The seed catalogs have started to arrive (seems early to me) and at least one of the companies might have a wrong idea about just how big my garden might be. Either that, or I am under estimating costs this year... #Gardening #Allotment #NewEngland #Zone6b #Seeds

I don't need a calendar to tell #Thanksgiving is almost here. The Thanksgiving cactus (Schlumgera truncata) is putting on a show again. Not technically part of Thanksgiving dinner, but part of the decor so I'm including the #Plantsgiving tag as well. #BloomScrolling #NewEngland #Gardening

For #Plantsgiving, #BeetBear suggests one of his favorite tipples, which in itself contributes 22 separate botanicals to the list. #gardening #NewEngland #Thanksgiving #Botany #PlantAwareness

With US Thanksgiving just about a week away, I'm once again participating in #Plantsgiving .This is an idea I first discovered a few years back proposed by Prof. Chris Martine at Bucknell U. Link to old page here:

Bucknell Blogs

Bucknell’s Martine Invites Everyone to Celebrate #PlantsGiving « For the Media

The idea is simple: Just record all the botanical ingredients in your thanksgiving meal & share them here with the plantsgiving hashtag. My list last year was 44 species. Helps raise #PlantAwareness among students, family and friends. #gardening #Botany

Here is my ProjectFeederWatch data for week number 3.

Project FeederWatch - Count Summary

We saw 22 species and 141 individuals this week. Had a nice visit from a flock of 19 Red-Winged Blackbirds. Junco numbers are climbing, too. The Red Shouldered Hawk that haunts the feeders doesn't seem to bother the song birds too much. They have plenty of cover to dive into when he comes by. Still a couple of chipmunks gathering seed, too. #ProjectFeederWatch #Birds #NewEngland #autumn #Gardening #Allotment

Update: All the prunings have now been shredded and have been placed as mulch around the row of blueberry bushes. One more job ticked off the to-do list. Note the way the mulch reddens as it ages. The redder stuff in the back is about a week older than the lighter stuff added today. #gardening #allotment #NewEngland #zone6b #Blueberries #apples

Finally finished pruning the "grand-daddy" Baldwin apple tree. For better or worse, that's as good as it's going to get this year. Not perfect, but it will do. Closeup shows how much the sapsuckers and woodpeckers love this old tree. While I was at it, I cut back the raspberries for the season. They were still bearing fruit, but last night's hard freeze turned the remaining ones to mush. Now to run it all through the shredder for mulch. #Gardening #Allotment #NewEngland #Apples #Zone6b

The apple tree pruning still continues... All of the "small" trees (Granny Smith, 2 Red Delicious, Blenheim Orange) are done & all the chippings have gone to mulch the blueberries. The "big" Baldwin is now about half done although not as elegantly as I could have hoped & the work continues as the weather allows. Freezing cold & snow flurries aren't friendly to these old hands, but we keep picking away. Hoping for better crop next season. #gardening #NewEngland #zone6b #Apples #Orchard