Garden Bloggers' Where-Have-All-The-Flowers-Gone Day

This is all I got.

I think there are still some calendulas blooming at my community garden plot, but it was too much effort to go over there especially since we've been alerted to a huge soccer tournament with buses parked in our usual spots. (Perils of gardening in the largest youth soccerplex on the East Coast.) We've had a few days of really serious well-below-freezing weather here in Maryland, and that does it for most of the flowers, though the yellow chrysanthemum that accompanies this one (I don't have names for either. I get all my mums handed down from other people. I guess they're stepmums) still has some blooms in serious need of deadheading (if I ever got around to that). And probably there are a few roses hanging on too.

But mostly, we're done. (I have three amaryllis chilling in the library. With the lead pipe and the candlestick.)

Colors

I've been posting over on Grow It Eat It about how I managed to make a green cake using purple sweet potatoes, and today I made the first attempt at overcoming the problem: sweet potato muffins with yogurt and lemon juice to counteract the alkaline baking powder and baking soda. Except… the recipe involved molasses, which when combined with the deep purple turned a nice dark brown that totally failed to reveal any other color, whether purple or green or anything in between, and also created the expectation of a chocolate taste which is entirely not present. Though they taste pretty good anyway.

I guess I'll have to try again, with a sweetener in a lighter hue. Meanwhile, I think I'll make a sweet potato pie, which (from the photos I've seen) will be reliably and extraordinarily dark purple.

Speaking of anthocyanins, have some red oak leaves:

I'll get out and take some more leaf photos when the wind calms down a bit.