Garden Update | September 2020
I’m tired. The other day I sat in class and instead of listening to the lecture made an exhaustive list of everything “on my plate.” I looked at it all there in black and white, and I felt better. And then I felt worse. Dang, that is a lot of things. No wonder. The garden is tired, too. I’d like to think that we’re sympatico: two weary travelers, ready for a long winter’s nap. (Except if you know anything about gardening in the South, you know that there’s still plenty to be done in the winter. )
I don’t feel very motivated, though. Not inspired for tackling really any of the things on my list of “fall garden projects.” Along with the general lack of sleep that accompanies newborn life, I blame the property muse. That siren of fields and forests, open pastures and meadows. Goddess of space, quiet, and the extravagant splash of stars that you can only see when you’ve ventured beyond the grip of city lights. If you know, you know. You can forget you want her for awhile, but the desire only sleeps; it never dies. My parents found the property in question. They were looking for themselves, and Brian and I just came along for the ride. A few minutes in, we looked at each other and said, “This is the kind of place we’d leave our current home for. This is the kind of place that could be a forever home.” Our home now is a building on a little square of earth in suburbia, and we love it dearly. We’ve never had much money, but we have put so, so much effort into making it beautiful. But it isn’t a place in the sense of deep, rooted land. We made an offer on the surprise property but today found out that we didn’t get it. The news was disappointing, but left us galvanized: we understand a little better now what it is we want someday.
In the mean time, here are a few other things that went down in September.
CHICKENS | Gigi got bumblefoot and is quarantined in a dog crate until she heals. Poor dear; we think she stepped on a thorn and it got infected. With antiseptic spray and neosporin (nothing like raiding your own first aid drawer for your chicken) she’s healing nicely and hopefully will be back out with the other girls before too long. We have eggs coming out our ears. I’m sure they’ll start laying fewer soon with the shorter day length, but for the past two months, we’ve had enough eggs to eat every day and then plenty to share.
MOSQUITOS | We caved and had the mosquito people come and do a natural spray along the borders, not near the garden. We’d fallen behind in our garlic regime (ahem, Raife, ahem) and they were bad. This is one of those times that I bend my ideals; people have to be able to enjoy being outside, too.
BARN CAT | We now have a barn cat. An actual dream come true. We’d never actually adopt one, for fear of it getting killed on a nearby busy road. But for the past few weeks we’ve seen a calico hanging around, and I hope that she’s adopted us for good. I caught her today lurking outside the chicken coop, just watching them.
CUT BACK & CLEANUP | There are just a few summer annuals still going at it.I actually started three waves of zinnias this summer, spaced about a month apart, and it made all the difference for extending the bloom season. In another couple of weeks, I’ll do a final cut back of even those. Anything with seed heads like rudbeckia and echinacea I plan to leave overwinter for the wildlife.
FALL SEEDS | A week ago, I sowed winter greens and cool season annual flowers. I’ve been horrible about remembering to go down to the cellar everyday to water them, so germination has been patchy. I’ve found that with an infant, my capacity to nurture other small things is somewhat reduced these days.
FALL PLANS | I’d be lying if I said that the recent property tease hadn’t recalibrated some of our ideas of what we want to pour time and effort into this fall. We had planned to do fruit tree and bush planting and that just doesn’t seem important anymore. We may still develop a small new bed area for winter veggies and some perennial trials, but that’s it, and the next couple of weeks, we’ll probably get loads of mulch and compost to top dress everything. At least for now, the bigger dreams have flown this spot and we’ll just focus on maintaining what we already have.
