special honeys II

Even though I first posted about my new foray into tasting "special" and local honeys on my book blog, I'm going to continue it here because it seems to fit more with the gardening stuff.

On our final trip to the amish farm stand a few weeks ago before they close for winter, I picked out one more jar of monofloral honey: Starthistle. It has an amber color, and a sweet taste but with a very warm, mellow, creamy flavor. I don't know how to describe it at all, but I like it very much. It's my favorite of all the honeys so far.

We also brought home from that trip a batch of mix for making fried green tomatoes and I picked all the final Tomatoes off my plants (which have since been cut down and composted). It was pretty good. I didn't eat mine with honey- it makes the baby puke- but dipped my green tomatoes in ranch dressing. A. tried honey on his and said it was delicious with the Starthistle honey. Next year's end-of-tomatoes I'll give it a try myself.

My daughter was surprised the other day when I brought out all the special honeys for her to put on biscuits. She read all the labels and said "which one is the normal honey we get?" I said clover. She said "but we don't have any! You mean we only have speical honeys right now?"

That's right. And even though I can't eat them, I dip my finger in for just a taste every now and then.

fail

I don't think the Pepper plants will make it through the winter.

They've got some kind of bugs, little white flies. And aphids, though I think those are gone.

I have tried spraying the plants with dishsoap-water until they're dripping. I've set them outside to get chilled- thinking the cold might kill the bugs. I've picked off every damaged leaf and cleaned the rest, by wiping every single leaf with baby wipes and paper towels dampened with water. Every time the bugs come back. They've started to spread to my Avocado plants and I don't want to loose those, so I'm giving up.

I've moved the Peppers outside. If they survive the cold of a few nights, and the bugs don't, I might bring them back in for one last try. But I'm not counting on it.

Oh, and the string of red jalapenos I tried to dry? Just got moldy, threw them out. Of course, you can't cure in cold weather. Maybe if I get more in the summer I'll try again.

thyme

This my Thyme tree was outside on the brick and it grew a lot more lush and green. I've brought it inside for the winter now but realize it's just not as happy inside, so it will be an outdoor plant in the summers...

late cosmos

My pink Cosmos self-seeded; there are a few small plants growing in the strip by the driveway. The plants are only about as high as my knee and the flowers half the size of their parents', but I'm hoping more will grow of their own accord in spring and maybe I can start saving my own seed of them since I like the pinks...