Dalia Delights

My beautiful dalias! 

(We dug out the tubers from my Dad's garden last year and planted them at our house)

Here are most of the colors we grew!   I trimmed back the dead flowers today hoping that they will give one more burst of color before the weather turns grim.  Note: Dalias have to be dug out before the frost, and stored in a dry/dark place over the winter (and can be planted as soon as the ground can be worked in the early spring). 

Other Garden Gab

Today I planted some winter veggies, brocolli and cauliflower.

A work in progress.  Work was started on the root cellar, but then the rain came.  Hopefully it clears up so we can finish this project THIS year.  We have a wheel barrow of potatoes to store inside among other items.  We both think a round hobbit door would be an awesome touch!

Stupid hornets.  We have a busy hornet family that lives in the crack between the back steps and the backdoor.  Using Rosemary for cooking is totally out of the question, as it marks the hornets' front door.  If you look really closely you can see a hornet guarding the crack.  We are waiting till they sleep (winter) and we will seal the crack.  Bye-bye biting nuisance! 

More Garden Goodies

The beets are popping out of the dirt. Think they want to be picked?

Giant pumpkins grew from last year's seeds thrown in the compost pile (as they usually will).  Pumpking carving fun is ahead.

We planted more lettuce to use at the end of the summer, there is also arugula growing (another salad leaf), rutabegas and turnips are to the left and just about ready...

The sunflower seeds have been harvested. Right now they are drying.  There is a bit of work ahead to soak them, salt them and roast them before eating them :)  Some seeds aren't worth the bother and we will use them for bird seed.

What do you do with Kohlorabi?  Salads and stirfries...  This is a new vegetable for both of us this year - we are still trying to find the perfect recipe.

Beans of all colors.  I harvested the dry and overripe beans before pulling the decaying plants out of the ground to compost.  The bean in side the pod are great to use to make soups or chilli.  We made a great batch of chilli with a bunch of beans harvested a couple weeks ago - with other garden veggies.  The only ingredient we used that wasn't local was 'chilli powder'...but its not really chilli without it :)

Hopping for Hops

The Hops are about ready!

The are crunchy when squished and they rebound back into their original shape once released.

Now for the tricky part, harvesting them. 

We will have to be extra careful as on the other side of the fence nearby there are two dogs.  Hops is super duper poisonous to dogs and will if eaten by them - it will kill them.

These hops will be dried and stored for tea and perhaps if we feel the itch, home-brewed beer :)   It's the hops in beer that help with producing milk for nursing mothers - so this tea might come in handy for some of you expectant and nursing mothers....just ask for a cup:)

For more information on harvesting Hops...this is an excellent clip on Utube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVxuVzDz_L0

Fall in the Garden

It's fall in our garden.  The hot sunny weather has been replaced by rain and more rain.

While some items have bit the dust due to the change in weather, mainly tomatoes, other items are flourishing as you can see by the pictures I took today.  

Tomatillos

Squash

Cucumbers

Tomatoes (in the greenhouse only).

Collards (Cabbage family).

Kale