Amalia's Guatemalan Kitchen

Don't forget to join us in the Tea Room on Tuesday for our Fall meeting.  The speaker will be Amalia Moreno-Damgaard,  a Guatemalan chef & business woman.  Our Mesopotamia garden is the inspiration for inviting our speaker & Amalia will surely provide some tasty additions to our winter menus.  She'll have cookbooks for sale & will sign them for our members.
 
Check out her website www.Amaliallc.com & her blog Amalia's Blog

Late season tomaotes

The frosts are coming, but we still have a few days to harvest those tomatoes & peppers.  I went out to gather the ones that were ripe today.  I heard on the news this morning that the average frost date for the metro is October 7th & the average killing frost (28°) is October 20th.  Last year we got both on October 7th.  This year, we've been lucky.  The late spring has transferred to a late autumn frost.  Let's hope this tomatoes have a few more days to ripen on the vine.

From September 17
This little guy held still for his photo.

Renee found a friend in the herb garden

Our volunteer of the year, working hard with a smile on her face.

A Perfect Beginning: October

What a glorious day.  Chip & Mary were out on the Arboretum Prairies looking for the native artemisia.  The sky was a splendid blue & the prairie was stunning on this first of October.

A few evening visitors

So I had a happenstance meeting with fellow Herbie, Carla, last week while at the Arboretum for "Yoga in the Garden".  She told me that herself & Nora were at the Arboretum a few evenings prior & were wondered by some very tiny frogs in the fountain near the perennial gardens & also by a hummingbird moth.  I went in search & uncovered both the baby frogs & tadpoles, along with the beautiful hummingbird moth.  I had only seen one other hummingbird moth a few years ago in my herb garden & had done some research online at that time, so I was able to identify it.  It is a moth & no relation to the hummingbird, but it really does look like a small hummingbird.  Look for them in the evening in your herb gardens.  And don't forget to enjoy these first days of Autumn.

* All a'round the full moon *

Full  Moon over Two Harbors, MN  09.12.2011  7:28pm

Just in case you are wondering, the Full Moon is this Thursday, 19 September, 2013 at 6:12:48 am (CDT).  Check out this website.  * All a'round the full moon *    You can sign up to receive an email to inform you a few days before the full moon, as long as fun Full Moon enlightenment.  I signed up about 5-6 months ago & am not getting any additional junk mail, so I recommend it if you want to know ahead of time when the "lunies" are going to come out. 


Addtionally, at the Arboretum this Thursday, 6-8:00 is the Japanese Moon Viewing in the Grass Collection.  I've gone several years & it is a beautiful evening. 
 http://www.arboretum.umn.edu/moonviewing.aspx

The Dill Monarch

I just went to pull one of the last few stalks of dill that is still growing in my garden.  Not to eat, but to insure some dill control next spring, although it's probably to late for that.  After I pulled the stalk & picked it up to throw in with the garden refuse, I noticed some caterpillars on it.  There were 5 of these beauties chomping away.  While I hadn't noticed a lot of monarchs around this year, it's apparent that they like dill.  I placed the dill back in the garden near the other still rooted dill.  I'll watch what happens.  So the moral is don't pull out your dill just yet.