The Marigold Potager – A Zone 3 Prairie Garden

I know, I know. It is not Sunday today. I decided to not change the name even though I am a few days late.

You may recall that I had my hip replacement surgery last week? Sitting for any extended amount of time, seems to be a bit more of a hardship than I had expected.

So, here is last Sunday’s post a bit later. As I finish each post, I will just send out a newsletter with that one post. To keep it simple… and fast ; ) I will soon be back to business as usual, just giving myself time and grace to recuperate.

I hope you are all enjoying lovely autumn weather, reaping your harvests, prepping for Thanksgiving, planting spring bulbs and garlic. While this is not a Thanksgiving oriented post, is it is very autumnal (as they say) and I I have many great fall recipes for you. Everything from pasta to salads, desserts and drinks, and even a squash wellington for your vegetarian guests.

But first… this week’s gardening tips, tricks, ideas, and inspiration.

Gardening Ideas & Inspo

Ultimate Guide to Planting Garlic Successfully See here for how to plant garlic as the timing is perfect right now.

Some of my planting garlic is stuck in transit due to the postal strike here in Canada. They say this strike may last till the holidays so I am not optimistic about getting that parcel of flowers or garlic any time soon.

Luckily, I had other garlic to plant – some of my own homegrown bulbs, some from the local greenhouse, and some from a local garlic farmer. I was able to get it all planted up before my hip surgery so now I can rest easy. I can live without flowers in spring (sigh) but not without garlic to eat and gift!

• 10 Amazing Garden Shed Ideas to Inspire Your Backyard Retreat These are so pretty. I especially love number three!
• Discover Bunny Mellon’s Gardens Her fabulous greenhouse that one approaches via a pleached crab-apple allée that has become famous the world over…. (and it sure is pretty)
• Free Quiz – can you identify plants just by their leaves?

Healing the Earth: From Wasteland to Wonder I really enjoyed listening to this podcast this morning while working on my NYT Spelling Bee. If you prefer to read it (which I usually do, but I am making changes – like taking time to slow down a little bit, and taking more time to enjoy the things I like to do, make, read, watch, listen to….

It saddened me to hear that under 10% of the North American public has time or money to do something/to make positive changes for our planet. Just the little everyday things like planting more flowers, using more native plants, not spraying, mowing less, having a smaller patch of grass. The small things that make a big impact when enough people do them.

So many good takes from this podcast, but one of my favourites was ‘lawns should be area rugs, not wall-to-wall carpets’. What a great analogy. My front yard is a native pollinator yard, but my backyard has much more grass than I would like. As soon as we no longer have a 160lb dog that needs room to zoom, that lawn will go down to an area rug ; )

• 10 Top Flowering Native Plants for Beauty and Wildlife Benefit – The camas really caught my eye in this article. A bulb that you plant in fall. You can order white Camas from Vesey’s right now (they will ship via UPS) or blue Camas from Coast Farms. For other native flowers and grasses, check out Prairie Originals .
• Let’s Weed Out 4 Native Plant Myths
• What to Know About Starting Your First Native Plant Garden
• I love seeing “insect damage,” but diseased plants are outta here!

Check out this awesome wreath, eh? Find the how to and info here.

Homey Bits & Inspo

When I see an article about laundry rooms, I just have to click on it. I have such laundry room envy. The ones in this article do not disappoint! That said, I have never met anyone in real life with one of these amazing spaces! I wonder why we don’t put more emphasis on fantastic laundry rooms as we spend so much time doing laundry?

Fall houseplant care: 5 key tasks

Okay, so, uhm, check out Sherwin Williams interior paint colour of the year. I really want to know what you all think. Does it transport you back to the early 90’s? Or is it just me?

Recipes & Foodie Bits

• Vegetarian lasagna
• Ricotta Cheese Stuffed Shells
• Creamy butternut squash pasta sauce. Having recently become addicted to carrot marinara sauce, this squash sauce sounds intriguing.
• Skillet ravioli with spinach
• pasta with longer-cooked broccoli
• skillet-baked pasta with five cheeses

• Pennsylvania Dutch Pickled Beets and Eggs (I must admit to having never heard of this, but it looks very intriguing! Especially as we try to figure out what to do with a bed full of beets!
• Hoping this link works for you guys. Sometimes it times out but is so worth checking into. Healthy eating for people who hate prep work has a lot of yummy, quickly assembled meals that require little to no cooking, but are both healthy and tasty.
• Grilled-Halloumi-and-Vegetable Wraps
• 7 gourmet grilled cheese sandwich ideas (or, my secret tip – sharp, old cheddar with a bit of brie for creaminess. You will love it! )
• zucchini grilled cheese

• Old fashioned apple cake.
• 20 of the best fall inspired cookies. I couldn’t pick just one or two to share, you get all twenty to choose from yourself ; )
• big apple crumb cake

• Apple cider moscow mule. My brother is big fan of mules, so I am always on the lookout for a good one to try.

Have A Great Week ~ Tanja