Antidote

When all is gray and cold, memories of gardens past warm the soul. 

(From my garden of June 2008, in a previous home.)

Last Red Rose of Autumn

First Frost

A rose from my garden the morning of our first frost. 

Linked to Macro Monday. 

Annual Garlic Giveaway!

This giveaway is now closed. 
The winner is Faith from Crochet by the Sea. 

With cooler weather and fall comes garlic planting time. I spent several hours yesterday and today separating garlic cloves for planting. This fall I am planting enough to have a small crop to sell next summer and fall. 

And just because the garlic giveaway that we did last year was so much fun, we are doing it again this year (this might just become a yearly tradition!). One lucky winner will get three nice sized bulbs of three different varieties of garlic. This organically grown garlic will arrive in time to plant in your garden this fall for harvest next summer, or you can use the cloves in cooking this fall and winter. Garlic can be planted any time in the fall--now until the ground freezes. For complete garlic planting instructions, see my post, Almost Time to Plant Garlic. 

You will get three bulbs each of the following varieties:

German Extra Hardy is a very hardy, porcelain heirloom garlic. It has large bulbs with 4-5 giant cloves per bulb. Nice mild garlicky flavor and a good keeper. 

Chesnok Red is a beautiful rocambole garlic with striped purple wrappings, that holds it's flavor well when cooked. 8-12 uniform cloves per bulb. This garlic has won the title of "Best Baking Garlic" in tests done by both Martha Steward and Rodale Press. 

Kettle River Giant is an heirloom artichoke garlic which I am told can get up to 4 inches across. Mine have yet to get that large, but I appreciate this softneck garlic for it's ability to keep well, and it has a nice medium heat and garlicky flavor. 10 to 14 medium cloves per bulb. Another nice feature about this Kettle River Giant is that the unlike most softneck garlic, the center cloves remain a nice, usable size. 

Sherlock and Watson seem to highly approve of the idea of growing more garlic. I do believe dried garlic stems and wrappings are on the list of their top 5 favorite things to eat. 

They were a big help in in the clean up after I was done with separating garlic bulbs!

How to Enter the Give Away:

If you already are a regular reader of Dandelion Haven, simply leave a comment below. If you aren't a regular reader, please choose one of the three options in the upper right hand corner of the blog to subscribe or follow Dandelion Haven.  For a second chance to win, mention this giveaway on your blog or share this post on the social media of your choice and leave a comment letting me know that you did. Please make sure there is a way I can contact you if you are the winner! 

This giveaway ends 9/19/12 at midnight, EST.

"Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian; wine and tarragon make it French. Sour cream makes it Russian; lemon and cinnamon make it Greek. Soy sauce makes it Chinese; garlic makes it good."

 - Alice May Brock

Linked to No Ordinary Homestead, and Farmgirl Friday. 

After 10 Days of Vacation...

I'm putting out a request that the remainder of my siblings who aren't married yet plan for a winter wedding. A destination wedding on a lovely beach in some tropical island in the month of February would be perfect. Then I wouldn't have to worry about coming home to a huge pile of ripe (and overripe) vegetables and a garden that is looking miserable because it was 90 degrees and sunny the whole time I was away. 

Not that I am complaining that my youngest brother and his bride chose to get married in her home state of Maine. It just meant that I would have to plan my vacation in the middle of harvest--because if I am going to drive 18 hours to a state I've never been to before, I am going to need some time to explore--especially if that state happens to be Maine!

Stay tuned for several posts on our adventures in Maine--and the couple of days we spent in the Finger Lakes area in upstate New York (which will be written in between canning and freezing the green beans, tomatoes, and cucumbers pictured above which I spent all picking today after getting home late last night). 

In the meantime, here is a small sampling of photos from some of the places we visited...

Lobster traps on the wharf and tubs full of sorted lobsters floating in the harbor in New Harbor, Maine, one of the few remaining working fishing villages in southern Maine.

There were many mushrooms in the woods at the Rachel Carson nature preserve in Wells, Maine. 

Dawn at Seneca Lake, the largest and deepest of all the Finger Lakes. 

Pemaquid lighthouse at Pemaquid Point near Bristol, Maine. 

Linked to Macro Monday and Mandarin Orange Monday. 

Moonlight and Evening

 Barefoot, I walk out to the garden. The air is gray and cool and smells of dirt and dill. Dodging water droplets, the wet earth soft on my feet,  I move the sprinkler to another section of tangled weeds and vegetables. In the distance goat bells chime. 
I stop at the barn yard to latch the gate and offer a goodnight treat to two little goats. The moon rises round and serene over the treeline.
Before heading  back inside where pickles and green beans wait to be processed, I stop and breathe deep of moonlight and evening. With each breath of evening, perfect contentment fills my lungs and courses through my veins. 

Linked to Real Toads. 

(This is my attempt at writing Zuihitsu, which is a genre of Japanese literature consisting of loosely connected personal essays and fragmented ideas that typically respond to the author's surroundings. The name is derived from two Kanji meaning "to follow" and "brush", and thus works of the genre should be considered not as traditionally planned literary pieces but rather as casual or randomly recorded thoughts by the author. For more information about Zuithitsu, click here.)

Rouge D'hiver Lettuce Seeds

Next year's lettuce crop. 

(Seeds heads from a french heirloom lettuce.)

In the garden today...

Is this a grasshopper?



Discarded bluebird egg.



Yellow tiger lily.



Macro Mushrooms

Found under the potato vines...

Linked to Macro Monday

In the Garden: The Good, the Bad, the Beautiful

The good--a swallowtail butterfly caterpillar munching on carrot leaves. Now this is the kind of bug I like to see in my garden.

The bad--hoards of Colorado Potato Beetle larva demolishing my potato crop. I've picked hundreds off my potato plants the past week and new ones appear each morning...

The beautiful--a thistle flower getting ready to open. Yes, I may be crazy, but I do encourage the thistles around my garden to feed  the butterflies and finches. 

And we might as well throw in the tasty--this summer I finally know what it like to have too many raspberries. I've picked over twenty quarts so far and have barely made a dent in the crop. It is a good problem to have, though quite time consuming!

What is happening in your garden right now?

Vegetable Garden Tour

Why is it that I never have enough room in my garden? I have the same problem each year, and I thought the problem would be solved by moving out to the country and plowing up space for a huge garden. This year's garden is the biggest garden I have ever had, I and still don't have enough room.

Though, the other question that I suppose needs to be asked is why do I feel the need to grow 22 different varieties of tomatoes? If I didn't need to grow 22 different varieties of tomatoes, I might have room for everything thing else I think I should be growing. (20 varieties are in the ground--but I have seemed to run out of room to  put the Amish Paste and Cour de Boeuf tomato plants--not to mention that I still have sweet corn, more green beans, peppers, eggplants, beets, and  more to get in the ground!.)

Whatever my problem is, I'm starting to realize that it isn't going to be solved by  simply plowing up more garden space...more garden space just means that I will need to start growing twenty different kinds of lettuce and goodness knows what else.

Enough of my problems--on to a quick garden tour!

Looking North-East...

6 different varieties of garlic...

Summer cabbage (in between apple tree seedlings and surrounded by California poppies that are just getting ready to bloom.)

Red romaine lettuce interplanted with daffodils and potatoes.

Spinach, interplanted with green beans and daffodils.

Potatoes in mulch (I wonder if I am growing way too many potatoes--we have four long rows this year--in any case there is going to be lots of picking of Colorado potato beetles.)

One of three long rows of tomatoes.

The garden looking south west. You can see raspberries, rhubarb (which is getting choked by the raspberries), strawberries (which my free range chickens have decided they love and of which they ate every single last ripe one today--I don't think they are going to be free ranging for the rest of the strawberry season!), some random beds of things like carrots, beets, kale, and and perennial flowers, then off in distance the long row of garlic.

I do also have melons, cucumbers, more cabbage, Brussel sprouts, onions, and a long row of sunflowers coming up.

Still need to plant sweet corn, pumpkins (they are getting a separate patch this year), squash, fall beets and carrots, peppers, eggplant, and probably some other vegetables that are slipping my mind right now.

So that is how my garden is growing right now. How is yours doing?

Linked to Farm Girl Friday blog hop.

Early Morning Magic

In the garden

whispers from the night

are left among the beans

fairy umbrellas fade

as the sun grows bright.

Blue Mist

I like my irises old fashion and delicate--the kind that have blossoms that resemble a butterfly about to take off in flight. I'm not a big fan of the new fangled large irises that look like poofy party dresses. This large light blue iris though will stay in my garden--even if it does look like a party dress. I don't know the name of it or even remember where I got it from. I do believe that "Blue Mist" would be the perfect name for it, though.

Morning Sunlight

Morning sunlight on giant allium flowers.

Linked to Macro Monday.

Solved! The Mystery of the Dying Flowers

Last week I finally figured out why nothing has grown well in this garden since we moved here. I would plant flowers and they would turn yellow and die. All I could do was wonder why.

Turns out the little flower garden has been getting a weekly dose of concentrated bleach water. Well, that explains a lot!  (The chlorinated water is a by product of our water system that has to be serviced weekly. Unbeknown to me, each week the bleach water was being tossed out the door on to the flower beds.)

So now that I know what the problem it (and have established strict rules for where the bleach water may be put in the future--hello, gravel driveway!), we are starting over with the flower garden:

I tore out a lot of dead and ailing plants and dug out a good deal of the soil and replaced it with fresh, uncontaminated soil. 



Fresh perennials went in as wells as some annuals.

 I filled some pots with violas to add color and height to the back of the garden--and so that I would have something to put on the two old milk cans we dug out of our woods the first summer we moved in.

I am hoping in a month or two that I will be able to post photos of a lush green garden filled with color (instead of the mostly dead or yellow plants I have had in the past couple of years!) And I am very happy that the mystery of the dying flowers has been solved.

A Flower Garden Makeover

The little flower garden enclosed by a white picket fence in front of our house has been sorely neglected since we moved in 3 years ago. This spring I decided it needs a makeover. It has so much potential to be a sweet little cottage garden. You can follow along with its progress on Dandelion Haven's facebook page.

(The fence "before" any work was done.)

(Rocks and weeds cleared away and getting ready to strip, prime, and paint.)

Starting Tomatoes the Easy Way

Winter sowing--a way to have all the plants you need (plus many more) for pennies each, without the mess and fuss of starting them indoors.

For the past 6 or 7 years I have started most of the plants I need for my garden using winter sowing.  Winter sowing is done by planting seeds in covered clear containers then putting them outside for the seeds to germinate on their own when they are ready. Winter hardy annuals and perennials can be started anytime during the the winter. The more tender annuals get started several weeks before the last frost date.

Here in zone five I start tomatoes, cabbage, broccoli, zinnias, marigolds, etc, anytime between the first weeks of April and the first week of May. By the time our last frost in late May comes around, the plants are ready to go in the ground.

(Click here for instructions on how to start seeds using this method.)

The milk jugs make mini greenhouses that provide warmth, hold in moisture and protect from frost. If we are getting a hard freeze and the tender annuals have sprouted, I do cover them up with a blanket at night. But the beauty of starting seeds this way is that the seeds tend to sprout when the time is right. Other than keeping the potting mix moist, and occasionally covering them jugs when there is going be a freeze, they are pretty maintenance free.

(Heirloom tomato seedlings.)

(broccoli and cabbage seedlings)

(A wheelbarrow full of winter sown tomatoes.)

I will be honest, when I first learned about winter sowing, I was skeptical that it would work for tomatoes, but after trying it once, I was hooked. Yes, the plants tend to be smaller than plants started indoors when they are ready to be set out, but once they are set out in the garden they quickly catch up to and tend to surpass the nursery grown plants. Because they have been growing outdoors their entire lives they tend to be hardy, sturdy little plants that are ready to burst into growth as soon as they are put in the garden.

Linked to Farmgirl Friday and Garden Life.

Remembering Summer

After yesterday's rather chilly photo and poem, I decided I needed some color to warm me up. What better place to look for color than last summer's yard and garden?

Basket, basil, and vegetables. I wove this grapevine basket to share as part of a blog giveaway last summer--it ended up in California with Heidi at My Simple Country Living.

One of the of my many mystery roses. I'm looking forward to seeing how my mystery roses do over the winter and to many more blooms this coming summer.

We got the hammock up a bit late last summer. This year it is going up as soon as the weather warms up and I'm going to put my feet up and read among the butterflies and chickadees every chance I get!

I didn't see many Monarchs last summer, and most of the ones that I did see didn't stick around for photos. However this Monarch stayed still for several minutes allowing me to get several photos. We encourage milkweed on our property for the Monarchs.

And what could say warmth and color better than a Baby Bear pumpkin? I'm still thrilled that was able to outwit the Squash vine borers last summer and harvest fully ripe pumpkins and squash for the first time since I have lived in Michigan.

Garden Photos from December 2nd

So I'm spending one more night holed up in a hotel room. I get to go home tomorrow, then start seeing patients in the area I live in on Monday. Can't wait to get home and stretch my legs and go for a walk again in the country. It has been getting dark as soon as we are out of class. I am reluctant to go for a walk outside in the dark in a city I am not familiar with. There is a mall close by and I thought about going for a walk there, but I think that might defeat the purpose of walking--at least for me. When I walk it is to renew my energy by being alone and outside. Walking in a mall this time of year would be a big energy drainer for an introvert like me. So hopefully I'll get outside tomorrow evening when I get home and will have some fresh nature photos to share this weekend.

In the meantime, let me share some photos of my garden that I took last Sunday. Once all that snow melted, there were still some green plants. And  while I was taking photos I harvested some vegetables to cook and take with me to eat during this week while I am away from home.

The broccoli raab is still going strong. I picked all the mature buds on Sunday and there are plenty of small buds still forming. If only we get a few more warm days, I might be able to get one more harvest in. I've noticed that the flower buds are getting more and more mild in taste as the weather has gotten colder. This year was my first time growing this vegetable. The spring and summer plantings were complete failures (the plants went to seed while they were still small), but the fall crop has been both tasty and prolific. I will be growing this again next year.

The caraflex cabbage plants are still pumping out miniature cabbage heads.  I've lost count of how many little heads I've harvested off these plants, but they have kept us well supplied with tender, sweet cabbage through the fall, and if the weather holds up until I get home, there are still a few more to pick. Caraflex is definitely on my list of vegetables to grow next year. I have been impressed in every way by this sturdy and productive summer cabbage.

Red Russian Kale has long been a standby in my garden. It is easy to grow and the red tint to the leaves and veins is very pretty. In my opinion, it is one of the tenderest and tastiest of all the kales. It is very hardy and I usually harvest it through December, then the plants bounce back in the early spring for fresh greens as soon as the weather warms up.  

And then there are Brussels sprouts. I try growing Brussels sprouts each year, because they are one of my husbands favorite vegetables, but I can never quite get them to mature. The plants grow strong and beautiful and healthy, but the sprouts never get any bigger than a marble. They hold up well in freezing temps, though and I will harvest some when I get home, but  I am always disappointed that they never get plump and large like the ones you see in the grocery store.

I can't remember the name of the Brussels sprouts I planted this spring. ( I will have to look that up when I get home). I always buy seeds for the ones with the shortest days to maturity, though. If any one has any ideas on what I can do in the future to encourage my Brussels sprouts to mature, I would love to hear from you.

Be sure to check out this giveaway hosted by Millie, the matriarch nanny goat at Eden Hills Farm. You have until Saturday December 10th at noon to enter to win your choice of handmade goats milk soap or other skin care products from the newly opened Eden Hills Market. (Go to the tabs directly under the title to see handmade products and the popcorn grown on Eden Hills Farm.) To enter the giveaway all you have to do is leave a comment. It couldn't be easier, so go on over and enter!

Linked to Farmgirl Friday. and Garden Life.