Happy Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a very
Happy Thanksgiving!

Coming Soon-Topic of the Month-Rosemary

I know I have not really kept up lately with the Topic of the Month. I got busy for awhile and did not get a chance to work on it, and lately I just could not think of a topic of the month since we do not have very much growing right now. But I just thought of something that I would like to make the Topic of the Month for January, Rosemary. I have just started using it, and love it. I was very surprised how much taste one sprig of Rosemary can add to a dish. So next month the Herb of the Month will be Rosemary.

I plan to grow Rosemary next year along with many other new herbs to sell in bunches. I have wanted to grow more herbs for awhile now, but just haven't. I have never really cooked with herbs much but the more I use them the more I like them, there are so many different herbs that I jut can not wait to try next year.

Fall Chores

The past few days I have been trying to get a bunch of things done for fall. Everyday I have been saving seeds for next year, from tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and cucumbers. I still have a bunch of seeds to save yet.

Yesterday I finally got my collards, kale and leeks covered so that they will be protected from the cold weather to come. They are so beautiful I would like to have them last as long as possible. Plus I need the kale and leeks for my pumpkin stuffing on Thanksgiving. In fact I really need to cover my celery so that it will hopefully be around for Thanksgiving also.

Collards and Kale under cover.

A couple of days ago I dug up my dahlia tubers, and they are now drying a little and will probably divide them tomorrow and store them away for the winter. This year I am going to try storing them in ceder chips. Last year I just wrapped them in newspaper and put them in brown paper bags, they did ok, but I thought I would try something different this year. This is only the second year that I will be saving dahlia tubers so I am still new to dahlia saving. I was very surprised when I started to dig up my larger dahlia tubers and discovered that the dahlias that I started from seed actually formed very nice sized beautiful tubers. The ones pictured are actually the ones that I started from seed. I did not think that they would form tubers, so I learned something new.

Dahlia tubers waiting to be stored away for winter

The last picture is of my cold frame. About two weeks ago I planted a bunch of stuff in there hoping to have some lettuce, greens and other things soon. I should have planted these things sooner, but they should hopefully have a chance to mature. I really do not think the beets that I planted will have time but at least I will hopefully get some greens out from them that I can eat in salads and use as cooked greens. We will see, and hope.

All kinds of things in the cold frame (lettuce, greens, radishes, beets, and baby pak choi)

We still have lots to do before winter and before the ground freezes. Such as till some of our garden areas, and hopefully work on putting up the hoophouse that I have been talking about. I really wanted to have had it up already, but I guess, better late than ever, that is if it ever gets put up. I also need to recover our tiny hoophouse so that the snow does not break the plastic like it did last year. Since I am not using plastic for greenhouses (just the plastic from home improvement stores) it does not even last a whole year before it just starts to crumble.