A Giant Roller Coaster of Weather This Winter!

First and Maybe Only Crocuses to Bloom!

Square Six-Thistle!

Really where did winter go?  I hope it doesn't appear in April or May!   Now I am afraid we will just jump right into summer from here.  It has happened before.  I am pretty sure that we are under our "normal" snowfall totals for the year less than two feet!  It is pretty amazing.  I really do like to be snowed in just one time during the winter.  We are two weeks or so away from spring beginning.  The daffodils still just have leaves, but soon the flowers will be appearing!  The trees and shrubs and rose bushes have started to leaf out and although we are not out of the woods as far as frost goes. We have had frost as late as mid May some years.  But it has been a giant roller coaster of weather this winter!

We were hoping to get out in the front garden this morning and work, but it just didn't materialize.  I guess we have time to do things, but the chores will just start piling up.  Also hoping to get the elderflower tree dug and transplanted.  Probably should have done it last fall, but we ran out of energy!

The afghan had a brief interruption for some gift making.  As you can see Square Six is a thistle.  The spines of the thistle actually work quite well to trap the stink bugs, but only some, not all.  Working hard on Square Seven which will probably be done for the next post for certain.

Hope you are having a fabulous day wherever you may be.  Waiting for rain to arrive.  In the 50's today and 60's tomorrow.  Still a roller coaster of weather!  Talk to you soon.

When A Bit Blue, Make Potpourri and Other Blooming News!

Layering Flowers and Herbs with Paper Towels!

A Whole Box of Herbal Potpourri!

Tiny Hemlock Cones Are Just the Thing for Essential Oil

The Rue Finally Bloomed!

The 'Hot Papaya' Has An Extended Bloom!

Morning Glory Seeds from Chile Are Still Blooming!

The Herbal Husband had a good idea this afternoon.  It was a two fold message!  Clean off your worktable in the basement and make some of your wonderful potpourri in the process.  It will cheer you up!  You see through the summer season, I try to clip herbs and dry them as I go.  We also clip our roses for table bouquets and they land between paper towels.  I had a pile of paper towels and it is like Christmas lifting off the next layer to see what is underneath.  I always find myself saying why didn't I dry more of this and that!  I use hemlock cones to drop some essential oil into the potpourri mix as I give it away. I use two or three at most.  Although it rained overnight, I may try to get some other things clipped before a freeze happens over the weekend.  We really haven't had a good frost yet.  The tomatoes are still growing in the back garden under Reemay!  They are looking a bit done if you ask me, but when it comes to growing stuff, The Herbal Husband is king!

Tomatoes Need to be Picked Before Frost!

So sorry I haven't been such a great blogger at the moment.  I just have been in other directions besides the garden.  And once that jelly burden was over, I just kicked up my heels and did some stitching.  I am just about to finish a piece called The Gardener by Blackbird Designs part of their Garden Club series.  I just have to embellish the hat and add an initial.  The piece is only 4" x 4" so it is very quick to do.

The Gardener

Hope you are having a great day!  It is gray here and maybe will be gray for awhile in the 'Burgh!  I will do my best to finish my England trip and share my favorite herbal Christmas crafts soon!  Oh, and I am going with Bonnie to the first Pittsburgh Tea Festival this Friday, November 11th.  Hopefully, if you are in the Pittsburgh, you can attend too!  Talk to you later.

Maybe Once A Week Will Work?

I have had a strange summer season.  I think Pittsburgh has had one of the hottest summers on record.  We are still registering close to 90 here!  Towards the end of the summer, I am usually not as interested in what's going on and even more so when it is hot!  I don't know how my friends in Texas do it every day.  I bow to your love of herbs and gardening!

I blogged every day in July and that was a bit too much.  I just don't have the time any more to blog every day and I was getting a bit long in the tooth, herbally speaking.  So I'm going to try doing a once a week overview of what's been going on.  Since I haven't done a post since late August, I will try to catch you up on my activities and the herb garden.  As you can see it is all about raspberries, sunflowers and a birthday thrown in!  Thank goodness for the raspberries because we aren't going to get enough grapes for jelly because of black rot and we don't have any apples because of a late frost!  It is just the way things go.  The weeds are monstrous as usual.  The Herbal Husband has been doing a lot of things to keep the garden going.  He keeps going as I get lost in everything!  It is getting overwhelming.  I hope that if I am here in the garden early next year, things will go a bit better!

So I am going to try to do an overview once a week of what's been going on.  You can always reach me if you have a question about a specific herb or problem that is occurring in your herb garden.  I am always just a click away!  Won't pin down a specific day of the week that I will post.  Will just try to be here once a week!  BTW, we have the ickies and stickies back and almost 90 the next couple of days!  Yikes!  Always love September's arrival because it brings cooler temperatures.  Not this year!  Talk to you soon!

It Has Been A Great Season for Raspberries!

Tiramisu for My Birthday Dinner!

Me and My Sunflower Posse!

Our Volunteer Sunflowers Were Some of My Favorites!

Unknown Variety of Sunflower!

Unknown Variety of Sunflower

Staying Alive in the Herb Garden!

Salad Burnet with Frost!

Can't Believe I Still Have Fresh Tarragon!

Horehound Straggly But Still Alive!

This Calendula Still Has Buds to Bloom!

Pineapple Mint Still Going Strong and Now in My Lawn!

Will the Birds Eat My Beautyberries This Year?

Was walking around the herb garden and back garden yesterday.  It was cold enough to have frost, but here in the herb garden there are still definite signs of life in the herbs.  Some lose their flavor like the salad burnet.  It becomes herbal eye candy.  Others like chives hold their flavor for a long while.  Always surprised to see what has made it so far although we have not had winter yet in the 'Burgh!  We haven't even had measurable snow yet!  So it isn't surprising that these herbs have clung to life in the garden.  I am going to track if the birds and specifically the cardinals (I have heard) love the beautyberries.  Hopefully they will enjoy them over the winter season.  The purple berries make such a beautiful statement to the brown of the garden.

I hope you are having a wonderful day getting ready for the holiday season with your friends and family.  Let me know what's still around in your herb gardens.  A foggy and frosty day again here.  Going into the 50's.  Not very Christmas like around here.  Getting closer to the drawing for my jam and herbal jelly giveaway.  There is still time to enter at the link on my home page or click the link to the left.  Winners will be drawn from my blog and Facebook.  One entry per person please.  I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Garden in the Parks at North Park with the Penn State Master Gardeners!

The Monument Area Where the Herbs Are Planted

The Herbs in the Raised Bed Are Doing Great!

Had to Get My Photo with the Beautiful Herbs!

Another Shot of the Thymes and Sages!

Different Varieties of Basil

The Herbal Husband Matches These Flower Beds!

Had to Get a Selfie with The Herbal Husband!

Well, fortunately I remembered to go over to the Garden in the Parks field day at North Park.  It is a yearly event where the public gets to come to the demonstration gardens and see all of the work that the master gardeners do in the gardens.  They get to try various types of garlic, tomatoes and basils.  They sample delicious cookies and ice cream from the Creamery at Penn State.  There are also various conservation and plant groups represented.  This is really a pollinator garden and there are butterflies, hummingbird moths, bees and other insects hanging out everywhere.  It was another hot but sunny day.  Here are some of annual beds of flowers.

The 'Golden Delicious' Pineapple Sage is Doing Very Well!

All of These Annuals Are Donated by Local Nurseries

The Zinnias Are Doing Well!

The Taller Varieties of Zinnias Were Doing Well Too!

All Those Blue Flags Means This Rudbeckia Was Popular with the Public

One of My Favorite Tender Sages called 'Black and Blue'

A Bee Enjoying A Celosia called 'Ruby Parfait'

A Hummingbird Moth Enjoying the Zinnias

I thought I had taken some of the booths with the basil, garlic and tomato tastings, but sadly I got photos of my shorts somehow!  Well, anyway, they had Gardenline folks answering people's gardening questions and they had tours of the flowers beds and herb garden with a bunch of tastings of herbal drinks and delights  It is a lot of work.  The Penn State Master Gardeners of Allegheny County did a great job!  The Herbal Husband said to me I always enjoy coming on this day.  Thanks for remembering!

We came home to find several different butterflies and bees on the white butterfly bush in the front garden.

Our Swallowtail

I'm Thinking This is a Fritillary?

And A Bumble Bee!

Well, I have been told that raspberries may have made a return to the back garden.  So I need to suit up and take a walk to the back.  The ickies and stickies are back for us.  Hope you are have a great weekend.  I will talk to you again soon.  Need to catch you up on what's been going on in the herb garden! 

A Beautiful Spring Here in the 'Burgh! Now on to Summer!

Really Once They Got Started the Daffodils Were Beautiful!

Part of the 100 I Got From White Flower Farm Years Ago!

I Love That Tulips Open and Close with the Sun!

Basil Blooming in the Kitchen!

Play Pen For the Hostas!

Koreanspice Viburnum!

A Cascade of Daffodils!

Finally Got Some Seeds Planted!

Apple Tree in Bloom!

Really Big Dandelions This Spring!

Seems like April flew by and May seems as though we are two weeks in already!  The temperatures are making me dizzy!  The hopes I had for a lovely spring were going along very nicely and now I'm not so sure.  We were 80 yesterday and more 80's to come this week!  Yikes!  Here comes summer!

The most significant element and I think I mentioned this before from the winter season was the number of deer in the yard has jumped exponentially!  We have some very lovely hostas that they thought were appetizers.  So The Herbal Husband made a make shift pen for the hostas to keep the deer out.  I think we are going to get a roll of rabbit fencing and raise the height so that the deer don't have a buffet every time they are browsing in the yard.  Have to keep reinventing because they keep learning how to eat despite what you do.

Exciting to get a basil through the winter on our kitchen windowsill.  It will go outside shortly.  I think it is not sweet basil and therefore, not as susceptible to downy mildew.  You have to think of everything these days!  I also have a mystery herb coming back in the herb garden near where the tangerine sage was last season.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed and I'll let you know the verdict in a future post.  There is still no scent coming from the leaves!  Stay tuned!  Hope you are having a great day wherever you may be.  Talk to you later.