One of my best friends is coming to town next weekend. It will be her first visit to The Edge and I'm both excited and apprehensive. Excited because I haven't seen her in two years (she lives in California), apprehensive because my garden does not look it's best at this time of the year.
Sure my Aster (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium) October Skies is in full bloom [note to self - buy more of these next year!].
I've got a beautiful pot of ornamental peppers waiting by the door.
And my hollies are full of berries already.
But my Solidago (goldenrod) is past it's prime and likely to go down hill this week.
And I'm not a big fan of fall cleanup in the garden. I like to leave certain plants to reseed like this Asclepias tuberosa.
Hopefully this Zinnia will reseed (who needs to buy annuals yearly?)
Other plants I leave the seed heads for the birds, like on this Rudbeckia Cappuccino.
Still others I leave the seed heads because they look interesting. Have you ever seen anything like this Mountain Mint (Pycnanthemum)?
But the California Girl is coming to see me. And the fall foliage.
Like this Fothergillia.
She's never lived anywhere with a True Fall so we'll be driving around a lot, looking at trees. Should be near peak fall color here. It's not a great foliage year due to the dry summer but I'm sure we'll find something worth looking at.
In other news I finally got around to harvesting my carrots.
I've only grown carrots once before and that was a dismal failure (in thick Carolina Clay soil) so I was very surprised to find these under ground. I'll save some for you, California Girl!
I'm still procrastinating on the Basil harvest. We haven't had a frost yet (knock wood) but we're over due so I'm really pushing it. I need to harvest it, grind it up in some olive oil to make a pesto base and freeze it. Better get to that soon or it will be too late!
So I have a lot to do both in the garden and in the house to get ready for company. Besides mowing the lawn, dead heading what I'm willing to dead head, planting fall annuals like mums and pansies (if I can find any), and re-asphalting the driveway and sidewalk I also want to get the guest bedroom painted, the office painted, the houseplants trimmed up and a couple of them repotted, clean the house, train the dogs to be better behaved, renovate both bathrooms, lose twenty pounds...
Do you think I'll have time for all of that?
This is why I read blogs:
ReplyDelete"I need to harvest it (basil), grind it up in some olive oil to make a pesto base and freeze it."
My basil plants -- from seeds I saved last year -- did very well this year. And I know that the first frost will wipe them out so I've been trying to decide what to do with all that nice basil. You gave me the answer! Thanks.
How are you doing on those 20 pounds? If you succeed at that in less than a week you MUST tell us how you did it.