November is when our High Desert home really cools down, but this does not mean the end of the gardening season, especially for flower lovers. We have the perfect climate for starting what are called “hardy annuals and perennials” in the late Fall and Winter, and most of these flowers require it. Our Spring is too short for these flowers to develop a strong root system and produce the long, beautiful stems and flower heads that we would like to see. Start seed or buy transplants now for snapdragons, echinacea, Shasta daisies, larkspur, carnations, stock, yarrow, and direct seed beautiful ammi, sweet peas, bachelor buttons, rudbeckia, poppies, and calendula for a gorgeous early Spring garden. If your seed packets do state whether the seeds require light or not for germination, do a little further research. Many seed packets have a “generic” planting guide and are not accurate, especially when it comes to these “cool season” flowers.
Here at Moonstruck Farms, I am bringing in the last of the lilies just after I finish writing this, and then I will process more tomatoes, pears, and apples. We are drying more tomatoes for our soup mix, which we sell during the holiday season, and processing pears and apples for our Pear, Apple, and Cranberry jam, and of course applesauce, a staple here in our home during the Winter. I have just sent off our seed order to Geoseed, a wonderful seed company; though there is a small handling fee for small orders, and there are no pictures, and often the seeds are listed by their “genus/scientific” name, so you might have to do a little research to find what you like. For example, you will find sunflowers under “Helianthus”. These seeds will allow us to do our “cold hardy” annual and perennial seeding this season. The last of the apples are coming off the trees today, with these being from our large Granny Smith tree. We have reserved the large apples for making Caramel Apples for the upcoming holiday. The shelves in the storage room are filled with all your favorite jams and mustards, and they are now available in new decorative jars for our Etsy Store gift sets, which you can find online now. You can find us each Monday at the Phelan Farmers Market and sign up for our electronic newsletter on Facebook for more details of what is going on at the farm.
The Phelan Certified Farmers Market is now operating on Winter hours, from 2 pm to 5 pm each Monday, both inside and outside the Phelan Community Center at 4128 Warbler Road in Phelan. The Wrightwood Certified Farmers Market is operating from 3 pm to 6 pm each Friday and will move inside the Wrightwood Community Center as soon as Old Man Winter really shows his face!! The Wrightwood Certified Farmers Market does close the Friday after Thanksgiving. Stay tuned for more details on our social media channels. Both markets are active on Instagram and Facebook, and the Phelan Certified Farmers Market offers an electronic newsletter that you can sign up for on Facebook, receiving a Monday Brief each Monday with updates on what’s new at the market.
