HOMEMADE WREATH AND GARLAND MAKING

WITH

LYN MUTH, FILOLI CERTIFIED

ASSISTED BY

LORI LUNDBURG

Our Miss Lyn, making a beautiful garland for mantals. She is Filoli certified. Her and Lori had a great time with our workshopees.

Her example of making a wreath. All items gathered where from around her house.




Here is a picture of some of the items that she used to make the wreath with and center into the garland.

Miss Lyn answering questions from our workshop attendees. Even Dan Wheat Sr enjoyed the class.

Getting ready to do her thing. We love that everyone had such a good time. They keep coming back and bringing more friends with them to attend the FREE workshops.

She used an old wire hanger to make her wreath with and used garden twine to start her garland with along with 24 gauge wire in a roll from the hardware store. She had a good pair of gloves, along several pair of pliers. She also showed them how to take the battery operated single window candles and place them in the garlands. She answered questions about drying fruit to hang along with the berries in either the garland or wreaths.

PUMPKIN PRESERVING

PUMPKIN PIE AND OTHER GOODIES FOR FALL......

PUMPKIN PRESERVING........

We had a great time at the Pumpkin Preserving class and what to do with the Pumpkin. From making pies to bread to muffins and the famous Pumpkin Pie.

PUMPKIN PIE RECIPE

Here is the recipe for two Pumpkin pies: you can either use fresh or Libbys canned Pumpkin.

2 1/2 cans of Pumpkin or 3 full cups of fresh Pumpkin

4 eggs, slightly beaten

1 1/2 cups of sugar or sugar Substitute

1 tsp salt

1 tsp ginger

2 tsp cinnamon

3 cups of milk ( 1 1/2 cups of evaporated milk, and 1 1/2 cups of whole milk)

4 EGGS, slightly beaten

2 1/2 cans of Libbys canned pumpkin or 3 cups of Fresh Pumpkin

1 1/2 cups of sugar or sugar substitute

1 tsp salt

1 tsp ginger

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp cloves

3 cups of milk - ( 1 1/2 cups of evaporated milk, 1 1/2 cups of whole milk )

Preheat oven to 425' degrees. In a large bowl, mix ingredients as listed together.

Bake for 15 minutes at 425 degrees, then reduce heat to 350' degrees and bake for another 45 minutes or until knife inserted in middle comes out clean when inserted into the middle of pie.

Let cool on wire rack for 20 minutes. Serve with homemade whip cream with a light hint of vanilla and cinnamon mixed into the cream. Enjoy.

Pie Crust.

I think we all have a different pie crust that we like to use. So use that one for your pies. I always make my pie crust first. Place in my pie plates and place in refrigerator until ready to use. I layer with wax or parchment paper as to help them not to dry out.

Pate Brisee (Short Crust pastry

2 1/2 cups of All purpose Flour

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp granulated sugar

1 cup ( 2 sticks) unslated butter, chilled and cut into 1 inch pieces

1/4 to 1/2 cup ice water

I use my food processor, but you can also a pastry cutter and a large bowl.

Combine flour, salt and sugar, mix well. Add the butter and process in your food processor or use your pastry cutter until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Slowly pour 1/4 cup into mixture as a steady stream until dough just holds together when pinched. Add remaining water, if necessary.

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface, and gather into a ball. Divide the dough into two equal pieces, flatten each portion into a dish, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate or 30 minutes to one hour before using. This will chill the butter and allow the gluten in the flour to relax. At this point you can also freeze the dough for later use.

When rolling the pastry out, make sure the pastry is an inch larger than the pan you are using.

On the last day of the Fall Home and garden show, the last cow had her calf. Baby is 11 years old and this is her last one. So his name is Finale'. He is a loving and fun calf. Loves to have his ears scratched and his forehead rubbed.

I waited until he and his Mom got situated on Monday and snapped some pictures of them.

WEEK OF VACATION and NEW INTERESTS

I had this week to not only clean house and start to put the leaves up as they fall. The weekend before the girls and I were at the Fall Home and Harvest Show. We had a great weekend. Here is the picture if my doing my demonstration on how to make homemade Applesauce.

Here is my wonderful worker and mother Bee, Miss Lyn. I love the way she took control of doing all of those soil samples. It took 14 hours of hometime to go through all of our customers samples. We hope we made every one happy with their results.

Miss Becca had her dark chocolate covered cheesecake. And she ended sharing with Mom.

Here is the end result of the demonstrations. Jars of Applesauce.

THE UNIONS FALL HOME AND HARVEST SHOW

Thank you to all who stopped by our booths at the Unions fall Home and Harvest Show. We did two canning demonstrations and had about 100 soil samples dropped off. The girls have their worked cut out for them this week.



We appreciate all who stopped by and saw us, talked to us and we enjoyed your company.

APPLE PIE CONTEST

This is our 3rd Place pie. Jenna brought hers in piping hot from the oven. And after two hours it was still warm. Loved the Crust.
This is our 1st Place pie from Deborah Martin. She was very creative with painting an Apple on top of the pie. It was also very tasty.

After the judging was done, we left the pies out for our customers to taste and share. The boys from the Hardware store made plates of 4 to 5 pieces on a plate to take home.

It was a great sweet treat to start fall with here at the Garden Center.

Saturday was our Apple Pie Contest. We had a great turnout with 15 pies. All very different and all were very good.

1st Place - Deborah Martin - $75.00

2nd Place - Lee Reilley - $50.00

3rd Place - Jenna Cross = $25.00

Composting and Fire safey Workshop

We had a great turnout for our Composting and Fire Safety workshop. Christine and Steve spoke for one hour to explain to everyone about Fire safety and Composting, and how they go along with each other.

As you clean your yards for fall and bring down dead branches, collect leaves, clean out gutter, and create fire safe zones in your yard you are protecting yourself for the upcoming Spring and Summer fire safety. With your yard wastes, you can start your compost pile, and continue to add kitchen scraps, cardboard, most sawdusts, tea bags, citrus rinds, coffee grounds and coffee filters.

DO NOT ADD: Meat, bones and fish, dairy products or grease, dog, cat or bird feces, Sawdust from plywood or treated wood, diseased plants or pernicious weeds such as bermuda grass, ivy, oxalis bulbs or burr clover.

With Fire safety, it is a year round aspect of life in California. We have very different climates.
When winter rolls around and you are getting ready to start your burn piles, here are some tips for you to follow.

1. Maximum pile size 4 foot diameter.
2. Area within 10 feet of outer edge of oile is maintained free and clear of all flammable material and vegetation.
3. Adult in attendance with shovel until fire is dead out.
4. Water supply at burning site.
5. No burning sall be undertaken unless weather conditions (particilarly wind) are such that burning can be considered safe.


Make sure that it is a permissable burn day and no permits are required to burn.

Hope this information is helpful. We had fun at the class. Hope to see you at the next one.

ANNUAL A TO Z SUPPLY GARAGE SALE

This coming Saturday, the 19th. We will be having our Annual garage sale here at the store and nursery. Doors open at 8 am. Hope to see you there

Yesterday evening was our Irrigation workshop. Dan Sr. spoke for over an hour and answered questions regarding drip irrigation and conventional irrigation.

All of our workshopees were very intentive as to what Dan Sr. was speaking about.

We had a good number of regular customers attend our workshop. We love to see them.

Dan Sr.'s demonstration table with anything and everything you could think of. From the smallest emitter to the largest conventional sprinkler that Hunter or Rainbird makes.

WATER FEATURE WORKSHOP

Our water feature workshop went well. Lyn and Steve walked and talked about all the different fountains we have in stock at the Garden Center.
They gave our workshopees some great examples and helpful hints to make one on their own.

From large to small, water features in your yard or small ones in your home help with noise and give a sense of calmness. They attract wildlife and sound wonderful.

Don't forget our next workshop is Irrigation with Dan. Wednesday at 6 p.m. in the Garden Center.

The 15th Annual A to Z Supply BBQ went on without a hitch. We had a great time. Lots of food and plenty of things to do. Here is some of the gang relaxing after eating a great BBQ.
Dan JR or DJ as we like to call him, playing Horseshoes in Dan Sr's backyard. With a 1/2 acre of lawn there was plenty of games to be had.

Jessica Kelly who works in the Garden Center, dropping off her dirt pudding on the dessert table. John Beatty behind her getting ready to have some more goodies.

Terri Rutan, our awesome bookkeeper, with Larry Stallion, Elizabeth Stallion and Loretto Beatty. Enjoying the shade near the creek in the backyard.

The youngest of the grandkids at the BBQ. Left to right. Lucas, Aaron and Becca. They were very tired at the end of the day. But they had a great time running around with the other 15 kids.

As you can see we have filled our shelves with a great Fall seed selection and canning items in stock to keep you going through the fall. We also have Winter Veggie stocks now and a great variety. We also carry Certified Organic Veggies Starts.

The first Voilas of the season. They are such a happy flower. WE love them, it reminds us that fall is just around the corner.

Antique Pansies are April's favorite fall flower.

This is our new addition to the Nursery. She is a Pot lady. We haven't named her yet and she is still missing some details. But we think she has great character.

Everyone have a great and safe weekend. Happy Labor Day.

A to Z Supply and the A to Z Supply Garden Center will be closed Monday.

Lavendar Creme Brulee

This was a huge hit at the Cooking with Herbs workshop. Lyn Muth made Lavendar Creme Brulee. So I thought I would post the recipe on the blog for all to share.....

ENJOY!

4 cups of Heavy cream
1 tablespoon of dried lavender flowers
8 egg yolks
3/4 cups of granulated sugar, divided

Preheat oven to 300`degrees. Butter (6-ounce) custard cups and set them into a glass baking dish. If cooking custards in a metal pan, cover the bottom of the pan witha layer of newspaper to ensure an even temperature on the bottom. Place custard cups ina shallow ovenproof roasting or baking pan.

In a large, heacy saucepanover medium heat, add cream and the lavender flowers; heat just to a simmer. Remove from heat and allow lavender flowers to infusewith the cream for 5 minutes. Strain cream mixture through a fine mesh strainer to remove lavender flowers.

In a large bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and 1/2 cup sugar until light and creamy. Slowly add the strained cream to the egg mixture, blending well. Divide custard mixture amoung the custard cups.

Bring the water for the water bath to a light simmer on top of the stove; carefully pour hot water into the baking pan to come half-way up the sides of the custard cups. NOTE: The most common mistake people make in baking a custard is not putting enough water in the hot water bath. The water shoul come up to the level of the custard inside the cups. You must protect your custard from the heat.

Bake 60 minutes for until set around the edges but still loose in the center. The cooking time will depend largely on the size of the custard cups you are using, but begin checking at a 1/2 hour and check back regularly. When the center of the custard is just set, it will jiggle a little when shaken, that's when you can remove it from the oven.

Remove from oven and leave in the water bath until cooled. Remove cups from water bath an refrigerate at least 2 hours or up to 2 days.

When ready to serve, sprinkle approzimately 2 teaspoonss of remaining sugar over creme brulee. For best results, use a small hand held torch. Hold the torch 4 to 5 inches from the sugar, maintaining a slow and even motion. Stop torching just before the desired degree of doneness is reached, as the sugar will continue to cook for a few seconds after flame has been removed.

Serve with some Creme Fraiche and a good cup of Java....

FERTILZING WORKSHOP

Lyn had a great night with our regular group of workshopees.......We had great information to hand out. They got to test their soil at the garden center. Already on the ball for the next workshop, Water features.......


Have a great Labor Day weekend.

HOMEMADE TOMATO SAUCE

I did it. I taught myself how to make tomato sauce from scratch. A bit time consuming but well worth the effort. I got 8 pints done yesterday and now more today. The longest part of it is cooking the juice down to half.....but now I don't have to buy any at the store and I now what is in it and where it came from......George at Sunsmile Farms has great tomatoes.......


Thanks, patti and george...

FREEZER PASTA SAUCE

We had a great turn out for the Freezer Pasta Sauce and had lots of fun. They all asked if Dan Sr would do a workshop on drip and irrigation. He said that he would. Jessica and I forgot to take pictures last night, but we had a lot of questions and had a great time with all of our regulars that attend our workshops.

I talked about some of the new USDA comments about the Steam Canner and brought up some great websites for canning. Next workshop is Cooking with Herbs.

See ya then!

April

Carolyn Heupel and Christine Smith. Carolyn for her Blackberry jam, 2nd Place.

This is our 1st Place winner for Jams and Jellies. Marian Fitzgerald made a Lemon butter that was the Bomb. She also one a Third place for her Blueberry Jelly.

Lyn Muth and Sherri Thibodeau pictured here. Sherri won 3rd Place for her Grape Jelly.

This is Lyn again, and Maria Unger, she won 2nd place for her awesome, Fresh Salsa. Let's just say it did not last long around A to Z Supply. The boys ate it right up.

FAIR WEEK

Well, it is Fair week and everyone is anxiously waiting for the results of their entries into the fair.

We would like to thank all of our participants for their entries into our Jam/Jelly and salsa contest. Here are our finalists:

SALSA

1st Place - Joanne Barsby

2nd Place - Maria Unger

3rd Place - Don Stone

Now our entries into the jam and jelly contest prove to be a challenging. So, Dan Sr decided to approach it this way.

1st Place - Marian Fitzgerald for her awesome Lemon Butter.

2nd Place was a tie:

Carolyn Heupel and Audra Hendricks

3rd Place went to three entries

Sherri Thibodeau

Marian Fitzgerald

Linda Bolleli

We thank them for their participation and all of their hardwork. We also gave everyone who did not win got Honorable Mentions and $10.00 gift certificate to use at A to Z.

Once again, Thank you and we hope to see you next year.

Dan, April and DanII

PICTURES OF OUR GUEST AT THE COOL SEASON GARDENING WORKSHOP

Lyn Muth, our Master Gardener conducted the Cool Season Gardening Workshop. Along with Dan Wheat Sr. They had a great time and the group of people asked a great amount of questions and they questioned Dan and Lyn for about an hour and half.

APPLE MEETING ABOUT SUSTAINABLE LIVING

Last night went well at the APPLE meeting. Met some great people from the Master Food Preservers. Talked for about 10 minutes. Very basic lesson on making jam. We had 21 people at the Cool Season Gardening Class at the nursery. Dan Sr said they had a good time. I will post more information and pictures later.

Finally, they are in their Coop

Lemon and Walnut are happy as can be. They are finally in their home and Mom is happy to have them off the porch.

All the babies finally came out of the large dog carrier we had them in and made themselves right at home. We have named most of them, but a few are just Chick.

This is Walnut, I think! She is happy scratching.

Roaming was the main task last night in their coop.

PICTURES OF THE NEW NURSERY PLANTS

New plants have arrived at the nursery. We have been busy this past week resetting everything and giving the nursery a fresh new look. Here are all the Echinaceas, Shasta Daisies and Rudbeckia.
Dogwoods with Lychnis and Lime Green Coral Bells.

Deer Resistant area? We added some Erica, Heathers, Crocosmia, Junipers, Emerald Carpet and other great plants.

This is a picture of Wilbur our new mascot. He is surrounded by our beautiful Maple trees.