A LOVELY FALL DAY for Tea In The Garden

 

Today I was able to set up a "Tea In The

Garden" which is always fun.  I recently realized something I have been doing wrong in my garden. You would probably not make this mistake.

 Each spring I have been cutting off the dead looking hydrangea stems that are brown.   Yes, I have done this each year and each year I have few of the blue ones bloom.  They do make lots of leaves but not many blooms. 

 I was reading in a gardening Facebook group for Missouri and someone asked about this very thing.  I learned that this was indeed my error as someone said the blooms form on the old wood.  Now, who would have guessed that?

These blue blooms came just recently after our really hot weather cooled down.

  So next spring I am leaving things alone

 and I am hoping to get a bumper crop for

a change.  

PUMPKIN MUFFINS ON A FALL DAY

 This morning I made these muffins to 

take to a seniors church meeting.

You could make them for dinner tonight

or for a tea time.  There are lots of possibilities.  I guarantee they will be eaten!

This is a very simplified version of the

Pumpkin Muffins from the Sept/Oct 2012 issue of TeaTime: makes 12 muffins

Ingredients: 1 cup reg flour, 1/2 cup whole wheat flour, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 tsp bak powder, 1 tsp bak soda, 1 tsp grd cinnamon, 1/2 tsp grd ginger, 1/4 tsp grd cloves, 1/2 tsp salt

**1/2 cup dried cranberries or even raisins, 1 cup canned pumpkin, 2 large eggs 2/3 cup buttermilk and 1/4 cup veg oil  (If I don't have buttermilk I just put a little lemon juice in milk)

Mix all the dried items and add moist items.

Fill the wells of large muffin tin tray 2/3 full and bake 18-20 min or 15 min in a convection oven.  I used some fun fallish muffins papers.

I hope you have been stocking up on some non perishable groceries at home.  Who knows where things are headed with all the decisions they are making.

**I used 1/3 cup craisins, 1/3 cup raisins and 1/2 cup walnuts  The recipe made 12+

OCTOBER BOUQUET AND GARDEN CLEAN UP

 This is the time of the year those garden

projects seem to be arriving and it's

do it now or do it on a colder day so

today a little progress was made and

I removed the last of the zinnias:

It's 60 degrees out today and you can 

just tell the weather in changing.

I made a pile of blooms on the sidewalk

as I worked.

There seemed to be plenty for a bouquet

and the rose bush that our friends gave

me has been energized by cooler temperatures.

I actually have some blue hydrangeas

around by the pond and I hope they

mature some more before the cold

gets to them.

I took this bouquet to a neighbors

and left it for her as my husband

has allergies.

FINDING FOXGLOVE BABIES FOR NEXT YEAR

 This is the time of the year that certain

garden chores must be done.  At least,

if you want to enjoy certain flowers in 

the spring, then they have to be done now.

This is an area near my Beatrix Potter

statuary where I want to have foxgloves.

Each Mother plant that bloomed this 

spring and into summer will now die.  However, often the mother plant and

 stalk produce little baby plants so I 

have to find them near the old plant 

that bloomed this summer.  If you don't

 get them down in some good dirt they

 get less feeding from the dying mother

 plant.

 Also, they will form two places: at the base

of the plant and on the stalk.  Here are

some I quickly found today:

Walmart and garden centers sell little

jars of root boosting powder which I use by dipping the root end of the plant in water

first and then the root powder element:

These will have time yet to form some roots before it is really cold.  It is cool out and colder at night but that is ok. 

 This photo

below shows you a mother stalk and

 how the babies formed on the stalk. 

 You carefully peal them off.

You really need to get some new fresh

garden soil surrounding these new

plants.

 

Just flipping an existing plant back shows

 you it isn't even secure in the ground

 because it was a new baby plant.  

This one was

pulled out and replanted as there are

two there.  If it is not replanted with some

good dirt it probably will just dry up

and die this winter.

Some are bigger and some

tiny but these are all babies

for next year:

leave a little stalk too:

planted in better soil below:

Many of the ones

I pulled were already

showing signs of

distress from lack

of water from the mother stem.

You may have already been remembering

that other plants do this same type of

reproduction:  such as Lambs Ear

Another example is Sweet William:

You can see these forget me nots are

very dry and these babies weren't

hardly in any dirt and will just die

unless planted and watered:

(I do not use rooting element on either of 

these 2 plants as they will take off with

just the planting and water)

Make sure you put some new fresh

quality topsoil around those

baby foxgloves:

Hopefully - next spring and early

summer you will have lots:

Late note:  someone asked me where I

got this statuary that is similar to Beatrix Potter.  Actually I have 8 pieces like these

 all around the garden.  They are (click) Campania International. 

 A while back we got a new birdbath

 which was just the same as the old

one.  We ordered it and picked it up at a garden center in St. Louis.  

I will carefully cover this one better

with a heavy black plastic bag in winter!

  

COZY AUTUMN WILD RICE SOUP FOR DINNER

 I was online looking at various fall

soup recipes and today I made one for

our dinner tonight:

Our weather has turned cooler and I

imagine the leaves will begin to turn now.

Each day now, I have to pick up the

 acorns and walnuts in the back yard.

I try to get them before the squirrels

bury them.  That's impossible but I try.

The Cozy Autumn Wild Rice Soup is

perfect for fall!  I served it with the

$1.00 French Bread loaf from Walmart.

I buy them and immediately divide that

long loaf into several cartons and put

that in the freezer.  That way, it doesn't 

get stale before we eat it.  My husband

actually loves it for toast.

Like you I often put my own spin on a 

recipe and change one or more things.

In this case, I used 1 cup brocolli instead

of kale, I used 1 medium sweet potato and 1 

medium regular potato.  I also added 1 cup

fresh green beans and used red onion instead

of white.  I cooked 2 small chicken breasts

in 6 cups of water.

We loved our soup and you might

like to try it too.