Yesterday I cut some rhubarb which amazingly was still alive. I washed it and chopped it up to make a rhubarb crisp out of it tomorrow. It's such an easy recipe to make and pretty much foolproof!
The tops of the dill was a little frost bitten, but I cut some off and am in the process of drying it to use this winter.
We picked 12 pounds of chokecherries yesterday off the trees in our yard. The berries are hanging in huge clumps and they look like mini dark grapes! I used 4 pounds and we made jelly.
Well, it is supposed to be jelly.... Still looks more like chokecherry syrup! I guess I shouldn't have used that recipe I found online after all. It said to use only 4 1/2 cups of sugar and only one box of pectin. I only had liquid pectin and the recipe on the box said to use 6 1/2 cups of sugar and 2 pouches of certo. I guess liquid pectin and the dry crystals are not the same thing.... sigh! I guess this means that tomorrow I will have to open the 7 jars and dump the chokecherry juice back in a pot to boil again and add 2 more cups of sugar and another pouch of certo. The batch of chokecherry jelly I made last summer was absolutely the best jelly I have ever made! (And I make jelly and jam every summer.) Wish I would have written down which recipe I use, darn it!
Today I dug up my dahlia tubers and the 2 canna lily tubers in my stack stone flower bed. With all the rain we have had ( almost every day all September long!) the ground was really soft and they came out easily. I cut off the stems and dead leaves and shook the dirt off the roots. Then I put each one in a separate paper bag with it's label, and added peat moss to each bag. They will be over-wintered in the laundry room in the house and planted in pots next spring until it's warm enough to plant out again. I still have another dahlia plant and some tuberous begonias to dig out and over-winter as well.
I love gladiolas, but my gladiola bulbs were a big disappointment. Not enough sun this summer and they didn't even come close to blooming. They did much better last year. ( Yes. I over-wintered them, too!) I think I need to choose a sunnier spot next year. But they were nicely sheltered and didn't get the frost at least. So I decided to leave them in the ground for now.... The forecast is for +18C and sunshine this weekend and part of next week, and at least they are still alive and look nice in the garden.
The only things that still look good out there are the yellow 6 foot tall helianthus false sunflowers in the middle of my round "angel" bed, some of the snapdragons, a few pansies and most of the black-eyed susans on the east side of the house. Three of rose bushes still have flowers but you can see that the frost got a lot of them. Maybe this last little warm spell this weekend will open the last few buds and I might be able to salvage a few to bring into the house.
The hollyhocks are perennials, but apparently they only last about 3 years and then you need to start new ones (which don't bloom the first year at all...) These hollyhocks have been in the ground here for 4 summers now. ( I started then in 2007 from seeds that were given to me by a friend in Thompson.) I finally managed to grow 2 new young plants in a pot on the deck and still need to put them in the ground for next spring. I might have left it too late, but it's worth a try.
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