Henny Penny Farmette

Mid-February marks the beginning of bare-root season in the Bay Area. Growers ship roses, fruit trees, grapes, and berries in late January through February and March to local nurseries and DIY garden centers. By April, often sales of unsold bare-root plants begin. There are at least four good reasons to buy bare-root plants before spring officially arrives.

2. It’s easy to place a bare-root tree right into your garden before its sap is flowing. When it is still “asleep,” it’s not as susceptible to cold and and won’t need as much water as it will when the weather is warm, the plant has leafed out, and the roots are growing and spreading.

3. Bare-root buys you time. If you are still planning your garden, you can “heal in” a bare-root plant until you are ready to put it in your garden. You just need to excavate a trench in which you temporarily place the bare-root plant. Mound soil over the roots and water. Let the plant rest until you prepare the permanent planting hole.

4. You have an opportunity you won’t get again to inspect the health of the root and its growth. With a bare-root plant, the roots can be examined for problems such as decay or damage. Using sharp pruning shears, you can cut away problem issues. When you buy an already potted plant, you won’t have this option.

Take a moment to visit your local plant seller, nursery, or DIY center to see what plants are available right now. Enjoy the season.

If you enjoy reading about country living topics, check out Meera Lester’s Henny Penny Farmette mystery series. Besides an entertaining mystery, each book includes delicious recipes, strategies for growing heirloom vegetables and fruits, and tips for keeping chickens and bees. These novels and her nonfiction self-help and wellness books are available online and everywhere books are sold.

Our pears, persimmons, and pomegranates hang heavy on the trees now. This despite the scorching summer we’ve had and the lack of rain. Water restrictions have made it doubly difficult for the fruits of these trees to reach their full potential.

Ripe pomegranates have a leathery outer skin, membranes thicker than oranges, but sweet, juicy seeds inside

The squirrels and raccoons have been munching on the late summer pears. Yesterday, I stripped most of the fruit off and placed in paper bags in the kitchen cabinet. In two to three days, the pears will reach the perfect ripeness for eating fresh.

Bartlett summer pears

Fuju and hachiya persimmons are taking on color and should be ripe and ready to eat in about a month. I’ve been working hard to save the trees that are suffering from California’s extreme drought.

A spokesman for one Bay Area water resource board suggested we gardeners let our ornamental plants like roses and other flowers go while we try to save our trees. A hard thing for me to do. Praying for rain, we hold out hope that next year’s climate will be better for backyard gardeners and growers.

Hachiya persimmons are delicious when they ripen to a jellylike softness

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Interested in backyard gardening topics like keeping chickens and bees or growing heirloom vegetables? Check out my cozy mystery series from Kensington. The stories are informed by my work on the farmette I’ve been restoring for a dozen years. Find all Meera Lester books on Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, and everywhere books are sold online or in brick and mortar stores.

Beeline to Murder features a former cop who keeps bees
and sells lavender honey to her town’s celebrity chef . . . until
she finds him dead.

The town of Las Flores is abuzz with the news of the death of a free spirit who has secrets in her background and ties to a local nudist camp.

The renewal of wedding vows ends on the steps of the church with the outburst of a local woman intent on revenge. The husband is soon found dead but the obvious suspect may not be the culprit at all.

If you are someone like me who loves to garden, you have the first day of spring circled on your calendar. For 2020, spring arrives on March 19.

Plant bare root fragrant roses and engage in mindfulness practice. Both will have you stopping to smell the roses

Bare-root season (when fruit trees, roses, and other plants are dormant and sap is not flowing) is now. Here in the Bay Area, the soil is currently soft and makes for easy turning with a spade. Now is the time to incorporate some roses or other bare root plants into your garden. There are several reasons to do so.

1. Planting bare root saves you money. If you are buying from a local nursery or a seller who ships, you’ll find the cost cheaper because you’re not paying for soil or containers.

2. Better selection. You can purchase heirloom varieties of deciduous trees and shrubs from all over the world when you buy bare root. Bare root fruit trees are popular with back yard gardeners but you might also consider artichokes, rhubarb, strawberries, grapes, asparagus, and many other plants that are sold as bare root.

Rhubarb is a bare root plant that flourishes in rich soil with some protection against direct overhead sun

3. You have flexibility. Planting in February just before spring means the ground has thawed in areas where freezing temperatures are the norm. When the ground is growing warmer and is workable is the time to tuck your bare root plants into the soil.

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If you enjoy reading about country living topics, check out my Henny Penny Farmette series of cozy mysteries, including A BEELINE TO MURDER, THE MURDER OF A QUEEN BEE, and A HIVE OF HOMICIDES (Kensington Publishing). These mysteries also include farm to-do lists and delicious recipes.

Get the three-book series of cozy mysteries with elements based on the real Henny Penny Farmette

I’ve also written over two dozen self-help and wellness books, including THE SELF-CARE PLANNER,  HOW TO LIVE WITH INTENTION, and MY POCKET MEDITATIONS (Adams Media/Simon and Schuster).

Find Meera Lester’s books online and in traditional bookstores everywhere. Barnes & Noble will be featuring THE SELF-CARE PLANNER on its self-care table for the New Year, New You promo, starting Dec. 31 and running through March 2020, in select stores.

Start at any point in your year or life with this self-guided planner

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There’s nothing to rejuvenate a weary soul like time spent in a garden. Death of one season’s plants yields to new shoots the next. Because I appreciate the ever-evolving nature of a garden, I choose plants, bulbs, bushes, and trees that offer visual interest in each season. Thoughtful planting generates an ever-evolving landscape of color, texture, and visual interest.

Pumpkins show orange and yellow, signalling the arrival of the cool season

The autumn garden has almost completely morphed into a winter landscape now. Pumpkin and tomato vines have been pulled out and perennials in the bee garden  have gone to seed or been cut back. Winter offers little color in the garden except for the cape honeysuckle, white geranium, lavender florets, and early flowering bulbs.

Deciduous trees have mostly lost their leaves, however, the eucalyptus and the pepper trees here on the farmette remain leafy and green. The rains have come and a dusting of snow on nearby mountain peaks is in the forecast ahead. Foliage and blooms are mostly gone. It’s that time of year to cover frost-sensitive plants.

The pomegranates that were ablaze in golden color a few weeks ago have dropped all leaves. What remains is the lovely arching pattern of branches since I’ve trained them from bushes into trees.

Pomegranate leaves  turn gold in the fall

The showy pink flowers over summer of the crape myrtle are a memory. Gone now, too, are the red-gold leaves of fall. What remains is an interesting gray-green bark.

Autumn leaves of the crepe myrtle create a spectacle against the blooming Cecile Brunner rose

The seeds from the giant yellow-orange coreopsis that stood eight feet tall and towered over zinnias, Borage, and rows of lavender have long ago been harvested. Also, my patch of lavender is flourishing. The plants have pushed out long stalks of purple florets.

Dark green shoots of bulbs are pushing up out of the earth where I interplanted them with chrysanthemums. I cut back the mums and they will reappear in the spring to flower again. This is the time of year that shoots of bulbs and rhizomes are birthing daffodils, anemones, tulips, hyacinths, and, to come later, lilies and irises of many colors.

Siberian scilla adds a lot of color for a small grouping of bulbs

In raised beds, shoots of fall-planted onions and garlic are now pushing up. The bees are drawn to the sweet scent of narcissus bulbs that have naturalized after being planted years ago. The Meyer lemon now has lots of yellow thin-skinned fruit and also a few early blooms.

On the dark days and nights of winter, white blooming plants stand in stark contrast to gray wooden fences and leafless trees.  Honor roses, Iceberg roses, and climbing Sally Holmes roses have showy white blooms and may even have some this time of year unless they’ve been cut back. Winter-blooming gardenias and white geraniums have a quiet impact when grouped together in hedges, beds, or containers.

The “Honor” rose is an elegant white blooming rose that is spectacular under moonlight

With so many bulbs and plants available this time of year, putting interest into your winter garden is easy and contributes to an ever-evolving landscape.

Consider plants with gray-green or otherwise pretty foliage and colorful berries. Also plant trees with interesting bark colors, textures, patterns, or scaffolding shapes. When you think of plants for each season of the year, you’ll have a garden to nurture you throughout the year.

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If you enjoy reading about gardening, the keeping of chickens and bees, and other small farm topics AND you’d like related gift-giving, consider my Henny Penny Farmette series of cozy mysteries or any of my health, wellness, and spirituality books. All are available online and in traditional bookstores everywhere.

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After weeks of rain, Mother Nature has put on a robe of splendor.  Warm weather has arrived. Already, my beekeeper neighbor has had his honeybee hives send out three swarms.

Previous bee swarm on Henny Penny Farmette

My own bee population seems to be swelling. I’ve fished out my swarm catcher, primed it with scented lemon oil, and placed in among the blossoms in a nearby apricot tree. I may be blessed with a swarm as well.

Our grapes are Thompson Seedless, Merlot, and golden Italian muscat

There are plenty of other springtime projects to attend to here on my farmette. I’ve got to reassemble my temporary grape arbor. Each year, I think we’ll build a permanent structure, but there never seems to be enough time.

My cell flats have organic plants up now and ready for placing in my garden or raised beds. I’d like to add some more chicken manure to the strawberries since they are rapidly growing and producing small fruit.

Other plants need a spring feeding–the citrus, apples, and apricots, for example. I usually do the feeding before the trees break bud, so I’m a little late.

This candy-stripe rose was a gift from a friend–a cutting from her rose that became a large bush in my care

I will be turning the compost pile and mulching all my rose bushes (which have already leafed out and are setting buds). Finally, I’d like to put up a couple more bird houses (mating is already in the air) and fill my hummingbird feeders.

This–my original flock–was massacred by a wild predator, fox or coyote,  last year

I need to purchase baby chicks from the feedstore to start my new flock. Hubby and I will build a new, reinforced chicken run and expand the existing hen house.

Then, there’s the side walkway that needs pavers. Painting of the fences. Building a new porch. Widening the patio…the projects are seemingly endless, but that’s fine. We’ll have a lovely six months (maybe an occasional storm). The dry season is upon us.

And I’m ready for the Adirondack chair…oh, that’s right…we have to build it first!

Classic Adirondack Adirondack chair, for the enjoyment of a a garden

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If you enjoy reading about farming topics and you love a good cozy mystery, check out my  novels from Kensington Publishing–A BEELINE TO MURDER, THE MURDER OF A QUEEN BEE, and A HIVE OF HOMICIDES. All are available on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, and other online retailers as well as in bookstores everywhere.

The debut novel for the Henny Penny Farmette series

The second book in the Henny Penny Farmette series

The second book in the Henny Penny Farmette series

There is a quiet beauty in a winter garden. You must endure cold to appreciate it. On my farmette, there’s also fog and wind and misty rain. But as you gaze in mindfulness, the rewards come.

When trees are bare, you can appreciate the beauty of their scaffolding, branching habits, and fruiting spurs. There is an attractiveness about tree bark that is rough or smooth and colored in earthy hues of green, gray, or reddish brown. Bare trunks and branches provide visual interest until blossoms and blooms break in spring.

With pruning done and leaves removed, the roses rest. Birds gather at feeders and frolic in the fountains. Beneath the soft, damp earth, roots are taking in nutrients to prepare the fruit trees for a surge of growth when warmer days arrive.

The garden is a place to conjure memories and ponder life and destiny. Goethe, the German playwright, poet, and novelist wrote that “Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it.”

Winter is the perfect time to contemplate the tap root of your being and to think and and dream and plan for what will blossom in your life when warmth and light returns. French philosopher and author Alfred Camus wrote, “In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”

I have a simple ritual of visiting my winter garden. I prepare a cup of hot water with juice of half a lemon and a tablespoon of honey or sometimes just a cup of coffee or tea. Then with cup in hand, off I go to inspect the fruit trees, the bare grape and berry vines, and the soil turned in raised boxes waiting to receive kitchen herbs. This ritual inspires me and silently powers me up with hope and energy.

Perhaps you have a similar winter ritual. If not, consider checking out my newest nonfiction book, RITUALS FOR LIFE and plant something in the earth or the garden of your psyche that holds the promise of bearing fruit in its own perfect time. Now is the time to greet each new winter day for the blessings it brings and appreciate the stark beauty of Nature.

More than 150 rituals for sound mind, strong body, and meaningful connections to the people around you

https://tinyurl.com/yctdczpq

It’s bare-root season, a special time of the year for me. I like to visit local nurseries and check out the new offerings of heirloom roses, fruit trees, berries, herbs, and flowers. No matter which nursery I visit, I always seem to spot the lavender first.

Honeybees love lavender

After we moved to the Henny Penny Farmette, we put in lots of French lavender. But after a few years, the stalks have grown old and woody.

Recently, on a visit to a nearby nursery, we purchased twenty one-gallon plants of French Lavender, an upright perennial that we’ve discovered blooms almost all year long in our Bay Area climate.

One-gallon pots of lavender await planting

Now, they are hardening off in my garden until I get around to planting them.

The word “dentata” means toothed and a closer examination of the foliage reveals fringed indentations.

This aromatic, shrub has been around for centuries. Valued for its ornamental and medicinal properties, it also is used for soil erosion control. Once established, the lavender is drought tolerant.

Many gardeners love this lavender for its gray-green leaves. When other flowering plants in the garden have finished their blooming cycle, this lavender keeps producing tall spikes of bright purple florets.

Not as brilliant in color as the English or Spanish lavender, the French lavender is lovely grouped together in a single area where its flower stalks can sway in the wind. Our honeybees and other pollinators love it.

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If you are a fan of cozy mysteries and love farmette topics like gardening of heirloom vegetables, herbs, and fruits as well as keeping chickens and bees, check out my Henny Penny Farmette series of cozy mysteries from Kensington Publishing.

The debut novel in the Henny Penny Farmette series sold out its first printing

Besides a cozy mystery to solve, these books mix in delicious recipes, farming and gardening tips, facts about keeping bees and chickens, and morsels of farm wisdom.

COMING SOON– Sept. 2017, the third novel in the Henny Penny Farmette series

The second cozy mystery in the series

We just planted a couple of flowering cherries as a dramatic focal point for our front entrance area. Reaching a height of 30 to 40 feet, these ornamental trees require little beyond full sun and well-drained soil. If drama is desired in a landscape, these trees won’t disappoint.

Before the tree leafs out, myriad buds open to reveal a mass of pale pink-to-white  color

Although California’s extreme five-year-drought has been declared over here in the Bay Area, a front lawn seemed to us unnecessary. Instead, we’re spreading small pebble gravel in a landscape that includes statuary, garden furniture and potted plants. We have a natural stone curved path lined with roses that leads from the driveway to house and raised beds of flowers, roses, and bird-of-paradise plants along with a few small trees–lilac, smoke, and citrus.

The flowering Japanese Yoshino cherry trees will provide palest pink blossoms with a light almond scent in the spring and shade in the summer. The trees are fast growing–exactly what we need to replace the massive (and yet fragile) elm tree that came down this past year. It stood next to the house and provided cool shade over the front porch until it split and fell.

Bare root season is a good time to purchase flowering cherries and other ornamental and fruit trees. The bare-root trees are also less expensive, but no less viable when planted according to instructions on the packaging around their roots. If you like drama in your landscape, consider these hardy, drought-resistant trees.

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If you have enjoyed reading about this farming/gardening topic, check out my cozy mysteries–A BEELINE TO MURDER and also THE MURDER OF A QUEEN BEE  (both in the Henny Penny Farmette series from Kensington Publishing).

My farmette and bee-based novels are chocked full of recipes, farming tips, chicken and beekeeping tips, sayings and, of course, a charming cozy mystery. For more info, click on the links under the pictures.

The books are available through online retailers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target, BAM, Kobo Books, and Walmart as well as from traditional bookstores everywhere.

See, http://tinyurl.com/hxy3s8q

A Beeline to Murder is the debut novel that launched the Henny Penny Farmette series of mysteries. Initially released as a hardcover novel and in e-book format, it is now available as a mass market paperback.

See, http://tinyurl.com/h4kou4g

NEWLY RELEASED! This, the second cozy mystery in the Henny Penny Farmette series, is garnering great reviews from readers and industry publications.

It’s that time of the year when we mark the shortest day of the year, the beginning of winter, and the return of the light. I like to think of it as a day when I decide what I do and don’t want to take with me into the coming New Year.

The moon casts its cold light over the farmette through trees hanging onto their leaves.

We’ve had a run of cold nights with temperatures in the upper 20 degrees Fahrenheit. But the light will soon return and warm the Earth. Late January-early February marks the beginning of bare-root season. My work now includes pruning and spraying and clearing out the old to make way for rebirth and renewal.

Among the plants that renew are the fruit trees.  The pruned branches, garden clippings, and old vines are being recycled into compost for next spring’s garden. Come late spring, I’ll have trees with gorgeous canopies and tons of fruit to make into jam.

This DIY birdhouse is crafted from a repurposed fence board. Not all birds will take up residence in a house, but many will.

Garlic and onions are growing now and will through the winter months, thanks to our mild Mediterranean climate. But there is so much cleanup of the property that needs doing, I can only hope to start that today.

I’m putting out seed balls for the birds as well as refilling feeders and suet holders. Easy-to-find food keeps our feathered songsters around through spring when they start their families. For directions on making a birdhouse for your garden, check out https://hobbyreads.wordpress.com/category/crafts.

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Enjoy reading about farming topics? Check out my cozy mysteries–A BEELINE TO MURDER and also THE MURDER OF A QUEEN BEE  (both in the Henny Penny Farmette series from Kensington Publishing).

JOIN THE CHRISTMAS EVE FUN–Read a short excerpt from my newest book, THE MURDER OF A QUEEN BEE and check out blogger Brooke Bumgardner’s interview of me at http://www.brookeblogs.com

My farmette and bee-based novels are chocked full of recipes, farming tips, chicken and beekeeping tips, sayings and, of course, a charming cozy mystery. For more info, click on the links under the pictures.

The books are available through online retailers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target, BAM, Kobo Books, and Walmart as well as from traditional bookstores everywhere.

See, http://tinyurl.com/hxy3s8q

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.

See, http://tinyurl.com/h4kou4g

NEWLY RELEASED! This, the second cozy mystery in the Henny Penny Farmette series, is garnering great reviews from readers and industry publications. Get your copy while you can. It’s sure to sell out like novel #1.

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.

See, http://tinyurl.com/h4kou4g

See, http://tinyurl.com/hxy3s8q

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.