2024 November Edition
Tall and (Small) Tales from the Great Basin of Northeast Nevada
Looky here, harvested another batch of herbs before the cold weather hit, pictured above clockwise from the top: Chives, Thyme, and Parsley! These will all be delicious to add to soups and stews during the cold days ahead and a great addition to any holiday meal!
These will be dried and chopped, you can also freeze your herbs in ice cube trays, each cube is a perfect size to add to your favorite dish. Put the herbs in the tray, add some olive oil or melted butter, and put in the freezer and that is really all there is to it! Once frozen you can pop out and put in freezer bags! Bon Appetit!
News from the garden
It is highly likely that the first freeze of the season has happened by November, so the great gardening season of 2024 is definitely wrapping up. Speaking of wrapping Christmas is just around the corner…just saying! Luckily a lot of the harvest can be used to make fun gifts and cool creations, so tap into your creative side and enjoy the cold months ahead!
Innovations and Ideas
The Optimistic Farmer is branching out, no pun intended, and the goal is to have a website up and running by 2025!! Stay tuned and look for more gardening tips and tricks, fun creations, and gift ideas influenced by the season and the abundance of nature. Below are candles accented with eucalyptus and rose petals!
Inner Work
From an online meme, these tips make sense! With the stress of the holidays coming up and with other pressures either perceived or real, (or real because perceived) that we go through in our day-to-day life, here is a list of things you do not have to feel guilty about:
· Saying no
· Taking time to respond
· Protecting your energy
· Personal life choices
· Cutting off negative people from your life
· Enjoying your hobbies or ideas of fun
· Putting yourself first
· Recharging your energy or taking a break
Plants in Science:
It is common knowledge that most of the medicines that we use today were derived from plants. There are many traditional remedies that have been used from ancient times up to our current times. Scientists in more recent times, through chemical analysis have been able to isolate and extract medicinal chemicals from plants to help create many of the medications available today.
The Food and Agriculture Organization estimated in 2002 that over 50,000 medicinal plants are used across the world!* Plants are not only used for their benefits internally, many religions throughout the world use plants and incense for purification ceremonies, meditation practices, and during prayer.
It turns out that smoke really can clear the air! Finding the balance between pharmacy and farmacy can be a game changer!
Speaking of recharging and taking a break, smudging is also a great way to utilize some of your fall harvest, smudge sticks or bowls can be made with sage, lavender, peppermint, yarrow, pine needles, Russian sage, rose petals, rosemary and thyme (to name a few)! Abalone shells are often used for smudging, but any heat-resistant bowl should do the trick. On a cold fall evening a gentle smudge helps us relax, refill our energy, and add an aromatic highlight to our personal space! Feel free to experiment with different combinations to find your favorite mix.
Last, but not least: Protection
All gardeners will watch the forecast this time of year anticipating the first freeze of the season, often coming in October, you may get lucky and make it into November before it is time to say goodbye for the year. Below are a few tips you can use to save some of your favorite flowers or give those tomatoes and peppers a few extra weeks before they are heaved into the compost pile.
If a freeze is only going to be for a day or two you can use many items, you may have lying around the house or garage to provide some protection to your plants. A gallon milk jug cut in half provides a nice shelter, you can put your tomato cages upside down and wrap with an old sheet, put up walls of water, or buy frost blankets. Covering plants in plastic visqueen is also an option or if you are really in a pinch, throw a 5-gallon bucket over your plant to help it survive that night or two of freezing temperatures.
Plant saucers are also an inexpensive way to protect your plants, turn them upside down and botta boom, you have a nice dome to help keep that flower blooming one more day….
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