Fall: Gathering, Bringing Indoors & Cooking

We are having the most lovely fall days in the 70's. There is nothing to complain about when you look at a forecast that says everyday will be 70 for the entire week! The Bur Oak has begun dropping its leaves.  A few dogwood leaves are reddening. A pile of buckeyes lay on my kitchen table squirreled by some little person in my house. Carrots, kale, spinach, rutabaga, lettuce, green onions and leafing cabbages are sprouting in the fall garden.  I use to wait until the last possible moment when threatened by an overnight killing frost to bring in all of my houseplants and such. Not anymore. It's too much. I get crazy. So that project started today. The succulents and cacti come back to their windowsill residences. The lusher houseplants find their old stands. Annuals of various sorts (begonia, avocado, coleus, sweet potato vines, bromeliads, chili peppers, tender salvia, elephant ears, plectranthus, etc)  move into the basement to eek out a poor existence under shop lights. Such is life. Some days you have sunshine and others not.

Agaves, Jade, Hobbit Fingers Jade, Mother of Many in the window.

I also collected more annual seeds from things I hadn't yet: marigolds, petunia, celosia, gomphrena, star zinnia, purple prince zinnia. I make little paper packets for the smaller seeds, reuse envelopes, jars, old medicine bottles and lunch bags for others. 

After letting them dry a bit they will be contained & labeled. 

So, I've read about and watched youtube videos about Window Farming. The idea is growing some of your own food, in windows, in urban areas, hydroponically. I was trying to think of why you would want to do it hydroponically (that is, with a nutrient solution/soilless) and the only benefit I can see is less mess (unless you spill the solution). With hydroponics you have to check to make sure you are maintaining a proper pH and nutrient balance. Soil can certainly lose nutrients with use and either way the plants will show you this. So, I was considering trying it out using 2 liter bottles, but with soil. I had two mismatched bottles (mistake number 1), but thought I could still configure a way to stack them, which I did, but the hole on the bottom of the top one didn't fit perfectly with the bottom and so leaked, but not necessarily into the bottom one, which is the point. I'm not giving up on the idea. The have soil and seeds (mesclun mix and wild basil) and are growing so far so....look for updates. Oh, and for now, I've separated the two bottles until I'm ready to do more upgrades. Here are the bottles:

The plants are suppose to grow out of the cut out parts of the bottles.

Cooler weather also makes me want to cook and cook comfort food. A friend turned me on to this book:

I've really gotten into it. I learned a lot of stuff I didn't know about how to make a good veggie burger, french fries in the oven and homemade buns. Attempt #1: Easy Bean Burger, Spicy Fries and Whole Wheat buns turned out divine. Here they are:

Good buns.

Easy Bean Burgers with red beans pre-cooked.

All together now. Yum.

Now, I wish I could say most of the ingredients came from my garden, but only the parsley and potatoes were locally grown. Although, I am growing winter wheat, but for a green manure/chicken food. I continue to experiment my way through this cook book. Tonight is falafel burger night. 

Winding Down or In?

Not surprisingly I'm getting ready for bed about the time the sun is too. I'm fading with the Caladiums. I can't deny the circadian rhythm inside of me. I also start squirreling this time of year. Shorter days lead to more time to think, create and plan. So, what do I want to do next year? What improvements? What investigations do I want to carry out? Well, let's start with the actual events. The potted Caladiums are still doing well, but the in-ground ones have decided to call it quits with the drought. So...time to pull 'em up. Make sure to nab these before you can't recognize where they were. The leaves decompose very quickly. I started pulling them this weekend. I wait until the leaves are browning and I know the bulbs are storage-ready. I have 4 different varieties and started sorting them into separate pots for now. Later I will properly bundle them up for winter in the basement.

All is still well with this lovely gem. 

This is also the time to take cuttings for overwintering plants you won't dig up and will not survive winter outside. For me this includes: coleus, begonias, persian shield, plectranthus, geraniums and possibly some herbs, like favorite basils or mints. 

This plant was new for me this year and it had some obscure common name (no scientific), but I decided it was a keeper for my back patio hot-tropical gem-tone theme. 

It's also time to collect seeds. I've chopped all the heads off my Joe-Pye Weed. I have gorilla gardening plans to disperse this along a road leading into my hometown.  Leaving my legacy? Below is a million Brown-Eyed Susan heads ready for collecting.

Speaking of collecting...for the first time I decided to collect some lettuce seeds from some wonderful lettuce I grew this year. Specifically, I fell in love with Winter Density. It is a cos-type. When the flowers had turned to parachute-filled heads (like a dandelion) I cut them, hung them upside down in a paper bag and stored them in the coat closet until today. I have a flower bed along the south side of my house that does nothing all winter. So, I chopped up the seed heads, tried my best to rub the seeds out (not sure about this technique) and sprinkled them all over the mulch and watered well. If I get lettuce there- hurrah! If not, I've learned what not to do. 

Other good activities this time of year- buy cheap plants. You can put them in now, water well so they take root and don't frost-heave on you or overwinter in a protected place outdoors or in the basement. Here are some recent purchases, some of which are already in the ground.

A wispy hosta and some lime ajuga. 

I didn't think I liked begonias until I realized (because mom gave me some free ones last year) that they are incredibly easy to grow in very difficult places. So, I got these at Wally-world for $1.50. They will easily overwinter in my basement and I save $ next spring.

It doesn't matter how pathetic they look now. They will flourish next year!

And now for an unplanned, although desirable garden project. It seems my chickens overstayed their welcome in the hood and got the po-po called on them for trespassing. So....they are confined for good (or at least until that neighbor moves). wink. I built this trellis gate to keep them in their yard, which has worked so far, although I don't think they are in love with the idea. 

And lastly, I leave you with this. I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to spend 2 months in Africa. I feel even more fortunate that I was there on 9/11. Why? I didn't have a television, nor internet and only a radio through which I could gain the perspective of people a half a world away from the US. I found myself turning off the radio here every time 9/11 was mentioned this week. I don't want to think about it. I don't want to relive it. I don't want to see the images that played over and over and over on the TV here. What I do want is for us to move on and learn in a way that we have a hard time doing here. I had sent myself a postcard from Africa of what was important to me then. A reminder. The same things are still important to me. I love the picture on this card and I love the message I told myself. It is personal so I won't air it all here, but if you really know me you know that there are many things I find unimportant in this life and an equal number opposite. Obviously, gardening, eating good stuff and being self-reliant are some of those things. I keep this in mind as I continue on my path of learning and in this time of reflection and winding down for the slow season. 

Gorgeous.