Carrot Harvest

Since we expanded our tiny vegetable garden this year, I've tried a few things I didn't have room for in the past.  I had no luck with cantaloupe (I got one small melon), but the carrots did alright.  I forgot to do my research before I planted them, so it didn't occur to me that they might not do so well in clay soil.  When I complained that they were on the small side, my mom said, "Carrots grow in sandy soil".  You're never too old to need Mom's advice.  I'm going add sand to the area where the carrots will go next year and see what happens.

I know carrots are cheap to buy, so why grow them?  I'm trying to eat more locally grown, organic produce and you can't get any more local and organic than your own backyard.  They're fresher, they taste fantastic, and the best part is that every time we eat them in salad, coleslaw, soup, or carrot cake I get to say, "I grew these carrots!"  I LOVE saying "I grew these (fill in the blank here)"  It feels really good!

I have a lot of carrot cake recipes, because that's the best way to use carrots, but this is the best carrot soup!  It's quick and easy if you use a food processor or Salad Shooter to slice the carrots.

                                                         Carrot and Coriander Soup

3 T. butter
1 lb. carrots, sliced       
11/2 t. ground coriander1 small onion, chopped

5 C. chicken stock

6 oz. plain yogurt
salt & pepper

Melt butter in a large saucepan.  Add onions and carrots.  Cover and cook for 10-15 minutes, until vegetables begin to soften.  Add coriander and cook for one more minute.  Add stock and salt & pepper.  Bring to a boil.  Cover and simmer for 20 minutes or until vegetables are tender.  Puree with a stick blender or food processor.  Add yogurt and heat through.

Makes 4 Cups

I always double this recipe and add things like kale or spinach.  If you add things before you puree, no one will know what you've added.  Chef's Surprise!

Reseeders

Even though I am a perennial gardener, I am very happy to have annuals in my garden too.  They provide weeks or months of color with zero effort on my part.  I don't even have to plant them!  I'm not talking about flats of impatiens or petunias.  I mean the plants that seed themselves.  Here is one of my favorites, moss roses.

                               

I didn't plant any of these.  They just reseed year after year from a flat of moss roses I bought over ten years ago.  They grow in the lime sand between the patio stones.

Here's another reseeder I really like.  I got some of this from my mom years ago, and it just keeps moving around my yard, wherever the wind blows the seeds.

Verbena bonariensis

Nothing comes in as many different colors as snapdragons do.  That's what I love about them - you never know what color each plant will turn out to be when they bloom. And you never know where they are going to show up.  I even have a snapdragon blooming up in my window box this year! This is another annual that I brought home in a flat many years ago and now have forever.

snapdragons

 Sea holly is an unusual plant.  The stems are the same blue-purple as the flowers.  People who see it in my garden often ask what it is.  

sea holly

This patch of calendula is pretty much done blooming now, but it was a sea of yellow and gold flowers all summer.  My parents gave me a few plants years ago and it reseeds itself.

calendula

There are many other plants that reseed:blanket flower, rose campion, gaura, and poppies.   I even have blue fescue and Autumn Joy sedum in the crevices of the rocks in our terraces. This look isn't for everyone.  It's definitely cottage garden style.  If you put down a thick layer of mulch, you won't get as much reseeding.  And if you like your landscape neat and tidy with each plant staying put, reseeders will drive you crazy.  But if you like a loose, natural effect, with plants moving around and lots of colorful flowers with no planting try adding some of these.

Getting Geraniums Shaped Up for Spring

Even though I am a perennial gardener, I do like zonal geraniums for their large flowers and non-stop blooming.  I use them in pots that I can move around to fill in bare spots in the garden where perennials have yet to bloom or have finished for the year, as well as in flower boxes.  Because I have ledge space in south-facing windows, I pot them up, cut them down, and bring them in for the winter.  They bloom on and off, which is a very welcome sight when it's below zero (again!).

Even with lots of light, the winter growth is leggy and weak.  It's time to prune them before their spring growth spurt.

This guy is healthy, but the recent growth isn't thick.

This guy bloomed all winter.  Now I want him to put his effort into producing strong stems.

Here's how to prune geraniums that you've overwintered to get fuller, more compact plants by summer.

Using a scissors reserved for gardening, make a cut directly above a leaf stem at a point where the main stem is strong and thick.  Cut all the main stems down this way.  You'll feel like you butchered your plant, but it's all for the best.

Keep cutting.

He looks a little sad now, but he'll be sending out new growth in no time.

When you're finished,  water and put your geranium in a sunny spot.  With the longer days, it's time to start fertilizing, too.   And don't be too eager to set geraniums out in spring.  They aren't happy with anything less than 50 degrees.  I've tried to push them outside too early and regretted it.

Time to Start Planning!

With the heatwave we've had this week, I've been thinking about the upcoming planting season. I plan on expanding the variety of fruits and vegetables I grow and deleting some that did not work out so well last year. One plant that is definitely on the "must-plant" list is basil. We mostly use it for pesto. A little is good in a frittata, spaghetti sauce, or bruschetta, but mostly we use it for pesto. We really, really like pesto. It's expensive to buy, but easy to make, and inexpensive if you grow your own basil. A few plants provide enough basil to freeze for making pesto all winter.

Basil is super-easy to grow. Plant seeds after the soil is warm and you can start plucking leaves as soon as the plants are small bushes. I've never had any insect pests bother basil. In late summer, when the plants are full-sized, I cut the top 2/3 off the plants, harvest the leaves, wash, dry, measure into two-cup portions (packed down), and pack in Ziplock bags (squeeze out all air). Here's what's left of last summer's harvest in my freezer door.

The remaining 1/3 of each basil plant will send out more shoots and produce more (smaller) leaves so you will still have fresh basil into fall.

This is a delicious pesto recipe, but it's different from the traditional in a couple of ways. First, I substitute toasted walnuts for pine nuts. Second, I cut the fat by substituting chicken stock for half of the olive oil.

Pesto
2 cups basil leaves packed
3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
3/4 cup olive oil (substitute half chicken stock if desired)
3-4 cloves of garlic
1/4 cup toasted walnuts (see note)

Place all ingredients in food processor. Cover and blend on medium speed about three minutes. *note- To toast walnuts, spread on baking sheet, toast at 350 degrees for 5-10 minutes. Stir one or two times while toasting. 

 If you are using frozen basil, add it while it's still frozen. It turns soft once thawed.

Basil does not take up much room in your garden and can even be grown in a pot on your deck or patio. It is well worth the tiny investment in time and money to grow your own basil!

Mid-winter Beauty

I said I would post about freezing vegetables, but I just have to write about all the birds we are getting at our feeder with a new seed mix.  We don't have a lot of mature trees in our subdivision, so we don't get much variety of bird life.  We've always had lots of juncos and finches, and a pair of cardinals, but now we are getting birds that don't usually come to the feeder outside our kitchen window.


We've never had red-bellied woodpeckers before.

We now have a pair of blue-jays too.

Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal are here several times a day.

 

The seed heads of silver lace vine on the deck  bring the juncos close to the window. 

 It looks like a busy restaurant.

 

The birds love the new food.  It's a berry-flavored nut and raisin mix.  The cold days seem less dismal when there's so much activity outside!

Holly and Ivy

I don't actually have any ivy, but I do have several holly plants.  It's worth growing just to be able to have fresh holly for Christmas decorating.

It looks fresh for a couple of weeks - doesn't change at all!

When I went out to cut holly I noticed how beautiful the garden is.  Without the distraction of all the colors, what you notice is the forms of the plants.  When planning your landscape, don't think only about the seasons when you spend time outside.  Even though you won't be walking around the yard much in winter, it can provide pleasure every day when you look out the window.  Plan for intriguing views all year long.  Plants that are overlooked in summer can be standouts during different seasons.

Topiaries look more dramatic in winter than in summer.

My favorite topiary looks like it has a hat on each of its heads.

Be sure to leave seed heads for birds to eat.
                                                                                                                                                                                                    

The bark of river birch is hardly noticeable in summer, but looks stunning in winter.

                              The garden has a different kind of beauty at night.

Plant stand covered with a gumdrop of snow.

These Alberta spruce look like ghosts.

I don't think we'll be sitting around the fire pit for a while.

This may seem strange for a gardener, but I love my vintage aluminum Christmas tree!

I wish everyone a Happy New Year!

Gardening in Wisconsin

It's not easy gardening in Wisconsin. We get temperatures that fluctuate almost 100 degrees every year.  Here are some shots I took in the last seven weeks.

On November 1, we ate the last of the watermelon from our garden.

 On November 8, we were raking leaves.

By December 22, we were digging out of the snow.

It's currently 4 degrees.  It was near 100 in August.  It's amazing that most plants come back year after year.  It's even more amazing that those of us who enjoy gardening keep at it year after year! We get high humidity, too much rain, not enough rain, we never know when the last hard frost will come in spring or hit early in fall. We have Japanese beetles, mosquitoes, powdery mildew, iris borer, rust disease, and blossom end rot.  Then there's our heavy clay soil.  I guess all the adversity makes makes having a beautiful garden even more rewarding.  

There are two main seasons in my world - the Christmas season and the gardening season.  As soon as we've packed away the last of the decorations, I start planning for what changes I'm going to make to the garden next spring. It's not quite time for that yet though.  Next month....

Summer's Over

It finally happened.  We got a frost hard enough to do in the annuals.  For me, this is the official end of summer.  This solitary clematis bloom surprised me.  The rest of the flowers look more like this.

After frost

Before frost

Before frost

After frost

Snapdragons are always there for you!

Before frost/After frost

If you read my summer posts, you know that we were up to our eyeballs in little orange tomatoes.

Even frost can't rid of them!

This is a busy time of year for gardeners.  Time to stop admiring the garden and get out and work in it.  I've learned to split the chores of cutting back perennials and shrubs between fall and spring. I used to save all of it for spring, and them kick myself in April when I was overwhelmed with everything I had to do.

If you need help with your fall garden chores in the Waukesha County area, contact me at:
petalpowergardening@gmail.com or 262-893-7249.