Happy Halloween!

Enter If You Dare!

We either get the kids crying because they are scared or laughing and having fun!  One year the sparrows who live in the ivy on the front of the house started flying around!  There were three teenage girls who thought they were bats!  Perfect!

P.S.  We had 20 brave souls come to the door.  The best comments of the night were from one of the dads who said, "You have your own adventure here!"  A little girl asked me, "What are you supposed to be?"  I'm the candy giver, I told her!  We had kids who wanted to volunteer in our garden next summer!  We will see if they show up.  I should have taken names!  Then if that were not enough, "our cat" came and sat on the walk like an Egyptian mummy cat.  I didn't have my camera handy and it ran when a child approached.  Here is a link to a previous post about the cat if you missed it!  Hope you had a lot of kids and that you did not run out of treats.  The first year we had 80 kids and we were handing out Hall's cough drops at the end!  It was bad!  Now we have leftovers!  Not always a good thing!

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas!

Can you believe I heard CHRISTMAS music the other day and it isn't even HALLOWEEN!  I don't think I have anything else to say.  It's left me speechless, but my holly is ready to decorate!  Talk to you later.

One of My Favorite Herbal Tools!

If you don't have one of these, you need to get one!  I'm not good with a knife.  This is so easy all you have to do is wash your herbs if you use fresh ones and the little blades chop up the herbs.  It, of course, works well with dried ones also.  Although I do remember the dried herbs fly a little when you use it.  I used this the other day for the rosemary garlic jelly!  It was a lifesaver!  Not a great picture, but I think you get the idea.  The other thing I love about it is that is left or right handed!  What's your favorite tool for herbs? 

Fall Color in the Garden!

Early on in our marriage and after we bought our house, we went to visit our friends, Norm and Marilyn in central Pennsylvania.  The Herbal Husband and I always loved the fall colors along the Turnpike and in the countryside.  He spotted this beautiful bush with brilliant red color on the highway, in a nursery, somewhere.  He said we have to get one for our yard.  Well, you guess it.  We got home and we already had one in the yard!  It is Euonymus alatus or Winged Euonymus and it is on the invasive plant list for Pennsylvania!  This bush is a monster now and its main insect pest is scale.  It has seeded underneath, but as yet it has not seeded anywhere else in the garden.  Now I just have to convince The Herbal Husband if it does start seeding in other areas of the garden to pull them out!  Hope you have some beautiful foliage color wherever you may be! 

Well, The Vampires Won't Be Visiting Any Time Soon!

Those were the words of The Herbal Husband today as he smelled me making Rosemary Garlic Jelly.  Plus he thought it smelled wonderful.  I made four recipes (16 jars) today.  I used five bulbs of garlic to make four recipes.  These cloves in the picture were one bulb and equalled a quarter of a cup which is what is needed for the jelly.  Click on the link above to get the recipe.  So I'm a little tired!  By the way, you should be planting your garlic for next year.  I don't think we have planted it yet.  Ooops!  Something else to be done!  Always something!

Make Some Herbal Vinegar Quick!

I got a head start!  I made mine 13 days ago.  It should be ready tomorrow!  This is a savory/basil/garlic vinegar.  I got the recipe from Herbal Treasures by Phyllis V. Shaudys.  It is one (I have many) favorite herb books.  It is a compilation of articles and recipes from herbie people all over the country.  These vinegar recipes are from Alma Otto.  The one in the picture is a 1/2 cup summer savory or tender sprigs of winter savory, a 1/4 cup basil leaves, 2 small cloves garlic and 1 quart of red-wine vinegar.  I also made a couple of quarts of burnet/garlic/chives vinegar with equal parts (I used a cup of each) of salad burnet and chives and a couple cloves of garlic and a quart of white wine vinegar.  Here is the leaves of the salad burnet.  It is a very lovely plant.   Salad burnet has a cucumber flavor to the leaves.

Here is the salad burnet in my herb garden.  It is a very pretty plant.  It is a short lived perennial in my garden.  The main reason why I make certain herbal vinegars is that I have GERD (reflux disease).  I can't easily eat cucumber or pepper.  I can take the taste of the herbal vinegars I make and use them in stews and salad dressings.  It is much easier for me to digest this way because I can limit the amount I ingest.  Hopefully, it isn't too late for you to make your own herbal vinegar!

They are Still Enjoying Lavender!

This was a few weeks ago, but I just love the fact that this little bee was happy working the last of the lavender flowers!  Going to enjoy the last week of warm temperatures before we have to stay inside.  Got more tea bags, more adventures to come!

Some Flowers Do Bloom Longer!

This is the little sunflower that The Herbal Husband had to protect the other night from frost.  It is starting to bloom and we are having Indian summer so it will continue and hopefully give some seeds for the finches.

These flowers have become a perennial, but only because they are an annual that self-sows.  It is the calendula or poor man's saffron.  It didn't give the saffron taste, but the color only.  They have really pulled through in our garden when there have been gaps of color or bloom!

This last flower is a true perennial and a standout or up in our front garden.  I talked about this flower last year.  Here is that post.  It is a real work horse.  It is a Rubeckia herbstsonne and gets to 8 to 10 feet in a good year.  It is still blooming so it must be a good year to a certain extent. Hope you all noticed that these are all yellow flowers.  Still sunny in this garden even on a cloudy day!  Hope you are enjoying blooming flowers in your garden!

Queen Elizabeth Stopped By For A Visit!

I know I have been whining about the lack of flowers in our garden.  The Herbal Husband came in with this surprise last evening!  Queen Elizabeth!  She has been with us since we moved to this house 20 years ago!  We have even moved her around several times and she has thrived, just like her reign as Queen in the United Kingdom.  She is a very easy rose to grow and blooms for us into late October!  Long live the Queen in our garden!