A Letter To Autumn

Season 6, Episode 1, November 15, 2023

and

Nov 14, 2023

My favorite thing this week is my Amsonia hubrichtii, threadleaf amsonia.

Welcome to this week’s episode! Buckle in because we were quite chatty. How could we not? We were talking about fall leaf color, winter squash, books of letters which are epistolary.

Carol was so pleased with herself because she collected seeds from her stock flowers. Her favorite plants this week are her white crocuses. Mine is my threadleaf amsonia. I made an Instagram reel for it and a very prolific and late-blooming aromatic aster. Do you grow any asters in your garden? How about amsonia or crocuses?

Carol is pretty sure this is ‘October Glory’ taken in 2018. At that time, the tree was 21 years old. Carol bought it right off the delivery truck at Lowe’s in 1997.

For Christmas this year, Bill and I bought each other red maples, ‘October Glory’ and ‘Autumn Blaze,’ and they are coming on December 7th, a day that will live in infamy for many reasons. We’re planting the trees where the barn once stood before the fire so they are a hopeful thing, and we bought larger ones because Bill said he’s 69. He doesn’t have time to wait. Listen to the podcast to discover why Carol and I will have twinkie trees! A hint, it’s not about the snack cake.

Our flower topic was fall color, and it was mostly about shrubs, but a few trees snuck in there as trees will do when shrubs aren’t looking.

Carol, of course, wrote a Family Handyman Article: Best Shrubs for Fall Leaf Color. I list everything in my garden that has fall color.

Carol’s Fothergilla just past peak color.

It’s that pumpkin-y time of year so we decided to discuss winter squashes including a couple of new-to-us varieties.

But, first, a New World’s Record for a Pumpkin was set this year: 2,749 lbs. How on Earth did he get it from Minnesota to California without it losing weight along the way. The dang thing was 7.5 feet across. Inquiring minds want to KNOW! That means Carol wants to know. I don’t care.

Dried flowers on ‘Annabelle.’ It flowers on new wood so I usually leave these for winter interest.

I do care about the new cute butternut squash I’m seeing everywhere. It’s called Honeynut, and you can grow it from seed. Eden Bros. has seeds, and we have an affiliate link with them at the bottom of this podcast if you choose to buy some seeds there. I think it would very fun to grow. So cute and little and not so hard to deal with. Matt Mattus grew it this year. He said they were extremely productive.

For much of our winter squash information, we turned again to Farmer Lee Jones in The Chef’s Garden because we’ve decided it’s the bible of vegetable gardening and eating.

New to Carol is Delicata squash, another small and easy to handle winter squash. Roasted Delicata Squash Recipe. I love Delicata squash. Territorial Seeds has seeds. Ditto on the affiliate link.

I could only find two of my epistolary books, but look! I have an extra one. The first person to comment on the newsletter gets my second copy!

On our Bookshelf we discussed epistolary books:

Two Gardeners: Katharine S. White and Elizabeth Lawrence--A Friendship in Letters (Amazon link)

Dear Friend and Gardener: Letters on Life and Gardening (letters between Christopher Lloyd & Beth Chatto) (Amazon link)

A Year in Our Gardens: Letters by Nancy Goodwin and Allen Lacy (Amazon link)

A very old video Carol published about Nancy Goodwin’s garden, Montrose, with a surprise at the end. We loved her garden.

One other book of gardening letters worth noting is Tell About Night Flowers: Eudora Welty’s Gardening Letters, 1940-1949, edited by Julie Eichelberger. (Amazon Link).

In the online world, there are also letters between Marianne Willburn and Scott Buerlein on Garden Rant. They are funny and sassy!

I found our dirt because Mary Jane’s Farm Oct/Nov edition of her magazine was so much fun.

To learn more about our rabbit holes including Carol’s very long and in depth one, please check out this week’s episode. If I may say so, it was a fun one!

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