more garden notes

Gardeners are the eternal optimists. Even when we know all the things that can go wrong, with hope and faith we approach this labor of love. Sometimes we are rewarded, sometimes not. Education, experience, luck, weather, water, attention, a higher power all take their part in this dance. The garden is a complicated world.

Outside the garden I feel almost powerless to have an impact. I only hope that by putting my energy toward what I know to be good for myself and the planet, my efforts will ripple out to others.

One of the great benefits of being at home has been the time spent in the garden. It was somewhat successful this year. I've been eating from it for months and have put up a goodly amount of fruits and vegetables, pesto and tomato sauce. I have a garden bed full of various greens which should go on until a hard freeze.

We may have a cold winter this year so says the old tale that a cold winter follows a good fruit year. It has been a wonderful fruit year, everything large and tasty. I'm just now putting up pears, apples are next. I may pot up and bring in some lovely pepper plants loaded with little peppers, along with some parsley and basil plants. An experiment, they may grow slowly in my garden room. Was just given some mango trees, now a foot tall. They and several other houseplants cry out to be repotted.

Looking forward to putting the garden to bed as soon as frost comes. I'll pant a large bed of garlic and one of strawberries. The rest will be put in winter rye as a green manure crop to be turned under next spring. And so it goes...

I do wish I'd taken pictures even with my %^&*()/ camera. In true gardener logic...there's always next year.