Lemon Verbena

Although autumn is here in full swing, my garden is still full of life and abundance. We have yet to have our first frost, so there are still cherry tomatoes on the vine. Greens such as swiss chard and lacianto kale are growing prolifically amongst the blooming asters and toad lily and there is still quite an abundance of parsley making it's way into many a meal these days.

Another herb that is still growing strong is lemon verbena, an herb that I most recently fell in love with. I have my neighbor to thank for that who gifted me a little brown bag of homegrown lemon verbena tea for Christmas a few years ago. That spring it was the very first plant I bought at the nursery and I find that each year I buy a few more plants than I did the last. I tuck them in to as many pots and planters as possible amongst other herbs and annual flower. I love it's bright green leaves and it's spindly, trailing habit.

I use the leaves fresh in both iced and hot tea throughout the summer and in late summer I begin to dry the leaves to store a way for winter. A few weeks ago we were threatened with some cold night time temps. Since lemon verbena is an annual I pulled a few plants from my pots and hung them in my pantry to dry.

Because the leaves are a bit more dry and tough compared to mint or basil, lemon verbena dries quickly. Simply hang in a dry, cool place. In about 7-10 days strip the leaves from the stem and store in an airtight container. To make tea , simply place a handful of leaves in a teapot, cover with boiling water and let steep for 5 minutes. I like my tea with honey but it's also delicious plain both hot and cold.

seasonal interest in the garden

i think for a lot of people in the northeast, autumn in the garden can feel a bit blah. the harvest comes to an end, plants have begun to peter out and well.... things tend to look a bit dead.

but i believe with some creative selection, the fall garden can be quite beautiful even without having to buy mums and ornamental cabbages

over the years my goal has been to create a garden with seasonal interest and to appreciate the beauty in the many cycles of a plant. selecting plants with beautiful bark, seed heads, leaf texture and pattern can all enhance the fall garden even into the winter months.
this crape myrtle not only produces beautiful white flowers in late summer but also pretty little star shaped seed heads and a gorgeous bark that sheds into a stunning, mottled reddish-grey hue.


choosing plants that produce interesting seed heads can create a beautiful billowy landscape. ornamental grasses and joe pye weed are what i am loving in my garden right now.
i especially love these Northern Sea Oats with their bronzed flower heads that shimmer and rustle in the wind. they look beautiful in a fall flower arrangement too.
purple hyacinth bean is one of my favorite annual climbers. they produce a lovely purple bean type flower which then turns into this beautiful bright purple seed pod. these are growing up our chicken run. there will be plenty of seeds to be saved for next season.


our dwarf weeping crab apple tree out front looks beautiful with it's branches dripping with fruit. i think i appreciate it's beauty in the fall even more than it's dainty little pink flowers in the spring. it's a nice pop of color at this time of year
although i cut back a lot of the black eyed susans and cone flowers once they have died back, i do like to leave some for the birds. we love watching the gold finches and chickadees feast on their seed heads. these seeds are also easy to save for next year. a little homemadepacket of these makes a nice gift for a gardening friend.
plants such as lamb's ear, sage, santolina, and kale all have a beautiful grey- blue tone that blends well with purples and greens. they all have a tougher, hardier leaf that allows them to last later into the year sometimes even able to withstand some light frosts.

these are just a few of my favorites. i'll highlight more plants and ideas for fall in the upcoming weeks.

my go-to salad for autumn: a recipe

Each season I like to work on a seasonal salad, one that can be made over and over again with the ingredients in my pantry and in my crisper. I try to keep things simple but I always tend to include fresh fruit, dried fruit, and nuts. The dressing I've made for this salad is garlicky and delicious and stands up nicely against the greens.

The best thing about salads is that you can tweak them to suit your own tastes and your stash of produce. However, if you're like me, when you find one combination that you love, you'll make it over and over again. This is the salad that I've been making all autumn.

Shari's Autumn Salad

a mix of greens (I used baby kale, baby chard, frisee, radicchio, spinach and some hardier lettuces)
an apple (Use your favorite variety)
golden raisins
pecans
two garlic gloves
Dijon mustard
white balsamic vinegar
1/4 lemon
3 T olive oil

Fill a medium salad bowl with your greens. If any of the leaves are large, tear them into smaller pieces. Cut the apple into matchsticks (Peel or leave unpeeled, your choice). Add to greens. Add in a few handfuls of golden raisins. Chop a large handful of pecans and add those as well.

Dressing (Adapted slightly from Hugh Acheson's A New Turn in the South)
Add 3 TB olive oil to a bowl. Squeeze in a 1/4 of a lemon. Add a splash of white balsamic vinegar. Stir in a heaping teaspoon of whole grain Dijon mustard. Add two pressed garlic cloves (If you don't love garlic, reduce this amount or omit). Whisk together.

Add dressing to the greens and toss.

Do you have a favorite salad combination for autumn?

weekend garden notes

my garden has been a bit neglected lately.  i was starting to think that i wouldn't even have the energy to get my garlic in (and i was trying to convince myself that i was okay with that).  this weekend we continued to have unseasonably warm weather and i forced myself to head over to my community garden to harvest my potatoes.  it was a bit disappointing (especially after i realized that i harvested fewer potatoes that i had planted in the first place!), but they will still be delicious.  i planted all blue, german butterball, and rose finn apple.  this year i tried a potato tower method, which was clearly not very successful.  i think a few of my problems were that my towers were too big around (about 3 feet in diameter) and i didn't keep them watered well enough.  if i try this again next year, i will definitely make them smaller.  what's your favorite way to plant potatoes?

i also managed to get my garlic in, which i know i will be really happy about come summer.  since i wasn't sure i was going to plant any, i hadn't purchased any new seed garlic.  i just used the garlic i grew this summer- german extra hardy and georgian fire.  i planted cloves from the largest bulbs and covered them with a pile of leaves, since i didn't have any hay or straw. 

our kale is also still going strong, and now that whatever little bugs were munching on it all summer are gone, maybe we can actually enjoy some of it.  after ignoring my garden for the last two months or so, it felt so fulfilling to get in one last garden day before winter sets in.

horseradish

the temps have slowly been dropping each night.
when i first wake up i look out to see if another frost has hit.
not because i want to see how many layers of woolens should be applied.
but rather i have been waiting patiently for the right moment to unearth a very special root growing in our garden. horseradish.

an herb, a condiment, a stimulant, and an excellent source of vitamin C, horseradish is one of my favorite flavors.

i bought a horseradish plant at the farmers market this spring and immediately planted it as soon as i got home.
although it prefers full sun it can tolerate part shade. it grew beautifully all summer long, putting out huge dark green leaves.

it could easily be mistaken for a weed. i like it's secretiveness in the garden.
a passerby might glance over it's large plain leaves but little do they know the jewel growing below.

the roots should be dug only when the plant is not actively growing, i.e., early in the spring as the crown is just starting to show a bit of green growth or in the fall after the second hard frost where it is said to taste better.

i was anxious to dig it up today to see just how much root there was hiding under there.
i was happily surprised to find quite a bit and the earthy, spicy smell was divine.
i left a bit of root still in the ground for next year.

i washed and peeled the root and then ground it up in the food processor with a bit of water. i then added it to a jar with a pinch of salt and a few dashes of white vinegar.

i am so excited about our homegrown horseradish.
i keep opening my fridge just to look at that jar.

maybe just because the secret has been revealed.

Leaves from the autumn garden

I'm not sure why exactly, but I absolutely love walking among the autumn leaves, looking at their shapes and colors, and gathering a few to take home. Sometimes they simply dry and curl up on my table, or I'll press one into my sketchbook, as I did earlier this week with a gingko. Other times I will draw and paint them. They are such inspiration to me. Perhaps my childhood in the mountains plays a role in this.

Anyway, this afternoon while walking through the garden I gathered a few. The grape leaves are falling from the vines, the red crab apples too. Some of the nasturtiums have frozen yet others remain strong. The spinach, lettuces, arugula, and radishes are flourishing right now, and the turnips, carrots, beets, broccoli, kale are doing well too. Soon the temperatures will remain low enough that we will need to build the cold frames. This winter we hope we can extend the growing season of the fall garden with the cold frames.

Do you use cold frames in the fall/winter?

a snow bouquet

we are bundled up here and ready for the snow.
yes you read right, SNOW!
i know for some of you this is no big deal.
but where we are snow in october is rare.
and possibly 10 inches, well that now is unheard of.
to say the little people around here are excited would be an understatement.
and the big people, well they are excited too.
we have brought in the potted plants,
harvested what was left,
stuffed the chicken coop with straw,
and put the walls on the rabbit hutch
to give the bunnies a bit more insulation.
but a little gnomey in our garden thought it most important to pick "a vase" as she calls it or a bouquet before the snow comes.
she chose a nasturtium (hard to believe nasturtiums are still growing when snow is on it's way),
a small chard leaf,
a sedum,
an anise hyssop flower
and a begonia.
so sweet, and quite beautiful
as it sits there on our windowsill
waiting for the first flake to fall.

autumn garden notes

I took a walk down to our field garden today. It's the garden that's so far away that we often go a full week without checking in. We have some gilfeather turnips that are ready whenever we are, but i'm waiting for Thanksgiving. I love looking around our gardens and seeing things that will end up on our thanksgiving table: tiny brussels sprouts, leeks, sage, and kale.

The winter rye cover crop we planted is doing well. You can see it in this photo growing all around the turnips. I have to say that the morton oats we broadcast on the left side of the garden did not germinate as well.

Next week, we'll plant our garlic. We've been holding out because it's been warmer than usual and we don't want the cloves to germinate and grow too much before the winter snow cover. I recently came across this article on garlic and really enjoyed it. Everything you need to know right in one place. Our seed garlic from Fedco arrived recently too. We're planting five different varieties as we want to do a taste test and find our favorites. And we really would love to be garlic farmers one day. Here's what we're planting:

Georgian Fire
German Extra-Hardy
Music
Phillips
Russian Red

How about you? Are you planting garlic this year?



I couldn't leave the garden without taking back a snack. three pretty little cherry belle radishes. a nice treat.

rabbit friends

so i know i have mentioned and even shared some glimpses of our two little friends that have made a new home in our backyard.
well today i am happy to make a more formal introduction.

meet...
titch, a chocolate, orange tri mini rex named after a favorite book of hannah's by pat hutchins
and harley, a blue fawn harlequin mini rex, nicknamed by norah simply after it's variety harlequin.

sadly, we lost hopper, our sweet french lop ear rabbit this summer.
we loved him dearly, as did the whole neighborhood.
we all knew however that he was not to be our last
and chris and the girls began to do some research on a new rabbit.

which quickly turned into rabbit(s)!
and not to mention a boy and a girl rabbit.
yes there will be baby bunnies at some point around here.

they decided on the mini rex.
their small size, plush coat and friendly personalities make them one of the most popular rabbit breeds in the united states.
and boy are they cute!
we just can't stop snuggling them.

they do add such warmth to our garden space
and the new hutch that chris built to match the coop is quite lovely if i do say so myself.
he made sliding wooden doors for easy access and lots of hugs.
and hand carved name tags to remind everyone who stops by just who is who.
and of course there is a living roof to grow succulents, herbs and greens.

it's hard to believe sometimes we have four chickens and two rabbits living in our tiny little backyard.
next year? definitely some bees.

and maybe,just maybe a dwarf nubian goat!

autumn changes

autumn is finally here & with it brings much welcomed busyness & big changes. ornamental cabbage & mums are decorating our yard in pots & perennial beds. pansies are added to fresh greens from the garden.

beans, kale, turnips, sugar snaps & radishes are bursting in our raised beds.

& we have even added a flock to our home! eight sweet ladies all with their own unique personalities. happy birthday to our one week old pretties!

meet violet. she's a buff orpington with such a calm soul. she'll fall asleep in your hand & perch on your finger as you put her down with the others.

i just adore these big autumn changes!