Winter is coming...

Game of Thrones

Winter is coming! Okay, maybe not as dramatic or serious as in Game of Thrones, but preparations are still to be made!

We got word the other day of a frost warning for last night, so we had to scramble to save what veggies were left in the garden. We've had quite a bit of luck with cucumbers as well as tomatoes. But, unfortunately, our tomatoes still were not ripening! Okay, ONE ripe tomato. Just one fully ripened tomato. Bear and I tended to the plethora of tomatoes on the three vines we had. All green. Yes, except for that one ripe tomato. She's our winner! The rest Bear layered in a cardboard box with newspaper. A tomato and newspaper parfait. Bear had the joy of doing this alone as I was at an Arbonne party. Sucker. Thank you, love you!
Anywho, we've been planning on making pickles with our wee pickling cucumbers for the past week or so and a frost warning got our butts in gear!

Coinciding with our winter preparations, we found ourselves at Wickham Nursery browsing the fruit trees and perennials they had for 50% off.  We wandered the rows, planning our future garden(s) on our land. I found myself drawn towards the hydrangeas and lilac, where Bear was perusing the berry bushes. Apparently autumn is a good time to plant hardy bushes and flowers. I guess we'll see! We bought blueberry, haskap berry, Saskatoon berry bushes as well as a 'Autumn Revolution' bush that has these big, bright orange berries I learned after trying to eat one that they are poisonous to humans. Sweet. The bushes are now planted on the west side of the house with the protection of hay around the base of the stems for insulation. I'm pretty excited to harvest the berries next summer!

We held off buying any flowering bushes as we hope to plant some in the front garden to pretty up the entrance to the house. There is no point planting anything until next year because we are digging up around the foundation this fall/winter to install weeping tile our basement has a tendency to leak, and we'd rather it didn't.
I did, however, purchase one flower. A potted oriental lily (Casablanca lily) my FAVOURITE. I love them. The fragrance, the flower, the bold white petals. LOVE. I bought the lily a classy terra cotta planter and had big plans to nurture her inside our home this winter. Oh, I was excited! When it came time for me to transplant the lily to her new terra cotta home, I thought I'd research the best methods to take care of the lovely plant. '...best survival outside... a hardy plant that needs a cold snap of winter to thrive...' Poop. Through reading I found that the oriental lily performs best once chopped down to the soil line, nourished with compost and protected with hay. Remove hay in spring once the shoot comes through. Pooooop. I was sooo looking forward to having a lily in the house! I decided to follow through with the planting instructions and put my poor lily outside, also in a different pot for better drainage of water. I guess I'll bring her in once she blooms next summer. Darn.
Not much else going on here, Bear is finishing up the shed so we can start on the next big project: Remodeling the Barn!

xo