Namaste

In honor of Simon's impending trip to Mumbai I decided to carve the "Om" symbol in my pumpkin this year. Not sure if it is sacreligious to use this sacred Dharmic symbol to celebrate our hedonistic interpretation of All Hallows Eve, but it turned out pretty good!

On Sunday, Simon leaves for a 10-month long fellowship in Mumbai, India. As a World Partner for the American Jewish World Service, he will be working at the non-profit Dasra. For more information check out his Donation Page and Dasra's website. Warning: with Simon gone, the photography of my blog is going to seriously suffer! It's hard to take pictures with one hand. ;) I'll try to make do. I'll also miss you very much...Namaste.

Bottling the Pumpkin Ale

The time has come to bottle the Pumpkin Ale we brewed back in September. A home brew kit or home brew store will have unlabeled bottles, caps and a capper for this part of the process. You can also save old beer bottles and wash them thoroughly before re-bottling them.

Before you bottle, you must first add dextrose, which is a sugar, to your beer. The yeast will eat the sugar and give off the bi-product carbon dioxide, and thus carbonizing your beer. Science! So until you add the sugar, there is no carbonation. (Dextrose can also be purchased at any home brew store.)

First, boil the dextrose with a small amount of water for 5-10 minutes and then add it to the bottling bucket. Next, make sure your bottles are clean (a rinse through the dishwasher will do) and then siphon the finished beer from the bottling bucket into the bottles and cap.

(had to steal these pictures because we forgot to photograph our process: photos . Pardon the man-hands)

In about a week you will have ready-to-drink, carbonated beer. You can store the bottles at room temperature or in the refridgerator, but make sure to keep the bottles out of direct sunlight. In total, we made about five gallons of Pumpkin Ale for around $35.00. Just in time for Halloween!

Roses Are Red

Last night as Simon was so sweetly picking me up a bouquet of flowers, he was asked by two NYPD officers if he knew what each color of roses meant. He didn't and, when he got home, I explained them to him so that next time he would know! I am not sure what the origin of these rules are or if anyone really abides by them, but here is a simple break down of how it works:

Red = "I Love You"

White = Reverence, Innocence or "I Am Worthy of You"

Pink = Admiration or "Thank You"

Yellow = Friendship or "I Care"

Orange = Desire or Enthusiasm

Peach = Appreciation

Black = Death or Farewell

Lavender = Enchantment or "Love At First Sight"

Apparently a single, thornless rose also says "Love At First Sight." Now you know, so pick your colors carefully!

In Season: October

I took advantage of having a car in the city this weekend and journeyed to Fairway in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Whoa. It was amazingly overwhelming. It's as if Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and Costco got together to make a super grocery store with a stellar selection. Their produce section is an engineering feat, with vegetables and fruits teetering on the brink of collapse. I could have spent a whole week in there tasting and exploring, but alas I only had an hour. In addition to amazing olives, cheese and craft beer, I did manage to pick up some in-season October produce:

Apples, Celery, Grapes, Lettuce, Potatoes, Pumpkins, Radishes, Spinach, Turnips, and Winter Squash. An interesting point I just noticed: our produce is starting to come from the ground where it is still warm, instead of from bushes and trees where it is growing colder...

"Winter is Coming"

"Winter is Coming" as the Stark Family motto goes (Game of Thrones fans, anyone?). The nightly lows are creeping down to the 50s and it is time to get your plants and pots ready for the colder weather. You can remove your summer flowers and vegetables now as their season has passed and replace them with heartier greens for the coming months. Plants from the Brassicas Family: Kale, Kohlrabi, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Brussels Sprouts, Broccoli,  Rutabaga, Turnips and Mustard are the perfect Fall crops. Unfortunately, I do not get enough light this time of year on my fire escape so my outdoor growing season is over until spring. I will still be growing things in my apartment though, and sharing of course, don't you worry!

If you have land (lucky you!) fall is the time to mulch. The idea of mulching now is not so much to keep the soil warm as it is to keep the soil temperature even throughout the winter season. This is also the time that you plant your spring bulbs.

If you do not have land (like me!) and are the proud owner of a container garden it is time to compost and/or dispose of your summer annuals and prune your perennial flowers and vegetables. For example, my lavender plant is a perennial, which means that it comes back each year. By pruning it after it is done flowering, I am encouraging root growth throughout the winter and, come spring, it will be, "hard(ier), better, faster, stronger." Kanye would be proud.

One way to prune your lavender is to let your cat go to town on it...

This is actually not advised!! Instead, cut back not only the flower stems, but also about a third of the gray-leaved stems as well.

Avoid pruning back so far that only woody stems with no leaves are showing. Make sure that what you are pruning with is sterilized! It may look like it has a "bad haircut," as Simon noted, but I promise that come spring it will look 10x better!

To prepare your container garden for the Winter, you not only have to worry about your perennials surviving the cold, but also your containers. Once you remove your plant debris and soil, thoroughly wash the container to prevent any harmful pathogens that might survive the winter and ruin your spring plantings. This next part is hard for space-strapped New Yorkers, but it is not a good idea to keep terra-cotta, glass or glazed pots outside. These pots will absorb moisture throughout the cold, snowy months which will then freeze and cause your pot to break. If you do not have room to bring your pots inside for the winter (this is when a garage would be handy) you can carefully stack them inside the largest pot and place the stack against your apartment wall so that the radiant heat from the building will keep them slightly warmer. Other people suggest wrapping the pot with bubble wrap and covering the pot with leaves or straw. You do not have to worry about this though if you have any plastic, polyurethane, fiberglass, wood or concrete pots. Preparing your pots and plants for the winter now will make spring easier and more rewarding.