We had a very weird growing season here in central Vermont. A wet and chilly spring and a dry and warm autumn had everyone confused. We had a string of four days near or at 90 degrees in late September. This past weekend Batman and I put the gardens to bed in mid seventy degree weather. Our foliage season has been completely off kilter. Mother Nature is expressing the unease so many of us feel...
My brother Doug helped Batman build four new garden beds and treat them with linseed oil. This weekend Batman and I installed and leveled the beds. We hauled a truckload of composted manure up the hill and divided it up between the four beds. Then we harvested some amazing kitchen compost from our homemade compost bin and dumped it on top. We'll let everything settle over the winter and then have fun planting seeds next spring. The garlic have already been tucked into one bed and we covered it with straw from the wedding bale. The leeks and some of the herbs are still braving the chilly evenings. Sometimes I find green sage nestled under the snow as late as December.
Later we mulched the fallen leaves from the yard and piled them in the now empty kitchen compost bin, to mix with kitchen scraps over the winter. Just trying to keep the process as local as we can.
So, farmers and gardeners, as we get ready for colder weather here in the northern hemisphere, let us take a leap of faith and let us hope with fierceness that all will green up again in the spring. May we trust that the circle will come round again to growth and nourishment and food security for all.
And may we all take pleasure when the seed catalogs start arriving in our mailboxes later this winter. Hope. Pages and pages of hope.
(This picture is especially for Simone and Andrea)
xo
Raised beds were the answer for us so we send a cheer your way for adding a couple more to your bit of earth. Much the same sort of activities are going on here with temps predicted to be in the 20s at night this weekend.
ReplyDeleteAny chickens in your future??? We find that the used bedding from the chicken house is pure magic in the raised beds once it's spent a winter "stewing".
Gardens are indeed what hope looks like....
Oh Sharon, we go round and round about chickens...but I am delighted to hear of your strong endorsement for the "stewing"!
Deletexo
Your garden beds look so organized Karen. It is an ambition of mine to have a few raised beds in the garden one day! Thank you for the tree picture! It's beautiful! What type of tree is it Karen? :)
ReplyDeleteThat beautiful reddish orange tree is one of Vermont's classic sugar maples. They were some of the last to change this fall and they are creating fabulous splashes of color in these last few days of foliage. xo
DeleteI know what you mean. I can't remember a time when I harvested carrots and tomatoes at the same time. I've gathered some of the green tomatoes to make pickles because I'm wondering if we'll just skip fall and head straight to winter.
ReplyDeleteWe shall see...we've usually had our first snowfall by now. Nothing yet...
DeleteSo glad you are sowing seeds of hope at your bit of earth, Karen. xo
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