Daylily Season

Daylilies outside our front door

This is field season for the Stewardship Team (Heide, Mary, Julie and me) at the Methow Conservancy and several times a week we are out in the 'field' doing either baseline surveys for new easements or annual monitoring visits at one of our 94 conservation easements. We work in a variety of habitats from dense riparian jungle, to mid-elevation ponderosa pine/Douglas fir, to dry shrub-steppe, to Valley floor farmland. Each day is different.

At the end of each of those days I come home to my green, irrigated yard and for the past week to some brilliant orange daylilies that are right near our front door. When I see them I smile and remember our beloved neighbor Fran. Every time  we walked past this same clump of lilies Fran would tell me that when she was a little girl, her dad would pick the flowers and make soup out of them.

Fran grew up on a farm on Vashon Island, the oldest of 8 siblings. Her family raised chickens, vegetables and fruit. They sold their produce at Pike Place Market. Fran's dad was Chinese and lilies are often used in Chinese cuisine. You can buy them in Asian markets as 'golden needles' or 'gum jum'. 


This family photo was taken on the farm on Vashon Island in 1930.  My neighbor Fran (Mary Francis) is in the middle.  The siblings that were born after 1930 were 'photoshopped' in a few years ago.

Fran worked many jobs in her lifetime and was often a farmer as well. She moved to the Methow Valley in 1968 when she and her husband bought what many of us think of as the VanderYacht Farm on the East County Road. They raised cattle there and had a big garden. Fran moved from there to the house next door to us on the Twisp-Carlton Road in 1983. She had a huge garden there too and tons of flowers which she sold at a little stand in front of her house. Many people knew her as the flower lady.  Fran is now 93 and in a nursing home on the Westside. We miss her every day.

Fran at the Methow Valley Farmer's Market about 10 years ago.

Here is one of many recipes for Chinese Daylily Soup (a vegetarian version). I do not know what Fran's dad put into his version. I wish that I had asked her.

Ingredients: dried daylily buds, black fungus, tomatoes, fresh ginger, shiitake mushrooms, olive oil, soy sauce, white pepper.
1. Soak a handful of dried daylily buds and a handful of black fungus half an hour in advance.
2. Cut a couple of large tomatoes into large wedges.
3. Slice a 3-inch piece of fresh ginger and fry it lightly in olive oil.
4. Add shiitake mushrooms to the oil and fry them until done to taste.
5. While they are frying, bring a pot of water (2-3 liters) to a boil.
6. Shred the soaked black fungus and drain the daylily buds.
7. Add the shiitake, fungus, buds, tomatoes and ginger to the boiling water.
8. Season with soy sauce and a dash of ground white pepper.
9. Reduce the heat and allow to simmer for 10-15 minutes.

I have never tried daylily soup, but I have a bunch of these lilies and I'm going to give it a whirl. I'm going to throw them into my next stir fry too.

- Dawn Woodruff
Monitoring Coordinator & Computer Nerd