Busy Times Ahead

We now have classes open for sign up with wreath making starting on Sunday, November 16th. We have a guest instructor, Stefani Bittner, owner and author from Homestead Design Collective, who will be teaching one of the classes on November 22nd, so for those of you who have taken the wreath making class multiple times you have the opportunity to learn some new techniques!

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There are fun events ahead that Morningsun will be participating in over the next few weeks, and we hope to see you out enjoying the pleasures of fall with us. On October 25th we will be participating in the Harvest Festival at Rodgers Ranch in Pleasant Hill.

Here’s a short write up from the Historical Center, for those of you not familiar with this beautiful location!

‘Nestled in a small neighborhood in Pleasant Hill, CA, a 19^th century farmhouse was saved from destruction in 1991 by the local Historical Society. With enough information to place it on the National Register of Historic Places, volunteers raised money over the years to restore and renovate the site and establish Rodgers Ranch Heritage Center (RRHC).

The 2.1 acre property is owned by the Pleasant Hill Recreation and Park District (District) and run by RRHC. It is also home to The Northern California Unit of The Herb Society of America, who maintain a lovely herb garden behind the house, the Rodgers Ranch Urban Farm, a hands-on, sustainable garden, and the Contra Costa Succulent Garden Club who teach and share ways to use these versatile plants.

Many classes, workshops, and events are held at the ranch including a yearly fall Harvest Festival, Holiday Boutique, and spring Plant Expo. This past year the house received a complete make-over with new paint inside and out. We are now getting ready for our Harvest Festival to be held on Saturday, October 25 from 10am to 2pm. Local organizations gather to share information about their services to the community and provide fun, fall activities such as pumpkin tic tac toe, making a jump rope, bean bag toss, decorating pumpkins, coloring activities, and more.

There will be several vendors, and this year Morningsun Herb Farm will have fall plants available for sale. Treadles to Threads will be on hand to demonstrate wool spinning and The Harmoneers will provide live music.

For more information about Rodgers Ranch Heritage Center visit our website: www.RodgersRanch.org’.

If you live in the East Bay Area, I hope you will come out, bring the kids say hi to us on Oct 25th, buy plants and enjoy the beautiful gardens and home!

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Do you like native plants? Do you like beer? Morningsun will be participating with the Solano Resource Conservation District (SRCD) on Saturday November 8th in their annual Native Plant Sale, this year hosted by Solano Brewing Company. I don’t need to tell anyone that plant shopping and beer drinking go together like peas and carrots. And November is a terrific time to plant California natives. Morningsun will be bringing plenty of complementary drought tolerant Mediterranean herbs and perennials to add to your garden space as well for sale.

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To finish out the year, the annual Christmas Fair we co host with our farm neighbors and friends Soul Food Farm will once again be happening on Saturday, December 6th, from 9 am - 3 pm.

This year the Fair will be at Morningsun Herb Farm, with additional parking at Soul Food Farm and a free shuttle all day. Save the date now for lots of great local farmers and makers, and of course yummy food, Christmas music and dressed up donkeys.

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Rose’s Top Ten Herb List for Fall

It’s never too late in the year to plant herbs - and some herbs are amazingly useful in the wintertime, giving us delicious leaves all winter long for fresh use. We get the question often at the nursery ‘What herbs are going to keep growing during the winter?’ These are the top herbs to include in your herb garden to brighten up your garden and your cooking during the winter months.

1. Oregano. Especially Italian oregano, which is an important culinary herb that thrives during the winterwime. The small green leaves are sweet and look as tidy in the winter as during the summer. It’s a great container plant or can be grown in the ground, and prefers full sun. For a spicier, hotter flavor grow Greek oregano or Syrian oregano, and for a mild flavored groundcover the dwarf Greek oregano is our best seller.

2. Culinary sage - any of the Salvia officinalis can be grown for edible leaves. Berggarten is the most popular with big grey-green leaves, but in the winter I like to grow golden sage with its cheery yellow and green leaves or tri color sage with elegant leaves of pink, green and white in containers. The flavor of both is delicious, a bit milder than the green leaved sages, and so pretty in mixed herb bowls.

3. Rosemary, which is an obvious selection for winter growing here in California. We take this plant for granted, but it is a workhorse in the kitchen, especially for hearty winter foods. It is also well known to increase circulation - infuse rosemary into a tea to sip or to add to bath water to get the blood flowing.

4. Lavender is great to plant any time of the year, but there are several varieties that are perfect for winter growing because they bloom beautifully in the winter. ‘Goodwin Creek Grey’ is a selection that reliably blooms into December and January, and is a good choice for cut flowers for the holiday table. Another species, Lavandula canariensis, is an unusual choice for winter bloom, with flowers that attract hummingbirds and bees almost all winter. Although neither of these lavenders are useful in the kitchen, they are both outstanding for winter bloom.

5. Thyme is indispensable for winter cooking, and an excellent salt substitute. Plant English thyme or French thyme for classic flavor, and also they both will continue to grow throughout the winter for constant supply. All of the thymes can be easily grown in raised beds or containers, even under only partly sunny conditions.

6. Although French tarragon is a must for summer cooking, the plant is dormant in the winter months and dried French tarragon doesn’t really have the same lovely anise flavor to it. A terrific herbal - and floral - substitute is Mexican tarragon, which is a perennial marigold (Tagetes lucida) that flowers in fall and winter and continues growing into winter. The leaves are a bit sweeter than the traditional tarragon, but is an interesting and flavorful sub for winter cooking. And it’s much easier to grow than French tarragon so it’t always a lovely plant to include year round in your herb garden.

7. Parsley, especially the flat leaved Italian parsley, is easily grown in our winter gardens in central California. Rather than turn up your nose at its everyday qualities, include it in your winter salads, stir it into soups and stews, chop it into eggs, sprinkle it on meat. Italian parsley is high in Vitamins A, C and K, as well as calcium, iron, magnesium and folate. It is considered a superfood, meaning it has dense concentrations of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals. And fresh parsley does help freshen your breath so it’s a win-win for you and everyone around you!

8. Scented geraniums are commonly grown in our spring and summer gardens outdoors, but for many areas with more inclement weather scented geraniums are brought indoors as house plants. In a well lit window scented geraniums can be grown indoors, just be sure to keep the plants on the dry side. Scented geraniums with more upright growth habits are the easiest to grow as indoor specimens - try lime, ginger, strawberry or lemon meringue for fragrant varieties to bring indoors for the winter. The make good centerpieces on holiday tables and you can use their leaves for cooking as well.

9. I can’t say enough about the much underused winter savory, and it’s close relative lemon savory. They both have a strong complex pepper flavor that lends itself to any recipe calling for pepper. It is a great evergreen herb to use fresh in hearty winter cooking - soups, quiche, cornbread, heavy meats - it not only adds flavor but winter savory also aids in digestion.

10. Finally, don’t forget to plant some food sources for those hangry hummingbirds that overwinter in California. Anna’s hummingbirds remain in northern California all year, and they are expecting you to plant something so they can eat all winter. Many of the ornamental Salvia are good choices and will bloom until late winter. For larger gardens Mexican bush sage, pineapple sage, ‘Hot Lips’ and my personal favorite, Grape scented sage will fill their little bellies, and for smaller spaces Cuphea ‘Hummingbird’s Lunch’ and Cuphea ‘Starfire’ will bloom long into the winter, even under night time temperatures as low as 34 degrees, cooler if they have some protection.

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Projects This Week

Ok, this week, not a project for us, but for all of you interested in viewing the Slow Flowers podcast featuring Morningsun Herb Farm. We hosted Debra Prinzing, founder of Slow Flowers, acclaimed author, award winning podcaster and champion for local grown flower farmers on October 4th for a book signing and talk of her newest book ‘The Flower Farmers’. Debra filmed part of the talk as well as conversations with myself and Stefani Bittner in our garden and scented geranium hoophouse and released it as her podcast the following week. View it by clicking here.