Glad, Glad, Glad

My mother and my wife are both big fans of gladiolus. I've never gotten around to growing any. This year saw a few packages near the end of the season in the deep discount bin.

So planted about 30 bulbs- small ones- and hoped for the best.

Well, they finally came up and I cut a bunch for the kitchen counter. Beautiful blooms. They bloomed right up to the top. Removed the spent blossoms off the bottom and re-cut the stems as needed.

Even with 30 bulbs, the problem with the gladiolus was that sometimes there were only one or 2 at the same stage to cut and bring inside.

Rose Mallow Hibiscus

Rose Mallow is a hibiscus species that grows huge flowers. We have white, pink and red.

Hibiscus flowers only last one day. Showy, huge flowers.

Squash That Hunger

Last year I purchased some squash seed. A variety called . Uchiki kuri from William Dam Seeds in Dundas. Even though we have done well with our butternut squash in past years, we wanted to try this interesting squash some more. The first year, it did poorly and the few fruit we got rotted out too soon.

This year in spite of the wet summer, we have gotten a decent crop of this Japanese Hubbard type squash.

We have always liked barbequing the butternut squash using various flavours including mustard, Patak's curry sauces, butter/cinnamon, barbeque sauce and even plain (just oil). When we barbequed the Uchiki kuri, early in the season, it wasn't bad. At that time it was more like a summer squash. We could cook and eat the seeds and all.

As the squash matured, however, it wasn't as good on the BBQ. Mostly because it wasn't as moist.

Change of venue. Baked in the oven, the finished product was much more moist and much tastier.