Fall Gardening

Yesterday I took down the vegetable garden. This is what used to be the tomatoes.

The sunflower stalks were super strong and woody. I read somewhere that people used to burn the stalks in the winter for heat. Now I can see why. (But they must have to be dried; inside there was a lot of gooey liquid.) I bent most of the stalks over and broke them off because for the most part they were too strong (and I was too weak) to pull them out of the dirt.

Look how big around they are. There was one stalk that I couldn't bend or get out of the ground. So we have one lone sunflower stalk still standing in the bed. It looks pretty dorky. Oh well.

In the summer I posted photos of the beautiful sunflowers. This is what happens to them by the middle of October. The seeds have already been eaten by birds.

Okay, I did find a bit of yellow beauty left.

The garden still has some life left in it. The deer even left us some carrots.

And the arugula.

The lettuce greens growing in our deck garden bed are just coming on. Today Brad is making a cold frame for the bed.

I cannot fail to mention that whoever works outside always has a buddy. 

Today I paid it forward for next year, planting about 75 tulip bulbs and about 50 garlic cloves. And I picked some of the pretty fall foliage that is in our yard. Next on the agenda is mulching the leaves as they fall, picking up branches, a couple more plants to transplant, and general cleanup. Then it will be time to enjoy some indoor projects and plan for next year's garden.