Monday, October 31, 2011

Happy All Hallows Eve, All!



I prefer the All Hallows Eve versus Halloween.....

It is a shame the kids Trick or Treat here on Sunday afternoon, regardless of where the 31st falls.

Typically we have 350 to 600 of the little "darlings". This year a scant 120 or so. Too much rain, a shame.

Meanwhile, the sewing machine trudges on.

Blessed be, all.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

"The Hills are Alive..."

"...with the sounds of my sewing machine."

Yes, it is that time of year again. I am busy practicing pit band music for the High School Musical. Each year I pull out my clarinet and do my best to keep up with the music in the pit. This year, we are doing the "Sound of Music".

I also decide I could offer my sewing talents up for costuming. I have been inundated with sewing. My blog has suffered. My music has suffered.

You know the scene where Maria has made play clothes from drapes. Well, Target is not all over that. There doesn't seem to be a rush for their designers to make matching drapes and play clothes.

I can't imagine why not...

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Belacamda Lily: Blackberry Lily



This belacamda lily is a late season bloomer in my garden. This picture was taken August 7, of this year. It has since gone to seed, forming first a pod which then split open. The shiny black seed form a cluster similar in looks to a blackberry, hence the name blackberry lily. The very nice blue foliage has now turned yellow in my fall garden.

It is actually a member of the iris family. I grew this lily from seed I gathered, not knowing what the flower would look like. I gathered about a dozen seeds, all of which germinated fairly quickly and easily after a period of six weeks in some damp spaghum moss in my refrigerator. They rapidly grew and flowered the next year. I will confess, they languished over-long in a 6-cell section of a seed flat until mid-summer, becoming overly root bound. If I had promptly planted them, they may have flowered that first fall.

Although supposedly a zone 5-10 plant, I think they would grow well in zone 4. I have mine planted in a perennial border with sedum 'Matrona' and tall balloon flower, partially shaded by a Austrian black pine. This is a relatively pest and problem-free plant. They are long blooming and would make good cut flowers when in flower or as the pods begin to turn brown and split open revealing the shiny black seed.

I gathered a lot of seed this year. So, gardeners (in the United States) on a budget who would like to start a winter project and add this plant to your fall display, let me know. For the price of return postage, I'll mail you a dozen seeds. Post your comment if you desire some, and we'll be in touch. This is my garden share this year!

Thursday, October 13, 2011

One of My Favorite Fall Flowers


Once you get past the asters and beautiful colors of foliage on shrubs and trees and their changing leaves, one of my favorites is this old fashion chrysanthemum. I
think they have split this species off into dendranthemum these days. The gardener that gave me didn't have a name for it. I think it may be something called the Sheffield daisy. If it is not, it is pretty close.

It needs some space and can grow into a bushy three feet by three feet, if given the space and enough water during the hotter summer months. The nice frothy pinkness loaded with bloom is a welcome addition with the blues, purples, and hot pinks of my aster tribe.

And did I mention it is almost the same color as my pink house?

You gotta laugh with these flowers!

Monday, October 10, 2011

Save Your Favorite Coleus




Clip a 4' to 6" tip of your favorite coleus. Remove the bottom leaves, clip off half the remainder of the leaves. You can use rooting hormone and then stick it in water or directly into a potting mix. Keep you cutting in a sunny window. The goal is to be able to take additional cuttings from this plant in March to start all those great pots and baskets next spring.

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Central Wisconsin: Peak Fall Color


Hazelnut and a rusty chair in my potager.


Personally, I don't think the colors are quite so fabulous this year. We had a very dry August and September. The weather this October has been dry and the temperatures 20 degrees above normal. I think the moisture and heat are affecting color, although the when the leaves turn is primarily driven by day length, I personally think some of these other things can also affect it.

Having their bright blues of the October skies, though, doesn't hurt when thinking contrast, particularly with the yellow sugar maple and the clear yellows of the black walnuts this year. The oaks seem to be more brown than a burnished red. We lost a lot of pine and spruce in the storm that swept through here Labor Day weekend which reportedly did $3.3 million damage in Waushara county alone. I heard the National Guard just finished clearing the roadway right-of-ways in the Wisconsin peninsula this last Friday.

So, those of you looking for my favorite spots of color in central Wisconsin, here's my list:

Hwy. 39/51 (I think they consider this Interstate 39 now, but if you grew up here it will always be Hwy 51.), the stretch north of the Bancroft exit, but before you get to Plover. The area around the Hwy 10 interchange on I-39/51 is nice, too.

Hwy. 22 from the Waupaca county line north to the unincorporated village of Rural and through the village of Rural.

Cty Hwy. K from Crystal Lake Corners through Little Hope and north through to the Waupaca High School.

State Hwy. 10 north of Waupaca and south of Amherst.

There is one more short stretch of road where the color peaks just a few days later and is at its peak when about 25% of the leaves have fallen there. This is the stretch of Aniwa Drive between Cty Hwy K and State Hwy 22 curves through a stand of sugar maples whose top limbs arch over the road, giving it a sense of seclusion. The best time of day to drive it is about sunset traveling west so the trees are back lit by the setting sun.

Friday, October 7, 2011

Beauty in Autumn


Bee working over some broccoli gone to seed in the potager.

I have to admit that sometimes I have a hard time seeing the beauty in fall. Taking a page from DebiO, a great photographer, art teacher, and joy giver to the north; I decided to see if I could digitally capture some beauty amongst the garden decay. This post is what I came up with this bright and beautiful fall day.


Purple Dome aster



The bees do like the asters. This is one tired and cold bee this morning, not even moving when I first came upon him, he finally decided to wake up and smell the pollen.


The blue skies as the perfect backdrop for my sugar maple planted nine years ago. It is a seedling of maples my father moved from his swamp to my parents' backyard when I was 12. My father taps them and makes maple sugar each spring.


Cotinus coggygia 'Nordine' dappled in dew.


I don't know what is with this celery 'Tango', but it has grown more like par-cel than celery this season.


By the way, anyone lucky enough to have their child in DebiO's art classes or actually be a student in one of her classes, you are truly blessed.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Pretty Jars, All in a Row


The line-up: (front) Two bottles of dried Opalka tomatoes with basil and garlic in olive oil, sweet pickle relish, sweet pickles with tumeric, dried apple rings, dried tomatoes, and salsa. Back: (partially hidden) apple sauce, sweet icicle pickles, tomato sauce, apple-tomato chutney.




More, and more, and MORE canned goodies!

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Feeling a Bit Like a Squirrel


Handsome Son amongst the tall trees.


Okay, Canners everywhere! Repeat after me!

"I am NOT a hoarder. I am NOT a hoarder..."

This fall I have been doing a lot of canning. It seems I am cooking down tomatoes for sauce like every minute I am home. I don't know how many times I set an alarm on my way out of the house lately and leave the parting words with Handsome Son, "Remember to take the tomato sauce out of the hot water bath and turn off the stove when the alarm goes off!"

My sister-in-law lent me her Foley food mill and it is very slick way to make sauce simply by washing and quartering the tomatoes, boiling them away and running them through her food mill.

It has also been a great way to process apple sauce.

She also lent me her five tray dehydrator. I have made some of the prettiest "sun-dried" tomatoes I ever saw from the Roma-style heirloom Opalkas that have been more than bountiful this summer. Some of these I stored in glass jars with a few grains of rice, others I submerged in olive oil with garlic or basil, or both.

I have also dried apple slices and experimented with a summer squash dried, salted, and herbed as a possible snack choice.

I still have potatoes to harvest. My goal was minimally 250 pounds. We planted about 90 hills between my potager here in town and the 75 hills at the family garden. We have been digging them all along since about mid-August. One of the twins jumped and shouted, "apples!" when the first 'Red Norland' popped from the ground.

I harvested about seven pounds from a couple hills here of 'Yukon Gold'. Almost too good to use so blatantly, I made french fries and hash browns from them. I cut the fries by hand and deep-fried them for Handsome Son.

He has started running and shooting around on his own after school in preparation for taking on the "tall trees" on the basketball court. Last season, nearly all our starters did not play football. In a small school conference, where the same kids meet up with the same kids from each school in every season playing a different game, that was unusual.

This year while the rest of his squad is fighting it out on the football field, Handsome Son shoots around with the younger brothers of his last year's starting squad, the "big man" surrounded by the shadows of last year's guards and forwards.

Fall is all about preparation and hoarding our resources. Instead of the Wildcats, maybe our mascot should be a squirrel.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Harvest Yields: Squash

I've got squash. I've got spaghetti squash, acorn squash, sweet dumpling squash, and assortment of tiny decorative squash. I've got a handful of butternut squash.

Probably too many squash!

I planted three hills of acorn squash and four hills of spaghetti squash. They yielded 30 and 40o squash respectively.

I harvested the squash and laid them out where they can dry a bit without freezing.

Got a good squash recipe? I think I need it!