I'm really ready to be done with the garden and yard. Not ready for the snow to fly, not even ready to rake leaves, but I'm yearning to break up with my reel lawn mower, pruners, and weed picker. Well, at least we need some time off from each other.
I know come February (okay, January)I'll be pining for those implements while I plan the vegetable garden whose bed will be buried under snow, but right now I'm just done. I'm sick of mowing grass that shouldn't be growing so much in September, tired of pulling the same weeds again, and saddened by pruning spent blossoms with no new blooms in the making for months.
Aside from a few beets lining the front of the garden and some volunteer cherry tomatoes that seem ripen way too slowly, there's little left but the herbs for food. The only flowers remaining are the autumn joy sedum. They're a personal favorite, with lovely succulent leaves in spring and summer and pink flowers deepening to russet as summer turns to fall. Along with the petal-free remains of the purple cone flowers and black-eyed susans, they add much-needed winter interest and landing pads for smaller birds. They also will give me hope when winter days drag on - spring will return.
My negative yard maintenance attitude abates a bit once I don my garden gloves and hit the dirt, pulling weeds, beating back the buttercups and bee balm, and removing dead day lillies. Cleaning the vegetable garden remains reminds me of the pesto I plan to make and freeze and the potatoes out of sight but still under the soil. Along with those beets and a few more carrots in my younger's garden, there's still some harvest remaining. After an hour of sweat-producing labor, my attitude about the yard is markedly brighter and my mood is lighter. Guess I'll keep the mower and garden on.
I know come February (okay, January)I'll be pining for those implements while I plan the vegetable garden whose bed will be buried under snow, but right now I'm just done. I'm sick of mowing grass that shouldn't be growing so much in September, tired of pulling the same weeds again, and saddened by pruning spent blossoms with no new blooms in the making for months.
Aside from a few beets lining the front of the garden and some volunteer cherry tomatoes that seem ripen way too slowly, there's little left but the herbs for food. The only flowers remaining are the autumn joy sedum. They're a personal favorite, with lovely succulent leaves in spring and summer and pink flowers deepening to russet as summer turns to fall. Along with the petal-free remains of the purple cone flowers and black-eyed susans, they add much-needed winter interest and landing pads for smaller birds. They also will give me hope when winter days drag on - spring will return.
My negative yard maintenance attitude abates a bit once I don my garden gloves and hit the dirt, pulling weeds, beating back the buttercups and bee balm, and removing dead day lillies. Cleaning the vegetable garden remains reminds me of the pesto I plan to make and freeze and the potatoes out of sight but still under the soil. Along with those beets and a few more carrots in my younger's garden, there's still some harvest remaining. After an hour of sweat-producing labor, my attitude about the yard is markedly brighter and my mood is lighter. Guess I'll keep the mower and garden on.
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If you are growing more food than you need. you may want to visit www.AmpleHarvest.org - a site that helps diminish hunger by enabling gardeners to share their garden produce/herbs with neighborhood food pantries.
The site is free both for the food pantries and the gardeners using it.
Over 970 food pantries nationwide are already on it and more are signing up daily.
It includes preferred delivery times, driving instructions to the pantry as well as (in many cases) information about store bought items also needed by the pantry (for after the growing season).
If your community has a food pantry, make sure they register on www.AmpleHarvest.org.
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