Closing Time

Maple Leaves Dancing in an Autumn Breeze

Yesterday I was having a cup of coffee looking at the sugar maple tree outside our kitchen window and I was instantly transported back in time almost 28 years ago. The leaves were just twittering (there's an old meaning for that word!) and I could see my now 28 year old daughter bundled up in her bouncy chair under the most amazing natural mobile, fall leaves blowing in the wind. Gosh that was a wonderful time. What I would do to go back to that time, even if just for a day. Sigh.

Ok, back to today. Today the garlic bed gets dug up, composted, and the garlic bulbs(cloves) put in. To do this I pull out all the plants from one of my beds. Then I put a 2" cover of compost on top of the bed. I use a pitch fork to dig the soil up and to dig the compost in. I then rake the bed and plant the garlic. When you get garlic from a seed supplier like Johnny's (I actually get mine from FEDCO in Waterville) it comes the same way you buy it in the grocery store, a bulb. You pull the bulb apart to seperate the cloves. You plant the cloves individually about 6" down in the soil and about a foot apart. Cover up with soil and voila the garlic is planted. I won't mulch the garlic bed with hay or straw until the soil begins to freeze hard. Otherwise mice will move in under the hay and do damage in the soft soil.

Finished Compost for Garlic - Wonderful Garden Gold!

Perennial flowers that still have seed heads attach and that self sow profusely will have seed heads all cut off today as well. Even though I actually began cutting the seed heads off the purple coneflowers yesterday. (Note: It's actually good to cut seed heads as they form throughout late summer). Seed heads of annuals such as sunflowers, dill, calendula, coriander, chervil I allow to stay so birds can eat them. While doing this I was suddenly bombed by several irritated gold finches. They were literally swarming me and yelling at me. It was wild. I stopped when I realized what I think they were so upset about and decided to leave the remaining seed heads for the birds to nibble on. But then I'll have a zillion coneflowers in the spring....ah such dilemmas! I will also begin to pull out dead plants and throw them into the compost pile. Tomatoes were pulled a while back and carted off to the dump due to them having that Late Blight fungus. So today I'll pull things like old lettace, basil, squash plants, annual flowers etc. So it'll be a long day but a beautiful day to do it.

Late Season Calendula

Plants such as parsley, leeks, chard will all be spared the yanking up of today since they are still producing. The parsley looks just beautiful. I may make a big harvest to dry. If I get to it.

Rhubarb Chard - As pretty as it is delicious

Well, off to the great outdoors I go. If I finish early enough I'll help Ger stack wood. We've got 3 chords to stack before next Sat. when we get another truck load. Now how's that for an optimistic and fairly delusional thought? Maybe I should just call now and make that massage appointment for tomorrow.

Garden clean up went well. Didn't stack any wood though. I wound up just cleaning out dead plants and adding them to the compost pile. I was surprised by how many weeds there were. I also harvested the rest of my beets, carrots, and parsley. I put pumpkins out front around the mailbox and lamp post. Corn stalks will come down tomorrow and I'll add them to the lamp post. One last chore of the season is to clean those garden tools and get the soil off of them. If I was a good little gardener I would take the time to clean my garden tools. Yeah right.

Pie Pumpkins before harvest

As I reread this I realized that I should post something about pumpkins. This is the month of pumpkin celebreations after all! As Halloween approaches and I think about how to use pumpkins in my 4th grade classroom I also thought about how to use pumpkins at home. I think I'll start another "Pumpkin" post. So stay tuned for Pumpkins for fun, eating, and decorating.

Enjoy the fall weather! And if you're from northern New England be sure to take some time to peep some spectacular leaves!