Fall Gardening

By the time Autumn comes around, most gardens have been harvested and plants removed to make room for winter crops.  For me, I do not stick to a strict gardening calendar since the weather can be unpredictable.  At this moment I still have tomatoes, peppers, a few cucumbers and my cantaloupe growing in my garden.  The weather cooled down and a brief storm passed over Northern California a few weeks ago, then the temperatures rose back into the 80's and now we had a very cold storm pass over that brought snow to the Sierra's.  The 80 degree weather was plenty warm for my tomatoes and peppers to ripen, though a bit slower.  Once the nighttime temperatures stay in the low 50's and do not get above 75 degrees during the daytime, then I will pick whatever is left on my plants before digging them up.  So when I heard the weather predictions of this storm I picked the last of my pepper and tomato crop, even the green tomatoes.

Here's a tip on ripening your own green tomatoes, if you are tired of fried green tomatoes, just put them in a paper bag and allow to ripen.  I will tell you that ripened green tomatoes in a bag are not quite as good as freshly picked vine-ripened tomatoes, but they are still better than conventional tomatoes.  You can make a tomato soup with your leftover crop, check out what I did last year HERE.

Unfortunately I do not have a greenhouse of my own to grow some vegetables year round, so I have to pay attention to weather patterns.  My herbs, for the most part will continue to grow through the winter, except my basil, which I will harvest before the first frost.  I replanted my Swiss chard so that it can grow during the winter and I also added some blueberry plants to my garden.

Swiss Chard

Tomatoes!

Blueberry Plant

One more Cantaloupe on the vine

The last of my summer vegetable crop

Visiting Dry Creek Valley & Healdsburg

Over the summer I made a trip to Sonoma County to visit a few wineries and sights.   Sonoma County has hundreds of wineries to taste, so you really need to decide where or what wineries you want to try otherwise you could spend weeks trying all of the wineries.  For my trip I decided to head to the Northern part of Sonoma County near Healdsburg to wine taste in the Dry Creek Valley.  Check out this link for a map of the wineries in the Dry Creek Valley Region.

There were more wineries in the area then I had time for, but here are the one's I did make it to:


                  Ferrari-Carano Vineyards & Winery
                  Dutcher Crossing Winery
                  Seasons of the Vineyard
                  Kendall-Jackson Winery Center           


The wines at Ferrari-Carano and their tasting bar, Seasons of the Vineyard, were excellent.  It is worth making the extra trip to their tasting bar as there are plenty of other shops, boutiques and restaurants in downtown Healdsburg.  Some of the shops are dog-friendly and the two dog boutiques are just lovely - for large and small dogs alike.  There are some great dog-gift items, dog toys and treats available.  If you are shopping for clothes or jewelry there are some great choices and local handmade jewelry that is quite unique.    Check out this link for a listing of menus and restaurants choices.  Besides shopping, wine tasting and checking out the local food, there is a great Muesum and Historical Soceity a few blocks from the all these attractions.  History buffs may want to check out the changing exhibits at the Healdsburg Museum and Historical Society.  Downstairs there is a research center where you can browse records with the help of the Research Curator.  I did a little genealogy research here and did find records that pertain to my family tree when they lived in the Healdsburg area.

Ferrari-Carano

Garden area at Ferrari-Carano

My last stop after leaving the Dry Creek Valley was at the Kendall-Jackson Winery Center.  Currently they were remodeling so there was some noise from the workers, but the gardens were still interesting to walk through.  You can ask for a guided tour of the garden grounds and the recommended wine tasting would be the wine pairing experience.  Plan for some time if you are up for the wine paring experience, personally I think I would try the dessert tasting.  I do think the wines are pricey here, but then wine can be expensive.

Driving up to Kendall Jackson

The garden area

             

A gem along the coast - Filoli

I am always looking for new places to explore and my recent find was Filoli, which stands for Fight, Love and Live.  Filoli is near Half Moon Bay along the California coast and is an historic site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.  Click here for the website.  The family that built Filoli also built and operated the Empire Mine in Grass Valley.  Empire Mine is worth the drive up to the foothills of Grass Valley.  I really enjoyed putting the history together since I had previously visited Empire Mine State Park.  And I would go back to Filoli to see it during different seasons, plus it is so close to Half Moon Bay.

Over Mother's Day weekend Filoli's society members host an annual Flower show, which is spectacular.  There were so many things that really inspired me and others that I admired.  Here's a few of my favorite flower arrangements and table settings.

As for the gardens, I am a little envious of the vegetable garden, orchard and green house areas.  Rows and rows of berry vines, several greenhouses and immaculate garden grounds.  I loved wandering around, enjoying the sun and all the different plants and blooming flowers.  There was so much to see I can't possibly show pictures of everything.  You must visit this and at different times of the year too.  I think seeing the tulips in bloom would be stunning.

The largest and pinkest artichoke flower I've seen

Rose garden

Flower and Herb garden

To the orchard