What have you done today in the Garden?

I made a list of chores. Actually two lists: one for the home garden, the other for the community garden. Lists always help me not feel so inundated.

Now to tackling at least one thing on the list!!

Dog... Smart of you to find a cheaper source of peanut butter given how voracious your birds are!

I can't wait to put up our bird feeders, it's such a good way of bringing the outside in during the cold months here in New England. It is getting chilly now some days but we have to wait until the bears are hibernating.

Good going Sjoerd. I have garlic to plant. I planted enough last fall so I'd have enough to plant this fall, without buying any. I have do much, I keep supplying our daughter!

 

I honestly would be writing a book myself. it is a lot of work.

The celery powder? no idea. I never made it before and have never seen it available for sale... but it will try sprinkling it on rice or a beef roast ... anything I would use celery in? it was a perfectly good waste of celery to not do this. I would have tossed it in the compost as its not as tender as store bought celery. once you have storebought and its tender, mild and crisp its hard to get excited about garden celery when its strong tasting. I grow the celery for the leaves to dry them. not the stalks to eat them.

 

That's a great idea Carolyn. I'll be interested in how it turns out. I can imagine using it in soups and broths. Our when you are putting together the base for a sauce.

Today I began the outside year end clean up:. cutting back & disposing of the peony branches, mulching them, bringing houseplants indoors, dumping tomato plants etc.

@Sjoerd did you suggest that I dump the tomato plants out of their pots, shake off the soil and hang them upside down in order to let the green tomatoes ripen? Our daughter fortunately stopped by and agreed to help. She was a bit skeptical about the plan though and thought it a weird form of tomato torture. Did I get this right? We only did it with three plants.

 

Yes Cayuga, that is the way I do them in my greenhouse. This year we did some in a paper bag with a ripe banana because we wanted to have BLT’s one more time and by bagging them, we thought that we could force them quicker...we were in a hurry. Chuckle normally we are not in such a hurry, but BLT’s. Mmmmmmmm. We have more in the greenhouse and we will be getting to them soon.

Your girl is such a doubting Thomasina. Chortle. Watch it not work well for you now. Tch.

 

I added dry grass rakings from the gardens to the compost pile. I'll be digging out compost from the old pile soon to add to the raised beds.
There was a happy surprise in the working pile--two tomato plants, with one in bloom! We may have Christmas tomatoes yet this year.

 

What are christmas toms exactly, Jane?

 

Sjoerd, Christmas tomatoes are just any garden tomato rescued from the first frost, brought in to the laundry room to ripen on a table, and eaten for Christmas dinner. Who needs cranberry sauce when you have fresh garden tomatoes? (We do have the sauce, too.)

 

Thanks for the info, Jane. Oh, I like cranberry in all its forms. Do you eat that at christmas typically?

 

Sjoerd, cranberry sauce is a tradition for Thanksgiving, and often Christmas. I make cranberry chutney for Christmas gifts, and always have a few bags of cranberries in the freezer for use throughout the year. A cranberry/apple/pecan salad is always good in the summertime!

 

My mom used to make a bread/cake with them, like banana bread but with cranberry. Cookies too.

 

Sjoerd, I make cranberry orange pecan bread for Christmas gifts. One friend starts asking me in early November if I'm going to make that "cranberry fruitcake". I told him that I was, but if he didn't stop calling it a "fruitcake" he wouldn't get any! Fruitcake doesn't have a great reputation here in the States!

 

Right you are, mate. It is time that people were educated isn’t it.
I have had fruitcake and it is totally different.

 

Jane, that sounds fabulous. can you share the recipe for that bread? I may never make it but ... you never know. it sounds like a new favorite for me...

 

I second that request!

 

You two make me blush!
I'll post the cranberry orange nut bread recipe on the Recipe Forum either later today or tomorrow.