[gardening] June Flowers: Irises

June is over and it was a busy month. When I had time and the weather was nice, I walked around the flower beds to take pictures (and pull weeds). 

Last month was all about irises. 

White:

And white-purple (this is in the same clump at the white):

Looks like a simple purple iris but the foliage is variegated and these smell sooooooo sweet:

Siberian irises (could probably be divided this September):

Yellow irises (another patch that needs to be divided) when they were first starting to bloom:

This one was given to me by a coworker before she left:

I absolutely adore the color of this one (taken from work when we redid the front flower bed):

Nice tall, dark purple:

These are from a bag of rhizomes that I got at Home Depot or Kmart years ago. They turned out to be really beautiful:

Same with these:

These came from my neighbor:

And this sweet little thing appeared in with my short spring purple irises. It was a nice little surprise and I wish I had grabbed it a separated it to give it it's only special spot. Maybe next year.

All the irises are just about done and the daylilies are sending up scapes and getting ready to take over the show.

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Had a good weekend. The month of June was so busy for me because of travel and teaching. I'm looking forward to a short week this week and long weekend. I need more R&R ahead of another week of teaching.

I did all of my favorite things this past weekend- gardening, cooking, crafting, avoiding house chores. 

I made pozole. This is one of Dollar's favorite meals and I'm trying to simplify the process. I brought to a boil some dried guajillo peppers (removed stem and seeds as best I could without getting super fussy about it) with onion, garlic and Mexican oregano with a little water. Then let it sit to plump up the peppers and then blended it all in my Vitamix.

What was my life like before this blender? I don't even remember. The Vitamix got the peppers so smooth, I didn't need to strain it. That was the problem with my old pozole- straining out the bits of peppers that didn't blend- trying to get a smooth base for the soup. This Vitamix is saving me time and frustration. This blender is literally extending my life and making it better. 

Anyway, that was it for the base of the soup. Pour it into a pot to cook a bit and reduce. Then add hominy, broth, shredded pork. At the end, I add greens (the CSA is in full swing and I have so many greens to use up) to make it a more well-rounded meal.

Every other month I do a big pork shoulder in the slow cooker to make a pile of shredded pork, which I freeze in smaller portions. Then I can pull out a container and let it defrost in the fridge for a week of: pulled pork quesadillas, burritos and now easy pozole.