Henny Penny Farmette

Autumn in Northern California is one of my favorite times of the year. By November, many of the summer blooms in our flower beds have faded. Seeds have been collected for next year’s blooms. Now’s the time to put in bulbs and tubers for spring, but that doesn’t mean we have no blooms for a Thanksgiving floral arrangement.

Nasturtiums will bloom until frost

These hardy roses bloom profusely right through December

The clocks have been turned back and the rainy season has arrived, but don’t tell that to the roses.

This red-gold polyantha rose will dazzle the eye right up to Christmas

Red-gold roses, pyracantha berries, rustic seed pods, orange- and rust-colored zinnias, asters,  willowleaf cotoneaster, and dahlias are some of the garden plants that combine beautifully in a fall floral arrangement. To the harvest table, I also like to add some seasonal fruits like pomegranates and persimmons.

Zinnias are old favorites spanning generations of family gardens

Thanks to the recent rain, the bougainvillea blazes in shades of fuchsia, orange, red, and purple.  Zinnia’s near the farmette’s bee house are still holding color and hanging on until cold weather arrives.

Pink geraniums are interplanted with white bacopa in the kitchen window box

And while pyracantha (fire thorn) berries add splashes of bright orange to a dark corner of the garden where bamboo towers to ten feet,  the Chinese lantern plant holds aloft dozens of small pink blooms like little lanterns.

Chinese lanterns are easy to grow and look beautiful in almost any corner of the garden

With Thanksgiving three weeks away, I’m feeling confident that our table arrangement will include some of the season’s festive berries, seed pods, and blooming flowers collected from around the farmette.

In the meantime, I’ll notice the splashes of color to be discovered here and there and consider how to use them in a holiday bouquet.

Pretty arching over a trellis or against a wall, bougainvillea is always a  garden standout

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NEWLY RELEASED–The Murder of a Queen Bee (Kensington Publishing, NY–Sept. 2016).

Discover delicious farm-to-table recipes, farming tips, and wisdom as well as sort out a charming whodunnit. Also, enjoy gardening tips and farm sayings. Dig for clues while learning about bees and chickens. To learn more, click on the link under the picture.

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This debut novel launched the Henny Penny Farmette series of mysteries and sold out its first press run. It’s now available in mass market paperback and other formats.

Sugar cookies iced in pastel colors

Everyone needs a little help during the holidays. An elf or two can make all the difference when you are trying to decorate the tree, hang stockings, and make all those special treats for Santa. I am baking dozens of batches of cookies to put into decorative tins that will then be tucked into baskets of other edible and gift items.

My book, Why Santa Wears Red, http://tinyurl.com/chp9sua (Fall River Press 2009), includes suggestions for things you can find in your back yard to decorate the house.  In that book, I also include recipes for traditional fruitcake, cranberry scones, and fragrant herbal tea. But sugar cookies and pumpkin spiced cupcakes are two of my favorite holiday snacks.

Pumpkin spiced cupcakes

Sometime during the summer, I purchased Nick Malgieri’s book, Cookies Unlimited and found a terrific sugar cookie recipe in it that I am using this year. It makes five dozen cookies per batch.

The ingredients are basic items (flour, sugar, and butter, for example) that you will probably have on hand if you like baking cookies. The texture is lovely and the cookies come out great every time. We iced them with a butter cream frosting and decorated with sprinkles before the icing could harden.

One of the twin elves in our family who likes to bake

I enlisted help with the baking this year from family members. They also did the decorating and I packaged everything into the gift baskets. Each basket contains a few different items, depending on the family to receive them. In some, I tucked in one or two of my books, packets of seeds from my plants (like sunflowers, nasturtiums, zinnias, and marigolds), jars of apricot, white peach, or strawberry jam, and honey.

Holiday baskets can be generic or highly personalized

You might also add candy canes, tins of fudge, cookie cutters, scone mix, measuring spoons, fresh fruit, bags of nuts, and myriad other treats or kitchen utensils. Friends say they love getting these baskets. I think they are well worth the effort, especially when family  members become helper elves in your kitchen.