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Fall Garden Tasks, Clearance Plant Sale, and Workshop Reminders
Frost warning!
A Frost is highly probable this Friday night into Saturday! Bring any tender plants inside or cover them. Pick the last of the tomatoes and peppers and eggplants. If tomatoes have a even just a blush of color, they will ripen indoors at room temperature. Freeze extra peppers. If you still have pumpkins or winter squash on the vines, either pick them, or if they need more time, cover them. If you have basil left growing, cut it and freeze it now.
I use a product called Agribon Floating Row cover for covering plants against frost now as well as in the spring. It is also great for keeping bugs off seedlings in the spring and for keeping deer from browsing potted plants at nighttime. If you don't have floating row cover, you can just use table cloths, sheets, or towels. Remember to remove the covers once the sun comes out on Saturday morning.
A good thing about the frost - It will sweeten the cool-weather greens! Plan a dark leafy greens supper for this weekend! The kale, collards, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, etc. will have a whole new wonderful flavor after the frost!
If you want some great ideas for cooking more with dark leafy greens, consider coming by for our workshop tomorrow morning! There is still space and the timing is perfect!
Dark Leafy Greens - The #1 Missing Ingredient in Today's Diets!
Friday, October 12th
11 am - 1 pm
We will demonstrate a wide range of ways to use dark leafy greens of all types. You will leave feeling empowered to live more healthily with a solid collection of great recipes. Workshop is hands on and tasting is encouraged - it takes place in the kitchen at Midsummer Farm | cost is $36 | Reply to this email and let me know if you would like to join us!
Chickens and Fall Leaves
Rake leaves into and around your chicken coop areas - chickens love to search through leaves and the layers of leaf mulch provide many insects with an extra-insulated breeding ground, providing your chickens with extra fall protein before the winter.
Other fall tasks I'm doing in the next couple weeks:
Continue harvesting and drying herbs.
Making tomato sauce and freezing it.
Finish digging the potatoes.
Transplanting tender herbs into pots and trimming them back.
Cleaning up old vegetable vines and dead plants.
Weeding, trimming, and mulching the established perennials.
Planting garlic, elephant garlic, and shallots and mulching them heavily.
Sprinkling peppermint essential oil in the garage, basement, and out-buildings to ward off rodents.
Planting some fast growing cool weather greens seeds in the dooryard raised beds - like arugula, lettuce, spinach, and chervil.
Mucking out the chicken coops for the winter.
Planting cover crops for a green manure over most of the garden rows.
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And we are excited to announce that we will be having a "Clearance" Fall Plant Sale this weekend!
Saturday, October 13th from 9 am - 2 pm
Sunday, October 14th from 9 am - 12 pm
Fall "Clearance" Fall Plant Sale - we will be offering a nice variety of perennials, natives, and herb plants that are all ready to be planted in the ground. These plants are in an almost-dormant state. When you plant these plants at this time of year, they will work on establishing and growing strong root systems. You won't see a lot of upper growth this Autumn. But next Spring, you will have a strong and well established perennial!
Most of the plants are in 4-inch square pots and are priced at $3.00 per pot. We'll have great deals on the plants in larger pots as well ... After this sale weekend, I will be transplanting them all so I'd love to find good homes for them beforehand!
We will also have some nice herbs for sale that can be brought indoors for enjoying in the winter ... such as white sage, lemon verbena, mints, culinary sages, lemon balm, fruity sages, rosemary, tumeric, thymes, and more... For optimal new green growth, these should be trimmed back aggressively and then transplanted into a larger pot.
We'll also have eggs for sale as well!
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And on October 21st we are doing our Making Herbal Infused Salves, Ointments, and Lip Balms workshop:
Making Herbal Infused Salves, Ointments, and Lip Balms workshop:
Sunday, October 21st
10 am - 12 noon
With a focus on organic, fair-trade, medicinal herbs and spices, we'll construct a variety of healing and soothing salves and lip balms. We'll also discuss different types of healing herbs, what they can do for us, and where to get them. You'll never want to be without a jar of Anti-itch salve made with white willow bark and plantain or Dry-skin healing Calendula salve made with self heal and chickweed once you see how fun they are to make and how effectively they work. A great autumn/winter project for making use of the herbs in your garden and makes great Holiday Gifts! Workshop takes place in the kitchen at Midsummer Farm | cost is $36 | registration closes 10/18/12
Happy Fall and best wishes,
Barbara and Mark
Midsummer Farm
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