I blinked and it was winter this year. Garden clean-up coincided with getting ready for my first market in two years – eek! It was crazy, but here are a few snapshots from the fastest fall ever….

Along with garden clean-up are two important fall tasks, digging up and storing the dahlia tubers and planting garlic.

Each year I’ve increased my garlic seed in hopes of finally getting to a sweet spot of having enough seed of my own to save and enough garlic to last us through a good chunk of winter. A garlic “seed” is a single clove from a bulb and this year I planted at least a hundred. So far I’ve only grown hard neck garlic, but I think next year I’d like to mix it up and try some soft neck which I’ve heard stores longer. You can also braid the soft neck garlic and it looks really lovely, especially with a few dried flowers tucked in.

This is my second year saving dahlia tubers – the tubers were HUGE this year! Perhaps the roots were looking for water as we had a very dry summer. Last year I stored the tubers in a combination of vermiculite and wood chips in totes. For my slightly warm + moist storage environment (crawl space under our house) the wood chips seemed to perform a little better, so I used all wood chips this year and cleaned the tubers off well but did not divide them (I’ll do that in the spring). We’ll see how this works out! Last year about 75% of my tubers made it through the winter. It certainly saves a few hundred bucks each spring not buying two dozen varieties of dahlia tubers.

Lastly, I did a market! Wow am I rusty getting ready for one! Ha! I brought a tiny + mighty collection of skin care goods made with calendula grown here on the farm, my trusty old shea butter soap, and I also sewed(!) up a bunch of little canvas bottom bags which I can not believe were so popular. All but one sold out in a flash! It was so nice to see folks and chat and meet new people and most of all I totally forgot how much I loved hanging with fellow creative + kind hearted makers! I really had so much fun. Thanks to everyone who stopped by the market. I promise to have the online shop open soon for you far way folks!

I’ll be back soon to show you the stocking I sewed up for my grand puppy. Hope you’re cozy + enjoying this soft last week of the year.

xo

steph