Today in Our Garden | Harvested Garlic Chive and Chia seeds! #GardenCuizine

Today in Our Fall Garden

South Jersey
USDA Zone 7a (formerly zone 6b)

October 7, 2012

Garden Clean Up! 
With the arrival of freezing temperatures here on the East coast, we need to finish getting the garden cleaned up. I wasn't at all surprised to see our Swiss Chard "still" growing!! That is one care-free veggie to grow. We never did get to plant more greens, so there really was not much else to see today in the garden besides oregano, garlic, strawberry leaves and a few stray peppers amidst dead plants and seeds everywhere.  

Overwintering Cannas and Dahlia tubers
As usual, we cut down our dying canna and dahlia stalks. We even put out a heated water bowl for backyard wildlife. Some cannas planted near the house foundation will come back next year. The majority, out in the garden, are too exposed and usually rot if they don't get dug up. Soon we will dig them up and overwinter the clumps, plus dahlia tubers, in Peat Moss in plastic bags stored in the basement. We have found through trial and error that this method works best for us. 

Harvest Seeds Now

If you like to grow plants, it's not too late to look around for annual seeds that you would like to plant in the spring. Annuals can be started inside under grow lights beginning around March. We don't start CHIA inside because it is so hardy and self sows prolifically throughout the garden! We plan on using the nutritious seeds harvested today in recipes.  

Today's seed harvest included:

• Garlic Chives, Allium tuberosum (shown in photo)
• Lady in Red Salvia
• Yvonne's Salvia
• Tarahumara CHIA, Salvia tiliifolia

Happy and Healthy Gardening!
Related Links
Check Out Chia - Super Seed Nutrition by Diana Wind, RD 
The Story of Yvonne's Salvia