Today was so beautiful and warm out compared to the rainy weekend we just had. I was actually able to go out into the garden this afternoon in just a t-shirt- no sweater required!

I took advantage of my baby taking an unusually long nap and harvested some catnip and calendula from the herb garden. Both herbs seem to be enjoying this warm and not so wet fall we have been having. The calendula keeps pumping out huge and beautiful blooms while the catnip is getting ready to flower yet again.

I was able to harvest two bunches worth of the catnip that I hung up to dry. Once the leaves are nice and dry I will store them for making teas. Catnip is good to add to tea mixes for settling the stomach or helping to relax.

I also plan to use some of the catnip leaves during the holidays when I hope to make some catnip toys for friends and relatives that have a few cats that will appreciate the homegrown, organic catnip.

The calendula flowers I gathered I will dry in the oven with just the oven light on which is still my favorite method for drying most herbs. I can never have enough dried calendula flowers on hand. It is such a useful medicinal herb. I always run out of what I grow every year.

It certainly did not feel like the second week of October out in the garden today. How is Autumn treating everyone else’s garden this week?

Last fall I planted a single catnip (Nepeta cataria) in front of our deck. It completely died back during the winter and came back happy as can be this spring. A little too happy I might add. As you can see in the picture below it swallowed up a rosemary cutting that did not grow quite as fast as the eager catnip did.

I should add that I cut this particular catnip back in the early summer to harvest and dry the leaves. The above picture shows all the growth it put on after it received a haircut. Quite a productive little guy wouldn’t you say?

I shouldn’t be surprised by its behavior though when I consider how prolific a Six Hills Giant catmint (Nepeta x faassenii‘Six Hills Giant’) has done in this garden the last two years. They are, after all, both related to mint. (My husband does not exactly appreciate this poor catmint as he finds it to be overgrown looking and rather wild despite me continually pointing out how much the bees love its flowers.)

I do believe I will be kicking myself come spring time 2009 though. I very foolishly got lazy when it came time to keeping the flowering catnip deadheaded. I am afraid it has probably dropped a thousand and one seeds by now. I may end up with an entire garden full of nothing but catnip babies. And I do not even have a cat to share it with!