Moving Day for the Garden

There are days when the winter winds are arriving too soon! So in come the plants onto my long greenhouse sunporch. My hard-working husband has cleared the outdoor herb, veggie and cutting gardens and from now until May, I'll water my garden indoors!

But wouldn't you know it, we are having a string of beautiful 70-degree days now. It's a tough call, but I'm not lugging heavy rosemary plants and buckets of impatients back and forth! They've arrived in their winter home.

I really miss the fresh garden basil and tomatoes. But I've got an herb nursery going on--the baby basils are coming along, there's fresh dill, and robust Italian parsley making a comeback.

Next month, I'll plan an evening with my gardening catalogs and a mug of hot tea--dreaming of next spring's garden. There will be more cabbage and squashes and maybe a pumpkin. But oodles of tomato varieties--I've been inspired by a country lady to go beyond my canned tomatoes and salsa and do a pasta and a pizza sauce!

"The morns are meeker than they were,

The nuts are getting brown;

The berry's cheek is plumper,

The rose is out of town.

The maple wears a gayer scarf,

The field a scarlet gown.

Lest I should be old-fashioned,

I'll put a trinket on."

--Emily Dickinson

 I think all my eating, writing, dreaming and stitching somehow starts in the garden 

whether it's indoors or out.

 

Baby Basil and Patch-Happy Knitting

I have been as scattered as the basil plants in my garden! September has been a whirlwind with my writing projects, committees I'm on, my family's busy schedule, homecoming! and I even walked/ran in my first 5k! But I've been having fun, not a dull moment. And if there is a dull moment, lately, I tend to pour some potting soil into a pot, and plant basil seeds.

My goal: get some basil plants going that I can bring in on the greenhouse and use this winter--even if I'm just throwing together some turkey, tomato and basil pasta, one of our favorite quick meals.

I planted the latest pots of basil a couple of weeks ago. I throw a ton of seeds into one big pot. When the basil is showing a few leaves, I separate out some of the hearty seedlings into separate pots. It was a sunny day when I did this, and, as always, gardening is totally therapeutic for me. So when I had several little pots planted, I weeded out the more frail plants, and planted several seedlings back into the big pot. 

Basil loves warm weather. So when it dips below 50 degrees, the plants could easily turn black - not good! Keep your basil warm on a sunporch, or in a sunny window. In the garden, basil is the companion of tomatoes, just like in the kitchen. That's why, all summer long, I scattered seeds all around the tomato plants--and they are still producing hearty basils. I'm not looking forward to seeing them go!

Saturday morning, I got up early (for my first 5k!) and wandered out to the garden to find the most crisp, green, gorgeous showing of basil, everywhere. 

It's getting cooler now, and I'm going to start going crazy with the last weeks of my basil bouquets. When it comes to cooking, beyond pesto, there are plenty of dishes that welcome a sprinkle of fresh-snipped basil--especially pastas and breads. Basil, however, does not like to be cooked into a dish--garnish freely after it comes off the stove or out of the oven. That sprinkle of fresh basil brings such an aromatic fresh flavor to dishes--no wonder Italian sailors, long ago, created pesto with basil to keep their diets green! I'm going to keep nurturing my seedlings along, and see if I can get some hearty plants to help me sail through the cold months.

In the meantime, I'm also nurturing along my simple little patch-happy knitting project. I just wanted to sew together some patches for a cute little wall hanging. No big deal, right? So what is hanging me up on this? I can only hope I'll finish it soon. (My cats keep batting the patches around--is this a hint?) My daughter and I had a nice movie-and-knitting session yesterday, but I found myself wanting to work on my lap blanket, which I started last year with soft, baby blanket yarn. I just hope as we wind up September, I'll be a little more focused in October! I'm also working on scripts, and bringing the novel back out. Here we go!

Eat, write, dream, and stitch happy this fall!