Dropping temperatures....

Hello, again. All of my Thanksgiving guests have returned home, so now my house is quiet again. And empty. But for one wonderful week, I loved having everyone here. My garden is becoming quiet and empty (sorta), too. The temperatures have dropped below freezing most of the nights this past week, which, of course, has affected my garden.


Something unusual happens to one of my plants when it freezes. It looks very odd to walk outside in the mornings and see this:




The sap of my Salvia coccinea turns to ice and bursts the stems open. As the day warms, the white ice will disappear, leaving behind the damaged stalks. Do you think the icy sap looks like cotton candy?



These Salvias have completely blackened now and I plan to pull them all out next week. I have a few Violas with which to replace some of them, but other places in the garden will be left blank for the Winter.


Salvia coccinea reseeds itself very well in my garden, so I have very little doubt that as things warm up next year, a new crop of these hummingbird favorites will start to show up.



The Violas are affected by the dropping temperatures, too. I like the way they hunker down against the cold and then revive again when it warms up. Hey, that sounds kind of like me!



One of my Catmint plants has one stalk with blooms on it. Maybe it didn't get the memo that the garden is shutting down for the season. Good for it.


Have a beautiful day!

It has begun...

Cold has started to creep into my garden. Not much yet, only in the most exposed areas and to the tenderest of plants. It reached the Impatiens by the fern.




And some of the Salvia coccinea have started turning brown. Although, obviously a Praying Mantis didn't realize that this might not be a lasting place to leave her egg case. Or maybe she knew I would protect it for her.



The vines on the deck railing have blackened and I will cut them down in the next few days, as I have time. Ha! I should say, as I make time. I show you these pictures, not for beauty, but just for the record.



However, lest Cold think it will win, I am prepared. I, too, have begun... planting Johnnies.


Have a beautiful day!

Icy designs...

So, what to do when the temperature outside is just at freezing and it is raining? Well, you could stay inside and dream of gardening. You could go outside and take pictures. Or you could wait until it almost stops raining and then go outside and clean up your pile of pots that you have been meaning to for quite some time, but it has not yet been just that time.




K went out this morning and took some amazing pictures for me to share. These are of the net over the chicken yard.




Evidently, the rain froze against the rose leaf and then the leaf fell, leaving its intricate print.




And I did indeed clean up my pile of pots. Now, I just have to thaw out again.



Have a beautiful day!

Green tomatoes...

The other day, before it frosted, K picked what was left of my tomatoes. Most of them were still green and I spread them out on a platter, hoping they might ripen, but somehow I'm not sure they will.




What to do with green tomatoes? I am not the one to ask. I am not even very good about the ripe red ones, although I do make a pretty good tomato sandwich and one summer in California, I canned 40 quarts of tomatoes from 6 tomato plants. That year I used a soaker hose and siphoned water from the “duck pond.” (We lived in the city and the “duck pond” was a child’s wading pool. The ducks loved it and the tomatoes grew very well with the water the ducks had “fertilized.”)




So, back to the here and now. I ended up peeling and chopping some of the green tomatoes and a couple of the redder ones and then simmering them for about ½ an hour to soften them up. After crushing them a little, I added them to the kidney beans that had been cooking all afternoon. I sautéed onions, garlic, celery, and a homegrown jalapeño pepper and put them with the beans and tomatoes. It was a lovely stew for a chilly evening.



And now I know something I can do with green tomatoes!




Have a beautiful day!

Not coleus...

Coleus just didn’t seem to be the right thing to write about, waking up to about 25 degrees, so it will just have to wait until another day.

Last evening, as it was getting colder and darker, I was digging up plants I wanted to try to overwinter in my greenhouse. What? I could have done that earlier? Anyhow, they are now on my kitchen floor, awaiting more permanent assignments. I do think they will be more comfortable in their own pots rather than crammed into the storage tub in which they were hastily dumped.

My daughter took this picture of the frost on the windshield this morning! Isn't it amazing!?!





Lamb's Ear (Stachys byzantina), already silvery looking, is even more so with a frosty dusting.




There should be something in here about iced (catmint) tea, but I can't think of what it is.



One of the last roses, fading in the cold of fall. The sun had already hit this one, melting the frost into drops of water.



Have a beautiful, warm day!

Cold plants...

The fields and flowers have frost on them this morning. I think the frost makes things look amazing - the way it edges and highlights the leaves, the designs it makes in water, how it changes the colors of the greens.

My Purple Rain pansies are a little different this morning.



Frosted weeds. (You have no weeds in your garden, right?)


Icy clump of bluegrass.


Chilly Nemesia on the wall.


Dianthus with fall leaves. So cool! (Pardon the pun.)


Have a beautiful day!