It's That Time Again....

Every year in winter when most of my plants are brown and ugly- my citrus tree's are putting off awesome color with their ripening fruit. This year our season is going to be short. You see, they're forecasting snow in the Sacramento Valley tonight. Possibly up to 3 inches. Um....we're not suppose to get snow. Soooo, what do we do? We scramble to pick everything that's ripe all at once, cover our tree's up with blankets, and pray that they make it! Here's part of what we picked today....

And here's part of what we didn't get to today....bummer!
Why didn't I grab these? Because they are way up high and require me to drag the ladder out. Normally I would do it but I was in a lazy mood, and did I mention it was frickin cold outside? I even took advantage of free child labor and got a few minutes of help from my daughter- until she got really cold and cranky and I forced her to go inside and play video games like a real kid (just kidding...sort of....).

So now you're probably wondering what we're doing with all of this citrus, right? Well, you'll have to come back here tomorrow to find out!

November Bloom Day

Yeah, I know most of these aren't really "blooms", but it's all I have right now! Besides, most of these LOOK like blooms, right? After checking these out, you can hop on over to May Dreams Gardens if you'd like to see real blooms!

Birds of Paradise
My daughter's Chrysanthemum 'Dragon Time', and the last of her two glitter/puff paint covered pumpkins.

Some ornamental kale.....

Aeonium undulatum (from Annie's Annuals)

Euphorbia 'dolce vita' (from Annie's Annuals)

Santolina virens 'lemon fizz'

Aeonium simsii (from Annie's Annuals)

Who needs flowers when you've got splashes of color from the lemon tree's?

Euphorbia characias x martinii

Euphorbia 'Glacier Blue'

Euphorbia griffithii 'Blackbird'

Pineapple sage 'golden delicious'

hen & chicks

I'm Just Relaying the Message

Chicken Noodle Soup

Every year around this time I make a huge batch of chicken noodle soup to have on hand in case someone in my family gets sick. And by someone I mean my husband, because he is a BIG BABY when sick and it usually drives me crazy to tend to his every need when he thinks he's dying (and simply has a stuffed up nose). I try to go into the winter with at least 10 individual servings of soup, frozen, just waiting for someone to start hacking. This soup can be frozen for about 3 months without any decline in quality. My husband will usually heat this up on the stove and add some egg to it for extra protein. This recipe will yield about 16 servings, no joke.

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp of olive oil

1 1/2 yellow onions, chopped (I use food processor for this, saves me the tears)

6 stalks celery, chopped

6 carrots, skinned & chopped

3 parsnips, skinned and chopped

5 bay leaves (or more- I will often put 6 or 7)

3lbs of chicken, grilled & chopped (we use our George Foreman, love that thing)

3 cups water

16 cups chicken broth (I shoot for low-sodium, fat-free)

2 bags of wide egg noodles (they are about 8 oz each)

3/4 tsp black pepper

1/2 cup of fresh parsley, chopped (can use dried parsley if you need to)

2 Tbsp dill, chopped (I don't recommend dried for this).

1. Using a large stock pot, heat olive oil. Add chopped onions and saute on medium heat for 5 minutes.

2. Toss in celery, carrots, parsnips, bay leaves, chicken broth, water, and black pepper. Bring to a boil on high heat. Once boiling, add chicken and reduce to simmer.

3. Add noodles & simmer until tender, usually 8-9 minutes.

4. Remove the bay leaves, and add chicken, parsley & dill.

Optional: The nice thing about chicken noodle soup is that you can swap out vegetables really easily based on your personal preferences. You can add potatoes, peas, turnips or leeks. You can also add more flavor by adding a 1/2 teaspoon of thyme, sage, garlic, cayenne or rosemary to the mix. We try to keep the recipe fairly simple since we have a toddler, and then add the seasonings as we see fit to our individual servings. This is also helpful if your taste buds are a bit wonky when you're sick, if there's too much seasoning, you're not going to eat it.

So, now we are officially ready for Winter. Well, we will be once I pick up the oyster crackers to go with the soup!

Lazy Afternoon in Auburn

After stopping at Peaceful Valley Farm Supply in Grass Valley, we decided to drive to Auburn for lunch before heading home.

When we couldn't find Jason's favorite place to eat (he hasn't been there in 15 years, it must not be THAT good), we stopped at Tio Pepe's instead. Decent food, and 7 hours later I still feel okay, so it must be good, right?!

We came across this little store called "Wild Women in the Garden", Jason laughed and said "If you owned a business it would be something like this."

And of course I had to laugh, because if I owned a business it would probably be something like what was next door, a brewery. That's just how classy I am. Maybe I'll let him run my little garden shop for me someday...hehe...

As we were leaving we came across the Tin Man, who looked like he was hitch-hiking. I can honestly say it took everything I had not to throw him in the back of our 4-Runner and drive off. He would look good in my pretend brewery.

Peaceful Valley Farm Supply

Jason and I decided to get out of the valley today and head to the hills to enjoy more fall scenery. I had wanted to look at some frost protection options for some of our younger citrus tree's, so it was a nice opportunity to convince him to go to Peaceful Valley Farm Supply with me.

I usually just order via their website (http://www.groworganic.com/), mostly because they actually have more available in their catalog than they do in their store. Well, that's not true- if you ask for something they'll bring it out for you from the warehouse, but since I am the type of person that will NEVER ask for help in a store, I will skip over the store and just go straight to their plant section. I will say though that their BIG WALL OF SEEDS can suck me in for quite some time!

Since I didn't find covers for my tree's that were within my price range (I have 9 to cover this year) I decided to stick with Christmas lights for frost protection this year, and headed over to the plants.

Since it's fall, the nursery isn't all that exciting right now. There is an abundance of ornamental cabbages & kale, and tons of chrysanthemums (I'm not a fan of mums).
Well, now you guys have an idea of what it looks like there! I will say it is much more enjoyable to visit in the Spring, but it was also nice to visit on a day when there weren't so many people!
We had told Alex if she was good today she'd get to pick out a plant. Guess what she picked out?

Better Late Than Never!

Geez, I have been such a slacker lately with the blog! I really don't have a valid excuse- other than I have over-booked my weekends, and am scrambling to get the garden in order for the winter. In the middle of all of that I have managed to have some fun- including going to the Fall Planting Party at Annie's Annuals! I met up with a bunch of garden bloggers & twitter friends (twits? That sounds bad, maybe I'll just call them my garden peeps?), and thanks to our friend Pat Fitzgerald, who is ALL the way in Ireland(yet is our honorary Californian), we got a really cool "behind the scenes tour" with some of their propagators! Not only do I have pictures- but I have a one second long video of us dancing with Annie herself! Also pictured here is Claire Woods (from Annies Annuals), Katie (gardenpunks.com), Chuck (back40feet.blogspot.com), Matt (TMTEnterprises.net) and Alice (bayareatendrils.blogspot.com). Thanks everyone for a great time- and thank you Annie's Annuals for throwing such a bitchin' party!