Time To Finish

Someone once said all good things must come to an end. I wish that someone was wrong. It's getting serious up here: Dennis tells me our thermometer showed 36° early Sunday morning. While that didn't give us frost, some neighbors (within a 10-mile radius) had a layer of white on their vehicles. I'm so not ready for that. While I do like wearing cute sweaters, I really don't want to have to wear "real" shoes. Let me stay in my sandals. And I don't want to have to turn on the heat yet (but I have put new filters in the furnace, so we're ready).

I am a realist (sometimes, anyway). I gathered up all my houseplants last week, grouping them on the front deck. I've repotted several already, but have many more to go. Of course, they are too numerous. I don't want to have so many in the house this winter. To that end, I'm giving up on the huge aloe. It was very top heavy and needed serious propping to keep it from tipping over. I dumped it out of its pot, wrestled its many babies away from the main roots, and put them in pots. I have four pots of single aloes, and two pots with two aloes in them. I plan to only keep one. The main plant, unpotted, is going to a friend who plans to make various concoctions with the sap in the leaves.

Most of the amaryllis bulbs are now housed in two window boxes that will sit in our south-facing dining room windows. The few that didn't fit in those boxes will likewise share space in those same windows. The snake plant definitely needs splitting and repotting. An infusion of fresh soil is just what it needs. I'll keep my cacti (an agave from Dennis's sister Bev, and a similar but striped one I dug when we were in Arizona years ago), and most of my succulents, and of course the geraniums. But you could keep an eye on the local Facebook new & used site for the plants I'm giving up.

There is a new recipe to share this week. Most of you probably have already done whatever you do with your beet crop, but hang onto this for next summer's bounty. There's no sugar in this pickling, but there is a citrus bonus. It calls for just one pound of beets, but I had enough liquid left I could have easily done three pounds. Of course, I'd need to give some away as I wouldn't eat that many beets in three weeks. I added sliced onions. You could add hard-boiled eggs, as well. One pound of beets made two pints. I waited a few days before eating any.

Sugar-free Orange

Pickled Beets

1# beets

3 cloves garlic

Handful of peppercorns

1 orange

2 C cider vinegar

1 - 1 1/2 C water

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add washed and trimmed beets. Cover, lower heat, and simmer 25-30 minutes until tender. Drain and cool. Peel and slice thin. Place in a large glass jar. Zest the orange, then juice it. Add the rest of the ingredients, stirring to combine. Pour over the beets. Put lid on jar and refrigerate at least overnight. Keeps 2-3 weeks in the fridge.

I have cleared a lot of the volunteer flowers from the garden. It's much easier to navigate between the rows now. All the dill and cilantro were also pulled and discarded, but not before they shed seeds everywhere. I'll have lots of both again next year. I left quite a few of the edible flowers in their mostly shaded area. The deer find them quite edible. The electric fence is not deterring them at all. I know there's at least one sunflower stalk that sways down in the wind to short out the fence. Oh, well, at least the deer don't seem to be interested in anything else.

Knock on wood, I have not had a single raccoon in the corn! It might be because I'm not shucking the corn out there. All that is done in the house, with the husks and silks going straight into the garbage. My theory is the varmints aren't smelling the corn pheromones and so they aren't drawn to visit our yard.

In the next couple weeks, I need to finish the beets (I'll use my mandarins rather than oranges in that recipe) and maybe try canning some. The dahlia tubers and gladioli bulbs need to be dug and stored. That's supposed to happen before the first frost, but it doesn't always happen that way. The tomatoes will be picked and stored in a cool room. I put them in single layers between sheets of newsprint in boxes, so they ripen slowly. Digging the carrots and spuds will wait until after a frost - or two or three. Carrots are sweeter after a frost. And spuds keep nicely in the ground for a while.