The garden can be a pretty creepy place. For instance, that lovely castor bean plant growing in the container by your front porch? It could kill you. Of course you would have to actually eat its seeds, which contain the toxin ricin, but it is sobering to realize that the botanical world is full of plants that can help and hurt the human condition. To celebrate Halloween and the sometimes bizarre, hideous and bewitching plants of the garden, I am giving away two of my favorite books:

Both books are by best-selling author Amy Stewart, whose obvious fascination with the natural world is contagious. There are tales involving the sex lives of banana slugs, plants that ooze blood red sap, and the toxic blue algae that inspired Alfred Hitchcock’s movie The Birds. They are a tremendous amount of fun to read  and each story confirmed my abiding respect for the amazing diversity of flora and fauna that inhabit the earth.

To enter the contest, please leave a comment on this post with your spookiest garden, plant, or insect story. I am going to enlist my mother, who loves Halloween more than anyone else I know, to judge the entries and choose the winter. Beware! The contest closes tomorrow night at the stroke of midnight (Pacific Standard Time). I will announce the winner on Wednesday morning. To get your spook on, head over to my column on Re-Nest to see Amy’s picks for the best Halloween plants.

Have you ever noticed that late season basil just does not taste as good as basil harvested in mid-summer? I find that the leaves lose their tender texture and their flavor becomes harsher and develops a stronger anise undertone. When I was researching my book, I uncovered a few reasons behind these changes. It turns out that the aromatic oil content in basil leaves reduces as they age, which in turn dials down their flavor. The flavor profile of basil also changes when the plants flower. Basil is a tropical plant and is very sensitive to cooler temperatures. Frost out right kills the plants, but temperatures below 50 degrees damage them, turning the leaves brown or black and unappetizing.

Frequently harvesting the basil during the summer helps the plant continue to produce young, tasty leaves and it also prevents the plants from flowering. But at this time of year cool evening temperatures are unavoidable and the older the plants get, the faster they try and flower. This basil is still worth eating, I think, but I prefer to process the leaves rather than using them raw. Over the weekend I cut down all my basil and brought a huge armload indoors. As you can see in the photo above, several plants were flowering while others showed some chill damage. I separated out the most unappetizing looking stems and gave them to my chickens who gobbled them up. I then made a big batch of my grandmother’s pesto and froze it. Here are a few other ideas for using up late season basil:

* Make a loose puree of basil leaves and olive oil and freeze in ice cube trays. Drop a cube or two into soups, stews, and sauces over the winter to add flavor.

* Garnish drinks with the basil flowers.

* Tuck basil flower under the skin of a chicken before roasting it.

It is green tomato season in my garden. I have a huge (HUGE!) grafted ‘San Marzano’ tomato plant. It produced tons and tons of ripe tomatoes, but there are still nearly 50 green tomatoes on the vine. With frost predicted later this week, it is time to pick these green beauties and bring them indoors. I could just compost the whole plant and be done with it, but I think that ripening tomatoes inside is totally worth the effort because it prolongs the homegrown tomato season into November.

Today in my Re-Nest column I detail how to ripen the tomatoes off the vine. Of course, I also like to cook with green tomatoes, too! If you’re looking for ideas beyond fried green tomato sandwiches, check out my roundup of green tomato recipes. You’ll find recipes for green tomato chutney, enchiladas, soup and even cake!

The problem with so many lemony herbs is that they have a lemon top note followed by an astringent Pledge-like aftertaste that really undermines their flavor. Lemon balm is the most obvious offender, but sometimes even herbs like ‘Mrs. Burns’ lemon basil and lemon thyme taste like furniture polish.

Not so with lemon verbena. It tastes like lemons, only better.

It is bright, fresh, slightly sweet and truly citrusy. Despite its superior flavor, lemon verbena remains a bit of a fringe herb. I have never spotted it at a supermarket and it is rarely available at the farmer’s market. If you want to cook with lemon verbena, it seems, you must grow it. Even though lemon verbena is difficult to buy, it popped up on a profusion of restaurant menus this summer. I saw a peach danish with lemon verbena cream, a lemon verbena infused vodka cocktail, a lemon verbena soda, a lemon verbena and blueberry tartlet, and pork meatballs with lemon verbena. With its surge in popularity (at least in Portland), I have a feeling that lemon verbena may soon join the ranks of formerly obscure but now popular flavors like chipotle, meyer lemon, and lavender.

Lemon verbena (Aloysia triphylla) is a tender perennial that goes dormant and loses its leaves during the winter (at least in most parts of the United States). The plant tends to be a bit gangly and leggy. To avoid growing an unattractive, unwieldy plant you simply need to frequently cut the stems back by 1/3. Use scissors to cut off the stems and make the cut right above a whorl of leaves. This stimulates the plant to branch and encourages it to develop a bushier habit. In summer, I keep the soil just barely damp around the roots and fertilize with dilute fish emulsion every 2 weeks. In Oregon, we can overwinter the plants outdoors, but in cooler climates you must bring them in (the Herb Companion has a comprehensive guide to growing lemon verbena, including tips for overwintering it).

The plant’s raspy leaves retain their amazing flavor when dried and make delicious tea. My favorite way to enjoy lemon verbena, however, is to infuse its flavor into simple syrup. The syrup can then be drizzled over fresh fruit, used to sweeten tea, make soda, or ice cream. It is a little late to find lemon verbena at nurseries, but look for plants next spring after the danger of frost has past. Choose a nice bushy plant with lots of branches and in the meantime content yourself by sipping lemon verbena tea (Mighty Leaf offers several lemon verbena teas) while flipping through gardening books.

I love to grow my own garlic because it is such an imminently edible plant. You can harvest the young leaves in early spring and use them like chives, pull the garlic when it is very young and looks like a scallion, eat the delicious flower buds called scapes, and enjoy green garlic (immature heads where the cloves are still fused together) and of course the mature bulbs. The only problem with garlic is that it has a loooong growing season. You plant it in fall (October is a universally good time to plant garlic pretty much anywhere in the United States) and you don’t harvest the mature heads until the following June or July. If you have a small garden, this means you must choose where to plant garlic very carefully. Or, you can plant it in containers.

I first saw garlic planted in containers at my friend Robin’s house. Robin is a garden coach and she has access to a never ending supply of large plastic containers that trees come in. She uses these free containers garlic planters and gets amazing yields! The key with growing garlic in containers is to make sure the container has plenty of drainage and that you use a good soil-less potting mix (I like Black Gold). Taking these two steps helps ensure that the bulbs do not rot in soggy soil. This past weekend I planted garlic in three of my vintage wooden crates, but I’ve noticed garlic growing in half barrels, contractor buckets, and ceramic containers.

You can read my step-by-step guide to planting garlic in containers over at my column at Re-Nest. But I thought I’d share a few of my top tips here:

Grow hardneck varieties. This type of garlic produces tasty scapes (softneck types, which you typically find in grocery stores, do not make scapes). I would grow garlic for the scapes alone, because they make the world’s best pesto.

Plant the pointy end up. When growing garlic you plant a single clove and it will turn into an entire head. Be sure to plant the flat end down and the pointy end up. Roots will emerge from the base of the clove and green shoots from the tip. The shoots may die back over the winter if they are exposed to super cold weather, but don’t fret. They will re-grow in the spring.

Buy local garlic. Like so many vegetables, garlic adapts to the conditions that it grows in. You will have the best success, and typically the healthiest, tastiest garlic, if you buy heads from a local farmer at a farmer’s market. Ask the farmer which varieties do best in your climate and plant an assortment so you can choose which variety tastes best to you.

People who know me well understand that my thoughts never really follow a linear pattern. For instance, today I was walking our dog in the park and I saw this gorgeous big leaf maple tree. Its limbs spread out over a playground, shading the swing set and the seesaw. The playground and the tree made me think of my little nephew, Henry, who just moved to Vermont.

Thinking about Vermont naturally made me hope that Henry’s parents will bring us real maple syrup when they visit at Christmas. And once I stumbled upon the subject of syrup I had to consider pancakes, especially this Spiced Pumpkin Pancake recipe, which I found over the summer and filed away for cooler, rainier days, which have officially arrived.

Taking pictures and pondering what to make for breakfast over the weekend also made me think about this blog, which has been so neglected as I finished up my book and helped Jon start our store. For some reason (the tree? the weather? our dog rolling in mud? ) I felt inspired to dedicate myself to writing here again. I’ve drawn up a little plan of posts that have been lingering at the back of my mind gathering dust, and I plan to unveil them starting next week. I have set a modest goal of posting 3 days a week. Thanks for hanging in here with me while I got the whirlwind back under control. I’m excited to share ideas with you again. Happy weekend!

Today I am so excited to share a guest post from my friend Kelly Wilkinson, whose fabulous new crafting book Weekend Handmade: More Than 40 Projects and Ideas for Inspired Crafting was just published! Kelly writes the blog Make, Grow, Gather and her book is divided into three sections based on the title of her blog. The first section, Make, offers wearable and decorative crafts, the second, Grow, features beautiful, carefully considered garden and outdoors-inspired projects, and Gather, is full of ideas for making get togethers with friends and family special.

Part of the reason why my crafty ambitions often go unrealized is because I feel like I just do not have a enough time to start, let alone complete, a project.  What I love most about this book is that Kelly obviously worked hard to ensure that each project is imminently do-able, that the directions are very complete and easy to follow. Her cheerful tone makes me feel that I can definitely add a little more handmade goodness into my life, as long as I have Weekend Handmade as my guide.

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Hi everyone! I’m so thrilled to be here with Willi and DigginFood as part of the blog tour for Weekend Handmade. Over the course of the tour, I’m breaking my ideal weekend into its different parts, and posting about each part on a favorite blog of mine. Willi and I first met at a garden store, so it feels super-appropriate that this segment of the weekend corresponds to all things outdoors. Thanks so much to Willi for hosting this part of the tour!

Saturday Morning

I’m loath to move too fast on Saturday mornings. It’s hard for me to tear myself out of the warm cocoon of our bed. But that’s what dogs are for, right? So after reinforcing ourselves with a cup of strong Irish tea, we head out for a slow stroll. On the luckiest of weekend walks, we serendipitously come across great fortune in our path: a console on the corner that’s free for the taking and fits perfectly in our entryway…an abandoned record player…and when we head into the woods, that’s where I come across pinecones, wildflowers and ferns that might spark an idea for a project.

For instance, when I came across a motherlode of fallen pinecones, I made the Willow Chandelier. And greens and wildflowers that I collected on a slow amble became preserved in the Pressed Flower Luminaria. Luckily, we live in a part of San Francisco where I can set out with my husband and our trusty mutt, and within moments, arrive in the middle of a quiet forest or the less-traveled trails of Golden Gate Park. And there is no question – a slow-paced walk on a Saturday morning gets me into the welcome rhythm of the weekend.

Weekend Handmade by Kelly Wilkinson offers more than 40 projects and ideas for inspired crafting. Find the complete blog tour at Make, Grow, Gather or STC Craft’s site.

The theme for this month’s free downloadable desktop calendar from Anne Bryant is home brew! Jon and I grow hops (‘Cascade’ is our favorite variety) and we’ve made our own beer a couple of times. The IPA turned out awesome. Unfortunately our attempt at a Belgian Trippel did not taste very good, but all was not lost. We poured it into slug traps and discovered that slugs seem to like all beer, even bad home brew!

If you need some beer inspiration, check out the Beer Festival Calendar–a crazy compendium of beer festivals across the globe (there are 59 listed for this weekend alone). To put October’s calendar on your computer’s desktop, all you need to do is choose the size that best fits your monitor and then click on the link below—the file will automatically download to your computer and then you can set it up as your background image.

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