Shades of Gray, Herbally Speaking!

I love herbs so much because of all the wonderful textures and colors, especially the grays.  Seems like not too long ago that we transplanted one of the herbal containers I used in my May talk.  It looks like it has adapted.  The 'Berggarten' sage and the 'Hi Ho Silver' thyme should both make it through the winter.  Depending on how severe our winter is the dwarf curry may make it also.

This is the last warm day we will have for awhile.  Flurries over the weekend.  Need to go and work getting the garden put to bed.  I will talk to you later.

One of the Last Bouquets of Fall!

We are having another blue sky day in the 'Burgh!  Now when it is really beautiful, it is the end of the herbs and flowers.  Somehow I never seem to make enough herbal bouquets in the season.  Now when the days are getting shorter, it is desperate times, herbally speaking.  It is this way every year.  I just seem to forget.

In the bouquet this time are calendula flowers, catmint, horehound, peppermint, pineapple mint, lemon balm and right in the center pineapple sage with a flower on November 15th!  Just amazing!  Hope you are having a great day!  Talk to you later.

A Big Beautiful Herb!

I can't remember when this has happened before, but the angelica never bloomed this season.  It is a biennial herb and it is all leaves the first year and blooms the second.  It felt strange not to have one angelica that bloomed.  We always let them all seed to keep it going.  So you would think I would have a second year plant in the bunch.  Did you have any herb that surprised you this season?  Please let me know with your comments. 

Windy and warm in the herb garden today.  Hope you are enjoying these quick posts about the garden.  Now that I understand how Blogger works, I will post more quick herbal posts and when I'm on my laptop I will do the travel ones.  Hope you are enjoying your herb garden.  Talk to you later.

Still Blooming and Green in the Herb Garden!

This is my second attempt at this post.  Just trying to see if it works with multiple photos.  I maybe a bit greedy.  We will see.   'Walker's Low' catmint is the first photo, the dianthus 'Frosty Fire' is blooming in the second photo and the coconut scented geranium is happily spreading joy in the fall herb garden in the third photo.  It will probably reseed itself for next year.

The weather was gloomy this morning and the sun has come out this afternoon.   Makes it more cheery.  Hopefully you are having a wonderful day wherever you are.  Talk to you later.

'Walker's Low' Catmint

'Frosty Fire' Dianthus

Coconut Scented Geranium at Home!

The Herb Grower Magazine

Been trying to come up with a way to blog with my phone.  It might not be the best, but I think it is better than with my tablet.  Hopefully I will get better with this as time goes on.

This is a favorite old herb magazine called The Herb Grower Magazine published by the Fosters from the late 40's to the early 80's.  Some of the topics in this February-March, 1951 are More Color in the Herb Garden, Let Me Smell Your Garden, The Chemist's Garden, A Yard of Herbs, Ixbut, Lemon Basil is Not New and the regular columns Cooking with an Accent and The Herbarium.  Hopefully I will talk more about these wonderful Herbal magazines soon.

One of My Favorite Herb Magazines!

Plodding Along The Herbal Path and a Road Trip or Two!

The Herb Garden Still Has A Lot of Green and Gray!

Always Love My Annual Visit to Well Sweep Herb Farm's Christmas Shop!

One of the Beautiful Perennial Beds That Still Had Some Color!

My Afternoon Tea at Sally Lunn's in Chester, New Jersey!

Sharing Tiramisu with The Herbal Husband!

Red Anniversary Roses from Our Friends in Uruguay!

We have arrived in November already!  I can't seem to get on my laptop enough these days to blog!  So here is a recap of the last weekend.  We almost always go to Allentown this time of year.  It is not always on our wedding anniversary, but this year it was.  The Herbal Husband has a toy show that he likes to attend and I almost always go to Well Sweep Herb Farm in Port Murray, New Jersey for the start of their Christmas shop and the Sally Lunn's Tearoom & Restaurant in Chester, New Jersey for afternoon tea even if it is sometimes in the morning when I arrive.  It is a lot of driving for me because remember I drive for your safety and mine!

Can I just say that besides the huge (more than 1,900 varieties) selection of herbs, perennials and exotics, Well Sweep Herb Farm is visually a feast for the senses.  The Hyde family who has owned the farm for 46 years and the quality is consistently excellent from year to year.  If you live in the vicinity, I hope you will support this herb farm with your business.   Their Christmas shop is stuffed full of all kinds of herb related gifts, dried flowers, books, potpourri items, and lovely Christmas and herb related gifts.   Fortunately for us that live further away, they still do mail order.  I have started to order each year just so I have some unusual herbs for my herb garden.  They do have a paper catalog still and you can download their catalog if you would like from their website.  One of my favorite herb farms in the east.  Here is a link to a post I did for Mother Earth Living called Herbal Travels:  Well-Sweep Herb Farm.  So nice to see that they are continuing to prosper.

I continued on down the road to Chester, New Jersey and stopped by one of my favorite tearooms, Sally Lunn's.  It has been in business 30 plus years and is still consistently very good.  It was very busy on Saturday and I sat for a time next to two ladies who had never had afternoon tea and needed to learn the proper way to steep loose leaf tea.  I came to the rescue.  My afternoon tea was delicious as usual and I took a scone, clotted cream and jam back for The Herbal Husband's afternoon tea at the hotel.  Didn't quite have the same atmosphere, but clotted cream is his middle name!

Then we made a reservation at one of our new favorite restaurants in Allentown.  It is called Henry's Salt of the Sea.  It is very cozy with a long bar and booths in the front.  They are known for their French inspired seafood.  I had sea scallops and The Herbal Husband had schnitzel.  We were both happy and we had a weekend of mostly good food and not counting calories.  The Herbal Husband showered me with wonderful gifts and cards.  He told me I got him a toy ship from Italy and I got him a LSU purple fig for his collection at Well Sweep.  We came home to a box sitting on our doorstep full of roses from our friends in Uruguay.  We were afraid they would freeze in the cold, but actually it was like them being in the refrigerator overnight.  It worked quite well.

As far as the herb garden goes, there are still many herbs that have remained green even with the cold temperatures.  I still have a part of the golden pineapple sage that is still alive and blooming, a shoot of a calendula may keep blooming for Thanksgiving (Maybe wishful thinking!) and the tarragon has come back nicely.  As always the chives are nice and green and so is the salad burnet.  All of the herbs we transplanted earlier are doing well.  I was afraid we were too late with our transplants, but they have worked out.  Would like to make a few Christmas presents, herbally speaking.  Here is a link to my post last year giving you links to an artemisia tree and spice wreaths.

Well, I hope you are getting things done more smoothly than I am.  My big project that I am trying to get done is my talk on Shakespeare's Herbs and Flowers for next March.  So please forgive me if I am not around too much.  I will try to post when I can.  We had a rainy day in the herb garden, but still milder than usual.  Talk to you later.