Spring Pizza

Today was cool and rainy.  We worked in the greenhouse.  Cherimoyas have started blooming, but I cut them back severely, as they get so long and lanky.  Sprayed everything with Neem, as we have a bit of scale here and there.  We may have our first Brewster lychees, but too early to jinx it with a pic. The first round of jaboticabas is starting to ripen.

For supper we made cauliflower crust pizzas.  One was an adaptation of "spinoccoli" and the other a traditional vegetarian.

As usual, first the cauliflower is pulverized into "rice," then cooked.  Afterwards, the water is pressed out by squeezing it in towels.  The new twist on this version is ground almonds.  We mixed it up and pressed it into crusts.

Then the toppings.  The spinoccoli used a garlic white sauce we made.

8 minutes at 400 degrees.  The tomato sauce pizza was a little soupy.

The pizzas tasted great with our 2014 Elderberry Rosé. We were surprised at how good this wine was, fruity and dry.

Summer Wines

I have particularly high hopes for the Lychee Wine

One week each year...

Outside it may be the best week of the year.  Haskaps continue to bloom, as do the Hellebores. Today nothing is prettier than the Flowering Quince, Chaenomeles speciosa ‘Toyo-Nishiki.’ The viburnum in front of the house is doing its thing, filling the air with a beautiful scent in spite of the 30pmh winds.  Not sure of the species, but I suspect V. carlesii.

We pruned up the Seven Sons Flower, Heptacodium miconioides.  We've grown this one to about 10 feet. It had some ugly water sprouts which we let go too big.  We cleaned it up and it looks great.

We spread several carts of mulch. Lisa puts in on thicker than I do, and I'm grateful for that. However, she has determined that the crabapples must go. I disagree. For one week each year they make a deposit and then they live off of that deposit until this time next year.

Lisa next to one of the trees she wants to remove