Mild Winter, so far!

I'm pretty happy with our winter weather so far. It seems odd that so far, our biggest snowfall was in October. Snow is not good on the greenhouse, of course. Turning the heat on melts the snow off and it accumulates on the sides. We have to shovel that snow away, since the buildup of snow could eventually cause the sides to collapse. So less snow means less shoveling, which suits us. Since having the greenhouses, I have noticed that the majority of snowfalls occur overnight.

I also enjoyed the snow fog after the recent snowfall. Everything is quiet, white and kind of mysterious. I remember snow fog growing up in Mt. Gretna - perhaps because of the trees. Our back corner of the yard is still very wet. Will it ever dry out? When it gets cold, the standing water freezes and I can see all types of interesting things trapped in the ice. All sorts of leaves and twigs and frosted blades of grass frozen there in a kind of life-sized snow globe effect.

The relatively mild weather really has me thinking of spring and I'm seeing signs throughout the yard. Our witch hazel has bloomed with its tiny yellow and red flowers in January, several weeks earlier than its typical February bloom. Both the star magnolia and pussy willow have big, fat buds. I'm surprised at how much is green in the gardens. Pretty little salad burnet has not died off and there's still green parsley, cutting celery and chamomile. There's new green shoots of chives and new growth on bronze fennel, poppies, snapdragons, and reseeded cornflowers which never died off. All the outdoor rosemarys have survived up to this point. I always tell people to let cilantro reseed when it flowers to get a second crop as the weather cools off. With all the rain, I had a bumper crop in the fall. With the mild weather, it produced through December, and even now has some good green growth. All of this is soothing when I get antsy for spring.

"Winter Break" at Cloverleaf

I'm back after a nice holiday break. Hope you all enjoyed your holidays. We had two very good holiday meals - one rather long and hectic and the second more subdued and relaxed. Very good food both times.

Thanks to all who came out for our Open House and throughout the holiday season. It was a good season for the business and overall a successful year. With the weather and the economy both on the poor side, I consider that quite an accomplishment.

And, believe it or not, I've started work for the spring season. Planted pansy seeds right after Christmas and after New Year's stared a batch of early perennials like cornflower, blue flax and "Lady" lavender. This is the only variety of lavender I start from seed. It is just amazing to me that the tiny seedlings in the little pack have as much aroma as a full-sized lavender plant! What a treat on a cold winter's day to enjoy the fragrance of fresh lavender.

John and I always laugh that January is our slow time. Not much work yet here at the farm and his busy time at work doesn't start for about a month. Once February comes, supplies arrive, there are seeds to start every week and we begin to gear up the greenhouse for spring.

Lots of the work now is cozy, indoor stuff - end of year routine, preparing orders for spring, etc. which leaves time for other things - like making bread. I love to make bread. First of all I love to eat it. Also, there's something very elemental about making bread plus I absolutely love the smell of yeast. I don't know why, but that smell ranks right up there for me along with my favorite herbal and floral scents. I make all kinds of bread. This week was honey wheat toasting bread. Most breads that are good for toasting have wheat germ in them. Also make a pesto bread, cinnamon (yummy with coffee), seeded bread with seeds and dried minced onions on top, and also found a new recipe that incorporates mashed butternut squash in the dough.

The other thing we accomplished was painting our basement. This was the first step in the refurbishment due to last fall's flooding. Next we'll have new flooring installed. We don't have to do that work - just pay for it!

Holiday Open House! Dec 2 & 3

We hope to see many of you at our holiday open house on Friday and Saturday December 2 & 3 from 9 am to 5 pm. We'll have a selection of potted culinary herbs along with live topiaries in the greenhouse, shop specials on handmade soaps and some of our other popular items in the shop, herbal refreshments including hot mulled cider, and prize drawings. I'm hoping the weather will cooperate, although this year it might be asking a lot. We have a very nice selection of tree decorations this year, plus holiday and non-holiday arrangements, great gardening and herbal books, essential and fragrance oils, supplies to make your own body care gifts, lots of fragrant body care products and unique and garden themed gift ideas.

Also new for us this year, we'll be participating in a drop-in open house at our neighbors - Carissa Ressler at 1987 Cloverleaf Rd., just up the road from our place. The date is Saturday, December 10 from 2 - 7 pm. In addition to products from our shop, the open house will feature soy candles, hand designed jewelry, Pampered Chef goods, and fair trade scarves and other items. I'm looking forward to participating and hopefully meeting some new folks.

Lucy will be celebrating her birthday soon - her fifth! We've had her four years, since we adopted her when she was a year old. Here's my annual plea if you're considering adopting a pet. Please, pleas consider a shelter or rescue animal. There are so many animals - all ages and sizes and breeds looking, waiting, and I'm sure hoping for a good, loving home. I've had dogs my whole life and Lucy is one of the best. On some level, she seems to understand that things were bad, and then we came and they got lots better. So many adopted dogs are eager to please, in gratitude for their adoption. I also have to laugh when I see in the paper people selling or trying to sell mixed breed dogs for hundreds of dollars. I don't care what cute name you make up for them, they're still mutts. So if you're going to get a mixed breed, consider a dog or cat that really needs a home.

Fall in the Garden

Originally written in late Oct:

I noticed a bumper crop of cilantro this fall.  Cilantro is a cool weather annual like lettuce.  It does well early in the season, but like lettuce, bolts when the weather gets hot.  You can sometimes delay this in the garden by providing part shade, but you can't postpone it forever - it's just the nature of the plant.  It then forms its white flower heads, which eventually become seeds.  Let some seeds fall and you'll usually get a second crop when the weather begins to cool off again at the end of the season.  It took awhile for the seed to germinate this year, but with all the moisture, it's a bumper crop.  Harvest the foliage before frost and freeze for winter use.

Outside work is winding down although there's still weeding and cutting back to do.  But now, I'm working mostly in the shop, trying to get things arranged and stocked for the holidays.  It's nice to switch back and forth.  One thing I've noticed about my work habits is that I don't like to do the same thing over and over.  I worked in an office once and it was the same thing each week - same thing on Tuesdays, same thing Thursdays - I didn't care for that.  This job is great.  Very different tasks from spring through fall and winter.  Also I like the process of growing, planting, harvesting and using the things I grow. 

Our holiday open house will be December 2 and 3 from 9 -5.  We've added some interesting gift items and some new soap scents from the "sisters."  You can read about them in the newsletter coming out in November.  It also lists other great, unique gift ideas and don't forget we have lots of supplies and containers for those who make their own products and gifts.  We've had a few D.I.Y customers already.  I'm always so impressed when people start early.

It's supposed to be a bad year for pumpkins, due to all the wet weather.  Butternut squash seems to be plentiful though.  I like it a lot, and if you roast it in the oven it gets delicious.  Thyme is a perfect herb to pair with winter squash.

Early Fall

Written earlier - our apologies to you and to Kathy that we are not as prompt in getting her Blog posts up!  SO this was probably written in mid-October:

Even though the weather feels increasingly like fall, the garden still looks like late summer.  Annual vines that were delayed, like hyacinth bean and mina, are full and looking gorgeous along with pineapple and mexican bush sage, pink and white anemones, flowers for drying like cockscomb, statice and gomprena and even late blooming roses.  I'm not a huge fan of marigolds, but they sure look nice this time of year in their fall parade of colors.  I cut back my calendula or pot marigold hard after the flood and they are re-blooming nicely.  Nasturtiums are still going strong -- I just love their bright, vibrant colors.

I'm also surprised at how many things have really rebounded.  I went through after the flood to clean things up.  I cut back lots of things, perennial and annual, and waited to see what happened.  Most things pushed out new growth and are looking good.  Of course, they're still getting plenty of moisture.  I said to John the other day that they always say one inch of moisture per week is generally sufficient for most plants to do well.  Seems like we've had the inch every other day or so this season.

I'm working on the fall/holiday newsletter that will come out in the beginning of November.  My friend Sandy, who does all of our computer work had a direct lightning strike this summer, which killed her computer.  So we have reconstructed our mailing list.  If you're reading the blog and do not receive your newsletter or wish to be switched to an e-newsletter, please let us know.  Either call with your info (leave a message if you don't get me) or let us know when you visit.  We think we've recreated the list pretty accurately, but we may have inadvertently deleted some names.  We send out 2 newsletters per year, by mid-March and mid-November, so let us know if you haven't received yours.

Lucy is happy with the cooler weather.  She loves to lie in the sun as long as the air is cool.  She can also get back into the wilderness area as things start to die back.  There are loads of interesting smells back there and she loves to check them all out.

Transition

This is a transitional time of year for us. In the spring, it's all plants all the time. I pot plants, water plants, clean plants, sell plants, talk about plants. Now there's still plant work - I'm still harvesting plants from the gardens and we still have plants for sale that must be maintained. Fall is actually a great time to plant perennials. The temps are cooling off and there's usually more reliable rainfall in the autumn. Plants can get established and get a head start compared to spring planting. But the non-plant work gears up now too. I'm working on dried wreaths and arrangements for the shop, harvesting and bunching dried flowers from the gardens and replenishing our stock of bulk herbs grown here on the farm. Also restocking items from our "soap ladies" (the twisted sisters aka Maryanne and Tina) and also cat items and herbal teas from our vendor in State College. I'm also - gasp - getting items for the holidays. But I refuse to put up the tree in the shop until Thanksgiving week. Probably some stores have back to school items next to Christmas displays!

It's interesting, too because I notice sales start to shift. Although we sell items from the shop year-round, in the spring it's mostly plants. We're still selling plants - some sale perennials are left and also some larger sized perennials, but the shop sales are increasing significantly and will hopefully continue to do so through the holidays.

Lucy's still on the lookout for rabbits, but we haven't been seeing too many in the morning. I know there are some around, but they're the smarter ones and I guess they've figured out she should be avoided. Lucy does not like cats and is highly offended when they pass through her yard. She used to chase them immediately if she was out and saw one. She's much better now. I think she'd still love to chase them but knows we don't want her to, so she doesn't for the most part. I always laugh when people pooh-pooh animal intelligence. We got Lucy from the pound and I'm sure at some level she understands she was in a bad situation and we rescued her from it. Since we've had her, it's been apparent she wants to please us and that continues. I think it's her way of saying thanks.

Looking good in the garden - marigolds, calendula, nicotiana, vitex, emilia, profusion zinnias, lavender and roses reblooming, sedum.

Good News on the Toad Front

Good news on the greenhouse toad front. Many of you knew of, and asked about the toad that lived in our greenhouse. The original toad lived there since we opened the greenhouse but he (or she) died a couple of years ago. He was 12+ years old, so it lived a good long life for a toad. Since then, we have had several new crops of young toads, but none took to the greenhouse. Until this year. We now have a small (this year's) toad that has moved into the greenhouse and settled into the back corner in the dirt pile there. I've added to the pile hoping to make it toad friendly. He (or she) is dug into the dirt comfortably for about a week. I assume it goes out at night to eat and returns to sleep in the day. I'm hoping he'll hibernate there for the winter and decide it's a nice place to live. At least it will be warm when winter comes. At first, as soon as I'd approach the back corner, he'd scoot back into the dirt. I've been talking to him and moving very slowly and he seems to be getting used to me moving around. Not at all tame like original toad - you could pet him - but hopefully this one will become people friendly. I know the kids loved to see the original, so hopefully this one will stick around.

Speaking of toads reminds me of bugs. I noticed the bug population was not really bad this year - only saw a handful of Japanese beetles. Grasshoppers are around - you can easily tell by the fairly large holes they make in leaves, but not as many as some other years. We did have lots of ants this spring, way more than usual. I wondered if that was because the very wet spring drove them out of the ground. Also had very few insects in the greenhouse this spring. Again, I assume due to the cool wet spring. We only spray when necessary, and then use spray that is organic and certified safe for organic crops.

I have noticed some of the end of season crops are behind this year. Annual vines like hyacinth bean, moonflower and mina haven't bloomed yet, nor have pineapple sage or other late season flowers. I think the screaming hot weather in July hurt them. Many plants will not set buds at high temperatures, particularly high nighttime temps. That and the dry weather in conjunction seemed to set them back. We still have plenty of time left though.