Wednesday, October 12, 2011

My Gardening 99% Finished for This Year

        For the last couple of weeks we have had cool nights down to 2 or 3 degrees C. We've had 5 or 6 nights with light frosts of minus 2 o3 C. The days continually get shorten so we have less sunlight each day. As a result plants become very inactive and some are totally inactive. So my gardening has pretty well finished except for some clean up.

        In my vegetable garden I still have carrots, parsnips, beets and turnips. These plants aren't doing anything. They just keep better if they're left in cool soil. I had tomatoes growing on the south side of my house which is brick. It's a super place to grow tomatoes but the tomatoes gave up the fight and I pulled them out a week ago.

      I grow very few annuals. My petunias are still doing well and are full of blossoms so this is the only thing I am watering. All perennials are pretty well dormant. I want to wait a little while longer before I cut them off. Grass in the parks and boulevards is brown. Grass in yards where fertilizer and water have been applied is still green.

      Most trees have lost their leaves. We have a few trees that hang on to leaves for a long while.

      So all I have to do is clean up. Leaf raking will go on for a while as leaves come to visit my place from a long way away where they have not been raked. The pictures of the same ash tree were taken 50 days apart. I still have compost to dig into my garden. Then there are those perennials that I have to cut off and that means I am finished for the year.

     So if I count all the activity from the spring time I'm 99% finished. It was a tough year because of weather but in the end everything paid off. It's a summer of pleasure watching plants grow and develop and if a few birds visit that's a bonus.

8 comments:

  1. I think I'm ahead of you.....I'm done.....all that's left is to mow the leaves and grass one more time and change the oil in the mower.

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  2. Linda your yard is much bigger than mine so you have a way more to do than I do. I only have a mower so everything else is done by hand.

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  3. I live in an apartment, so I don't have to do anything to the lawn. I do enjoy it, and all the greenery, but you're right. It's the time of year when things are going dormant.

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  4. DJan it's a time of year when things are in change. For someone like me who spends a lot of time outdoors it's noticeable.

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  5. Hi Red
    Enjoy the winter(???) - God only knows how you manage. The grass will come back, the flowers/bulbs ( God only knows how will survive) - well from sub-tropical Brisbane, Australia, we don't have thankfully, this problem. Well certainly like Canadians.
    We will probably here will be rained and sauned out - not wonderful but better than a big freeze a la Alberta prairies.
    Cheers
    Colin

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  6. Colin , there is some of winter I don't enjoy. I'll admit that. I lived in the Arctic for five years and only remember being cold once.
    I don't like hot weather, Plus 20 and I'm uncomfortable.
    Now I could get used to hot weather and dislike cold?

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  7. I have been quite enjoying our fall, though its cooler the neighbours planter flowers are all still a profusion of blossoms. I love the change that happens in spring and fall, winter not so much. hugs!

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  8. Agreed Tess, spring and fall are more interesting as the changes are striking. One we anticipate better things ahead and the other disaster looms.

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