Inspired by Classixx’s Safe Inside
My 2019 moon calendar, released just in time for the full moon…..
Available in my shop on 13×19″ cold pressed watercolor paper: https://www.etsy.com/listing/639776410/2019-moon-calendar-cold-pressed?ref=shop_home_active_1
what other crops last you all year round?
Potatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, celery/parsley roots, I think that is all? Can’t remember the last time I brought any of the first three, the other give us a hard time sometimes. And then depending on the what we plant that year, could be kohlrabi, cauliflower, pumpkins, popcorn, some herbs and so. The others are the main ones though.
Wild lemon tree (citrus triptera) changing its color and looking pretty. This will be its first winter outside and I can’t wait to see how it goes.
Abigail Washburn – City of Refuge. Love this woman, her folk, and her awesome Banjo.
Support for Tree of Life Synagogue
If you’re able, please donate.
*It’s customary in Judaism to make donations in multiples of 18 as to bless the recipient(s) with good health and long life (the numerical value of the Hebrew word “chai” which means “life”), but by all means, just give what you can.
Sometimes witchcraft is wandering around muttering “Do I REALLY not have ANY rosemary lying around?” over and over to yourself.
Castanea sativa, Fagaceae
While I was in Italy during the past few days I went for a beautiful walk in the woods with my family to collect sweet chestnuts, something we used to do every autumn when I was a kid.
This large, deciduous species is native to Southern Europe and the Near East, where it has been cultivated for millennia, but has also been introduced to more northerly areas in historical times, to the point it’s been a naturalised species for many centuries in some places. On the hills north of Milan it’s widespread in mixed woodland, but due to its past importance as a food and wood crop, you can find entire sections of forest where it is the dominant tree.
In the area we visited the chestnuts trees were scattered among a majority of beech (Fagus sylvatica), so we only collected what we would eat that day and left many more for the red squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris) I spotted there from time to time, quick to climb high up in the canopy as soon as I’d get too close. It was nice to see the invasive eastern grey squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis), ubiquitous here in central Scotland, hasn’t displaced them for now.
Once we got back home I roasted the chestnuts in a skillet (I didn’t have time to set up the barbecue) and we all enjoyed them sprinkled with salt. Little else makes me as happy as eating what I collected after a good forage in the woods!
Gentiana sino-ornata, Gentianaceae
Whenever I see a new true-blue flower for the first time I fall more and more for this shade, so this was a very welcome sight after ten days away from the garden centre where I work.
Native to Tibet and Western China, the showy Chinese gentian, or autumn gentian, is a gorgeous alpine plant perfect for a semi-shaded, moist but well-draining spot. The fine moss-like foliage is semi-evergreen and forms a dense mat, making it an efficient groundcover when enough plants are spaced out to occupy the given area. Like most other member of the genus, it prefers lime-free soils, from neutral to acidic.
I’m already running out of space in the very narrow perennial border I’m planting up at the allotment to make the bugs happy, but could I give up on the opportunity to add an autumn-flowering species to give me a splash of blue in this period of the year?! Not in this life, it’s coming home with me.
Spitfire Alice A Gra 
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