Honestygirl

A serendipitous late planting of sugar snap peas and snow peas yielded a small harvest of pea fruits, but a nice harvest of pea leaves and shoots. I'd planted seeds in a Hail Mary fashion, just as a place marker in my front raised beds, hoping for a few pea shoots before the first frost. But little did I expect that we wouldn't have a hard freeze until November 30.  So I gladly harvested the final peas and shoots, picking off leaves to cook.  The stems are really too tough to eat, I figured, unless I really want to up our fiber intake, which is already high enough. I also harvested as many arugula leaves as I could, although they should be fairly hardy.  Hard to know with 20� F coming up tomorrow night. Seedling of Arctic King lettuce and baby kale, along with arugula seedlings in my raised beds -- we'll maybe I'll put some Remay over them tomorrow.  Truth be told, I'm weary of dealing with winter vegetables, as I pulled a container of winter greens out of the freez...

Reposted from Places of the Spirit. Out the upstairs window is a remaining sassafras tree, of two, brought as saplings from our former Clemson landscape.  It�s planted next to our neighbors� rental house, with their permission.   I�ve written numerous posts about these trees and others before on Natural Gardening, posts about fall color and spring flowers and their fruits . This year, fall has been spectacular here in Western North Carolina, with beautiful reds, yellows, and orange hues;  this sassafras was much more yellow yesterday, but now is taking on an orange tint. This image taken through the window screen gives a blurriness that�s not there in person. The view has been making me happy when I look out that window!

These are such strange times.  And climate oddities are part of it. I pulled up spent beans, peppers, and basil ahead of the freeze/frost tonight.  I hope I can replant with perennial herbs tomorrow.  I've sowed more cool-season greens, way too late, of course, with hopes of keeping them over the winter under hoops.  We'll see. The last fading leaves are being blown off by the front this evening, I think.  I finished Inkobeter this year with drawings of fall leaves.  I'm happy about that.  Here's a link to all of my Inktober posts.  in case you're interested . Inktober Day 11 (a red oak leaf)