieties as well grown in the south, especially a large, smooth pale gray-green one with very shallow grooves and pale orange blotches; I'd love to score some seed of that one.

Aydın'lı ev arkadaşım da bir paket balkabağı tohumu getirdi. Satanlara göre o yörede en çok yetiştirilen cinsmiş. Tohum şirketi İstanbul'da ama... İstanbul'da benzer birşey gördüm de, burada en çok satılan cins "Adapazarı" veya "Kestane" denilen, büyük derin boğumlu gri cinstir. Aydın'da yetişen başka bir cins de var, büyük, oval şekli sığ çizgili, uçuk turuncu benekli açık yeşilimsi gri renkli bir tane. Ondan birkaç tohum elde etmek isterdim!

And the last pumpkin-related bit: I was in Greece for several weeks and when I came back through Komotini in northestern Greece, I found some very attractive winter squash in the markets that looked like a more bottle-shaped butternut. (CD added for scale.) I was too curious about the variety so I bought one and it looked pretty nice when I opened it, but I was underwhelmed; it cooked up very fibrous and pulpy, with not much flavor. I won't be growing it next year!

Veeee kabaklarla ilgili son paragraf olarak... Yunanistan'da birkaç hafta geçirdim, dönüşte Batı Trakya, Gümülcine kentinde görünüşü çok güzel olan bir balkabağı buldum. Bizim çok popüler olan "butternut" cinsinin daha kabarığı, şişe şeklinde birşey. (CD, boyunu göstermek için eklendi.) Cinsi çok merak ettiğim için bir tanesini aladım, açtığımda güzel göründü fakat tadı beni hiç etkilemedi; eti tatsız, lifli ve çok sulu çıktı. Gelecek yıl yetiştireceğim bir cins değil!

The Last Hurrah

Well, as summer winds down into autumn, I suppose I should post a picture of my upper flower garden as it is at the end of its first year. It's been another year of surprises, pleasures and disappointments as usual, but considering the rush job that it was and the stress to all the plants involved, it could have been a lot worse. Some plants, notable a beautiful sage I grew from seed brought from the island of Samos, went into exuberant growth in the spring only to succumb once the weather got hot. My attempt to start my favorite Pacific coast iris here seems to have predictably failed, though there seems to be something rather iris-like popping up where I don't remember planting any iris...still I'll let it go a while before I get my hopes up. Hosta "Sum and Substance" looks like crap, having fed several generations of fat, happy snails, but is hanging in there. The Cardiocrinums I brought are down but fine. Well, at least one of them is. And the Sarcococca confusa, or sweet box that I brought 2 years ago has flower buds on it. Other successes include two very nice Symphytums, a Buddleia japonica, several Sempervivums, Euphorbia "Emberglow," Salvia guaranitica "Black and Blue," and Verbena bonariense, which I may or may not be sorry I planted!

Autumn was always a mixed time for me as a youngster growing up in Iowa. The warm dry days and crisp cold nights gave us beautiful fall color. But I always greeted it with mixed feelings; the brilliant maples, blooming chrysanthemums and sweet scent of fallen sycamore leaves also meant the torture of having to force my feet, which had spread out over a summer spent 99% barefoot, into tight leather shoes, the "Back to School" sales (it always seemed those ads were devised for no purpose other than to rub it in), and seemingly endless months of icy winter. And I thought chrysathemums smelled awful anyway. I used to hate marigolds, but as the weather started getting nippy and they started to go ratty, I could get a little weepy even for them.

I'm not completely over this. Even though, as the following post will attest, moving to the west coast of the US and then to Istanbul has forced a bit of change to my attitudes, I still tend to see the coming of fall in terms of what favorite plants are putting out their last blooms, will soon ome to an end, or what last hopes will soon be snuffed out by an early frost. Like this bottle gourd. I bought the seeds in spring. Late spring. Okay, May. And then came home and planted them, as the weather was already starting to get pretty warm. If I'd planted them a little earlier, the roots would have gotten better established before the heat kicked in. And as they say in Greece, "If my grandma had b_ _ _ _, she'd be my grandpa." So the plants started putting out gourds way too late, and now the lower leaves have dried off; I'm hoping for just one ripe gourd before either frost or rot does the vine in. I guess I can always stir-fry it.

Many of our favorite annuals are actually tropical plants, so for them, fall is like a bad joke. I what they would think, if they could think, about the sudden change in the weather just as they're at their peak growth:"What the hell? I didn't evolve for this!" Luckily most of them manage to produce seed early enough to ensure a new generation, if I'm diligent enough to collect it. Even as curmudgeonly I can be about fall, I have to admit that for some, the seed pods are half the fun. One is Dolichos lablab, which incidently combines, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful words of botanical Latin with one of the silliest sounding. It's also known as hyacinth bean for its beautiful hot pink, fragrant flowers. But the pods are just as interesting; purple, shiny with an almost metallic glint. They'll soon fade to a most inelegant gray and shrivel to let me know the seed is ripe.

I suppose the quintessential fruit of fall in Turkey is the pomegranate, or nar in Turkish. It was an exotic fruit for me when I was growing up, and my mother still remembers being thrilled as a five year-old girl in Greece, when she lived in a house with pomegranates growing right outside her bedroom window. I'm cheating a bit as this isn't actually my pomegranate tree, it's down below in Sevil's garden. Our pomegranate flowers but generally doesn't set fruit and when it does, the fruit is inedible. I just keep it around for esthetic value. Though it would have more esthetic value if it was covered with beautiful fruit! Other fruits of autumn here include hurma (Japanese persimmon), muşmula (medlar), ayva (quince) and hünnap (Jujube). But pomegrantes are definitely queen this time of year; there are many different varieties, some with pale pink seeds and a sweet flavor, and others with deep red kernels and a delicious tartness. To taste the best ones you need to go to Antakya down south (or have friends from there), where they grow pomegranates that weigh nearly a kilo, some with kernels as large as large corn. Not only do they eat them, they boil the juice of the sour ones into a thick syrup, nar ekşisi, which is used in a variety of dishes. Ours isn't all that special, but I suppose it works as a segue into the next installment!

Sonbahar

The dictionary defines the Turkish word sonbahar simply as "autumn," but it's an interesting word if you look a bit deeper. "Son" means "last." The standard definition of "bahar" is spring, but "last spring" sounds a little strange too. It seems the Persians looked at things a bit differently; Summer and Winter were the main seasons, and in between them were the bahars. People in temperate climates usually thing of spring as the time when nature wakes up, and fall as the season where everything drops seed and dies, or drifts into hibernation to survive the long winter. I was not much of a fall person for a long time, because in Iowa, as beautiful as the asters were agsinst the falling leaves, I knew all to well what came on its heels - several months of snow and subzero weather.

But in a Mediterranean climate or even those climates that approach the Mediterranean order of things, the "bahar" concept makes more sense. Bahars are times of respite between the gloom and cold of winter and the blazing heat of summer; times that many plants take care of. Here perhaps the most important element of fall is rain, the return of constant moisture. We do get some rain in the summer too, but it is hit or miss, and most native plants here seem to know better than to depend too heavily on it. And as the rain falls in increasing volume, the garden is once again full of action. Much of it is subtle, some is invisible. Seeds are swelling throwing up tentative shoots; bulbs are sending their roots out and will continue to do so through the winter. It's the beginning of a time of preparation. In Iowa, spring meant emerging bulbs, seeds coming up, but if we used that definition here, spring would start in October. Well...here they do, and it's called bahar. "Last" bahar.

The many seeds and bulbs that are slowly waking up with the coming of the rain and cool weather will grow slowly through the winter, sending down roots, gradually increasing, gathering strength. Then when the weather begins to warm and the bees come out, they will shoot up in a race with time; bloom, get pollinated, and with that last urgent bout of photosynthesis before the scorching summer heat comes, produce and ripen their seeds. Then they'll pull the last bit of nutrients and moisture from their fading leaves and stems, and wait out the summer safe underground.

A few of them have a different tactic. Colchicums, some crocus, and Amaryllis belladonna (affectionately known in California as "naked ladies), grow through the winter like the rest of the bulbs, but produce no flowers before the leaves die down in the spring. They wait till the end of summer to throw up their blooms. It's a clever strategy; when the seeds ripen and fall, they will either have conditions perfect for their growth, or in the case of some of the high-mountain plants, their seeds will be safely protected under a blanket of snow until spring, and watered by the constant trickle of runoff.

Obviously there are plenty of plants that, mission accomplished, are now going brown and making way for the next generation; the last fruits of the garden, persimmons and medlars, are coming into season. Indeed, some ornamentals draw more attention with their fruits than with their actual flowers. One of my favorites is Iris foetida, or "Gladwyn Stinking Iris." I always thought this name was a bit unfair, or at least exaggerated; it refers not to the flowers but to the leaves which, if crushed, smell a bit off, or to some noses, like roast beef. Compared to some of the other things I grow in the garden, Iris foetida is hardly spectacular. Its flowers emerge in late spring, and though they're hardly ugly, they're hardly worth devoting the space to a big clump of I. foetida. It's in the autumn, when color is at a premium, that the plant proves its value; the heavy green pods that have been developing all through the summer split open to reveal a bounty of brilliant orange seeds. These will hang on for at least a month or more, then either be eaten by birds or drop to the ground where many will sprout in early spring.

Of course there are plants that come into flower just now too. Besides the obvious chrysanthemums and asters (Note to myself, I need to get some asters growing here!) and the Jerusalem artichok at the top of this post, one of my favorite plants is now just starting its show: Salvia elegans, commonly known as pineapple sage. People growing this in colder climes might miss most of its show; even here I only get a month or so before the freezes make it start to look ratty, but it's definitely worth growing for the month of brilliant red blooms. I always seem to be taken by surprise; the plant looks like a big bushy mint plant for most of the summer and if it weren't for the delicious pineapple scent of the leaves, it wouldn't be much to write home about. Then suddenly one day I notice that the growing tips are pointing down, the signal that it is forming its flower buds. they elongate in a graceful droop, and finally, the red flowers shyly begin to peek from behind the green bracts. Then in a matter of days, the entire inflorescence turns straight upward and the intense red straw-like flowers open in quick succession. Each whorl is composed of several buds, and once the ends of the main stems are done, the branches join the party as well. Salvia elegans is a little tender; it goes down in a good freeze and really cold temperatures will kill the roots too, but it is easy to propagate. I usually take five or six cuttings about this time (get ones farther down with no flower buds). I just put them in water and they usually root within 10 days. They're easy to keep through the winter in a pot in a cool sunny place. Plant them in rich, moist soil (they don't like too much dryness in summer) and you'll be amazed at how fast the plants take off. If you can nurse it through the winter, you'll be rewarded even more richly; mine are as tall as my shoulder this year.