Winter Grays

OOOOhhhhhh. It's the time in December when the sun tries to break through clouds but it just can't quite make it! It's a great reminder to take my Vitamin D. LOL. 

We had our first snow this past weekend and I'm feeling in the holiday spirit... a little bit! HA. I've been enjoying everyone's lights and I put up several strings in our backyard. Our tree is up and I think we're ready for the season.

 

My Mom's House is SOLD

Today I did some last cleaning for the new owners. Over the weekend we grabbed the last items and my plan was to sweep and vacuum today.

I took selfies in the new spaces - they truly look nothing like they did when my mom was alive. 

Everything has been cleaned, painted, and updated to the best of our abilities in the last few months.

And there's my buffet. LOL That furniture piece was definitely not there when my mom was alive. I have to say, I'm not really sad at all, it's more bittersweet maybe? Like the house hasn't looked like her house since I called 9-1-1 back in February. Once the firefighters started moving furniture at the time of the emergency, there was no way in hell that house felt like my mom's anymore. And truthfully, I've never been in love with it like my oldest sister. I'm so happy that a family with young children has bought it. I was tempted to write a letter with a few parental hints but my children wouldn't appreciate already knowing the secrets if we had bought the house. We slid down the stairs so much, I remember getting rug burns. Once I even did the stairs Home Alone style in a sled out the door. My mom would get so mad at the running - she would slam the doors shut and tell me to go outside. The yard is huge, the rooms are many, and I'm so excited for this house to bring so many fun memories to another family.

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Turkeys made their way across fresh cement last summer! This always makes me chuckle. You can't mess with nature.

Phil just napping.

Apple crisp. I actually like a berry crisp better but Simone sort of insisted on apple and so I couldn't say no. I used an Ina Garten recipe. Hers have not once failed me.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Late Season Garden Photos

 

I think my new favorite flowers are Strawflowers. This was my first year growing them from seed and I wasn't sure how they would do. I planted single plants as pot stuffers but in one larger pot near my veggies, I stuck 3 plants in because I had zero inspiration. LOL. As it turns out, strawflowers get quite tall, and they keep re-blooming if you deadhead them or trim for a cut flower bouquet.

I can't believe that some were still colorful even now at the end of November.

They're soft and spiky all at the same time and remind me of zinnias in how they grow.

For next year I bought this same color along with three other colors to plant in my flower beds in my front yard. I have 3 areas of flowers that need overhauls and I think I'm going to put in annuals next year while I decide exactly how I want to approach my flower beds, especially ones that have some nasty weeds. 

Sweet Alyssum is still going - this is another annual that I am always pleasantly surprised with. It continuously blooms and attracts pollinators so I've been tucking it in with my veggies after my veggies have had a couple weeks to establish and I can take a guess at how wide they will spread. I really like to tuck Alyssum into my brassicas - the deep greens matched with a purple, pink, or white is so pretty to see in the summer with the bees buzzing around.

This thing is actually a Minnesota native plant - this is a native liatris - I leave the stems and stalks so that native bees can bore holes and overwinter in the old growth. I do not cut this one down because it provides a home to so many native pollinators!

Quick Colorado Weekend

The kids are fantastic travelers now. When Q was a baby and we flew he screamed for HOURS inside the airport and I said no to air travel until he was old enough to entertain himself and not scream for hours. Since he's grown, he's been a FANTASTIC travel buddy and he can even carry his own luggage.

We usually stay in rental homes when we go because we do travel with quite a few people - it's much easier to coordinate schedules, lunches, and activities. This house was situated on a street with super easy access to an open space. There's gravel trails and we walked almost daily. There's so many holes for the prairie dogs that you can hardly go two steps without seeing them pop up from their holes. They're super cute and they sound like one of Phil's squeaky toys.

This is Eldorado Canyon State Park. If you look along the closest rock ridge line you'll see mountain climbers. There were 4 that we could see (though without my glasses I could just see their bright color shirts so I was useless at spotting them. LOL). 

The canyon is a pretty walk. 

Eventually you come around and out of the canyon so you can see down into the valley and out of the foothills - Eldorado looks down on Superior, Louisville, and Broomfield.

A soccer field. LOL. I had to take a photo because here in Minnesota, our soccer field views are most definitely not mountains.

Mesa Trail with family. The trailhead for this is actually located on the same road as Eldorado Canyon state park and this gets BUSY. When we were walking back down I think maybe 25 people had passed us. Colorado is no longer a place where you are all alone when you hike, you are always either passing someone else or are being passed on trails. I have found that people are not polite either. I always say hi or good morning or good afternoon and there were definite assholes on the trail! One woman left the bathroom door open, the seat up and didn't understand how the compost toilets work (she also didn't say excuse me or runner ahead or thank you when we moved off the trail and I hope she's having the life that she deserves, sorry, I'm petty today! LOL). 

Overall, our trip was great, we got to see my husband's 96 year old grandma and we had a fabulous time seeing family. I hope we get to see everyone again soon!

 

Northern Lights in the Twin Cities

Last week the Northern Lights appeared in the Twin Cities. Normally because of all the light pollution you can barely even see the stars. Ironically enough I'm in the middle of a book called Night Magic which is all about the life that takes place in nature at night - it's so good, highly recommend and I'm actually reading it for my Master Gardener book club. 

The pinks are unusual to see.

Pictures usually show the colors way more vibrant than what you see in real life. We could see all the colors but they weren't as bright and showy as what you see. BUT you could still notice that something was going on in the sky with the pink. It's a little strange to see the lights in the sky!

Northern Lights are the chemical reaction from solar storms when the particles hit Earth's atmosphere. Normally in northern Minnesota you can see the greens and sometimes they're really active.

For whatever reason, the solar storm last week was really intense and our atmosphere did a great job of protecting us from the solar storm and we got to see the show!

The colors were gorgeous and I'm positive this was probably a once in a lifetime experience. I'm happy that we went outside to watch and see what was happening.

 

The Ground Wasp Saga

 

Back in July I was stung by a wasp while I was watering the garden. At first I thought wasps had made a nest in the sugar maple tree next door but I was VERY WRONG. They were ground wasps and they had made a nest in my raised bed.

Last year when I was putting together the beds I used the hugelkulture method of layering materials. I used leftover tree logs from the neighbor's tree - a HUGE branch had fallen and so I grabbed the branches that didn't get taken by our neighbor for their fireplace. One log was hollow (which is why the branch had fallen, it was extremely unstable). I thought I had truly filled it all the way with compost and leaves but I guess I made a lovely hibernation chamber for a wasp Queen instead. 

I learned an unfortunate lesson. Do not use hollow logs.

I used so many cans of wasp spray but there was just no way that I was able to get the whole nest. I used traps and trapped an unbelievable amount of wasps. But finally, the weather changed.

Wasps are temperature dependent upon flying and once it hits temps 50 degrees or lower, they get really sluggish and are unable to fly or move quickly, which means after their extremely aggressive months of August and September - you can finally relax and kill the shit out of them. The night temps were dipping into the 30s and I finally observed only 1-2 wasps flying out of the nest at a time. 

Yesterday it was 44 degrees. I decided to go for it. 

One thing to note: when wasps make nests, they actually create their own heat so stay warm to protect their babies. I knew that if I didn't expose the nest to the cold air I would probably have another nest next year.

I poked the nest and dislodged the log out of place - only 1 wasp flew out so I exposed the whole nest to the cold and pulled it apart to see what I was working with. There were maybe 25 wasps left that crawled out into the cold. They couldn't fly and could barely move.

This week was going to be warmer - but this upcoming weekend with temps in the low 40s would have been another good time to pull apart the nest. If I had wanted to do this in any warmer temperatures, I would have called in exterminator professionals because earlier this summer when I was stung, I also discovered that I'm allergic to wasps. My hand swelled up larger than a baseball and I was so itchy. A full 7 days of prednisone was most helpful but man, I never want to be stung again!

So this year, to remedy and refill my raised bed, I got a free bag of topsoil from a neighbor, I have compost from my compost pile and I have a full bag of straw to mix in. Because I used wasp spray, I washed off the galvanized metal bed with dish soap and I will not grow edibles in the bed next year, I am going to have to grow flowers next year and do soil testing for specific chemicals if possible to be able to plant edibles. I'll update as I go along.

SOOOOOO... get those wasp nests taken care of and make sure you kill the queen so she doesn't make a nest in your fresh garden beds next year!

What to Learn in 2026?

 As a Master Gardener Volunteer, we're required to do 5 hours of continuing education - but when I started we needed to do the 50 hour course plus another 12 hours of continuing education (which I have to say, I had re-learned HOW to learn so it wasn't that difficult!). This past year, I was able to contribute to my gardening community and be the educator at a Schoolyard Garden Conference and I truly have to say, that was an absolute blast. I had so much fun! I would love to do that again next year but switch up the topics and do a presentation on something else, maybe how to collaborate on curriculum through the different grades while keeping to the K-5 science standards. I'm not sure yet, I don't have a confirmation if there will be a conference yet (but if you're a fellow schoolyard gardener - I've got you covered for ideas for curriculum and lessons!). 

But then that means that I need to find classes and courses for MYSELF. I don't necessarily need anymore "how to grow" classes because I do know how - and I have a whole host of Master Gardeners at my fingertips to ask questions! 

I was thinking of becoming a tree care specialist because I have limited knowledge on trees and would love to know more. 

Or possibly taking classes on how to grow roses. I've never grown them before.

I don't think I can possibly sit through anymore pollinator lectures, I've done that now for 15+ hours and my brain has received all of that information. LOL. 

We shall see what pops up in the next few months from the Horticulture Society and the Arboretum. 

Planted Gladiolus for Next Year

I truly love the look of Foxglove, Gladiolus, and other tall stalks with multi-flowers. They just make me so happy when they're blooming. I've never planted Gladiolus before and I actually found these at Costco in the Spring but they're supposed to be planted in the Fall. So... here I am!

I choose these to replace the Echinacea that I had to pull out due to Asters Yellow and will see what these bulbs do. I'm too cautious that the Asters Yellow disease is hanging out in the soil, so I'm very reluctant to plant any perennials until I can do more research as to how its spread and what types of flowers and perennials it affects. We'll see how that goes.

I planted the first 30, and still have 20 bulbs left, I'm going to put those bulbs in a different spot, possibly in my front yard where I know there's full sun next to my front door (where I have a lot of milkweed!). I'm really excited for these flowers to peek out with bright blooms above a bright green elephant ear hosta. This season isn't even done yet and I'm already looking forward to next year!

 

Homemade Hot Sauce with Arriba Peppers

This is the first time I've grown peppers hotter than jalepenos for the sole purpose of making hot sauce. I've tried habaneros but they've truly never done well at my house and I needed to try a new variety. I thought these might do well - they're the Arriba variety and I purchased these from Johnny's Seeds. The actual plants never grew taller than 18 inches and I was ultra worried that they might not produce anything but in total, from 6 plants, I was able to make 2 pints of hot sauce so I'm pleasantly surprised!

Also, I know that I've said I don't like preserving large quantities and truly - this is enough for us for one season for hot sauce and it's really all we need because we like a variety of hot sauces so I don't want too much anyway!

I don't pay for a recipe organizer so you get what you get: not a life story but an explanation of what variety to grow + a recipe. LOL.

Hot Sauce with Arriba Peppers

About 18-22 peppers

1/2 yellow onion, roughly chopped, can be large pieces

3-4 tbsp olive oil

Salt & pepper to taste

1 tsp dried oregano (can use fresh, just a small handful)

2 tsp cumin

Garlic - optional, I add 4-5 cloves or leave it out

1/2 cup vinegar

1/4 cup water

a good handful of fresh cilantro, you can use dried but doesn't taste the same

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. I do not de-seed the peppers. I just chop off the stem to make it as easy as possible. If you don't want it eye-watering spicy, then cut the peppers in half and de-seed. Wear gloves. Put onto a very large sheet pan along with olive oil, onion, salt, pepper, oregano, cumin, garlic. Put try in the oven. 

Roast for 15 minutes. Pull out of the oven, stir around and see if parts have a brown, roasted side. If so, continue on with recipe. If not, put back in the oven for 5 minutes. It usually is about 20 minutes total for me. 

Let cool for 5ish minutes while you pull together your blender or food processor. Add everything from the sheet pan into your food processor or blender. Add in vinegar, water, and cilantro. Puree the shit out of it until its super smooth and not chunky. Add in water or vinegar if necessary to make it smooth. Put it in a jar and keep it in the fridge.