fall plantings, apple cake, and a lovely dahlia

with the weather getting much brisker and the sun not shining on us quite as often as during the summer, we've been spending a little less time in the garden. but, we managed to muster up the motivation to get out and plant some garlic and rainbow chard.
back in july, we bought several heads of garlic at the farmers market on lopez island, knowing that we'd be able to plant it in sept/oct. considering october is quickly passing, we decided it was about time to get these guys planted.

we also inherited some garlic from brian's late uncle bob's
farm in montana. it was really a special feeling to plant these in our garden - i really hope they mature and we can keep saving cloves to grow year after year. all in all, we planted 4 long rows of garlic.

on sunday, we also planted a couple rows of rainbow chard. we've been really pleased with the swiss chard we planted months ago that is still coming up after we cut it. had some yesterday with some chicken sausage, white beans, and fresh rosemary - a really delightful autumn meal.

the rainbow chard (assuming it germinates!) will provide some much needed brightness in the garden as winter approaches. we're hoping it's not too late in the season to start. with our relatively mild winters, kale, chard, and other hardy greens tend to do really well here (though this is our first time ever really testing out that theory).


all this talk about vegetables...after planting the garlic and chard, i headed back inside to make use of some apples we'd had sitting around from last week's farmers market and a friend's yard. several week's ago i saw a recipe for a raw apple cake that sounded delicious. by the way, the blog where i spotted it is just great - mixed greens.

anyway. apple cake. i love apples and they are in abundance this time of year. but one of the secret reasons i decided to test this recipe out was to further convince my dear husband that we really should purchase a couple of apple trees. i also wanted to test out our new bundt pan - something i've always been intimidated by, for some reason. perhaps because "bundt" is a funny word that is strangely difficult to pronounce.

regardless, the apple cake turned out quite well - very much like a carrot cake. i tweaked the recipe just slightly by using whole wheat pastry flour, and i made up my own cream cheese frosting by whipping it with a little powdered sugar, cinnamon, and chopped walnuts.


to round out this piecemeal post, i photographed a lovely dahlia - my favorite flower. we planted a handful of bulbs late this spring - some of which my mom gave to us from her massive stock and others we purchased at...costco. i believe this stunner is actually from the aforementioned big box. dahlias remind me of pike place and northwest summers. we'll be planting many more next year.