These Things Done

It was grocery day, and doctor day, and pharmacy day, and builder's mart day, and garbage day, and laundry day and fill-the-truck-with-gas day, and post-a-letter day.

I'm not sure how we planned it so that all these "days" collided. We usually try to limit the errands to three. However, we survived the process, though we will pay for a few days.

After our cold snap temperatures are back to seasonal norms. It was lovely and sunny and quite warm today - for mid-October. There's still a lot of winterizing to do but the predictions are for this warmth to last for another 10-14 days, so we have time to get the storms up.

Although you don't see it here, I need to get into the garden desperately. The frost blackened tomato vines, beans, melon vines and peppers are really dreadful looking, and need to be cleaned up. I also need to give all the still-blooming and growing plants a good drink. This requires carrying water since the hoses have been turned off for the winter. I wish I'd have known they were going to turn them off, I'd have given everything a deep soaking.

I bought a package of spring bulbs to tuck into empty spots in the shade garden. These are one of my much loved early spring bloomers, the deep purple blue Muscari Armeniacum (grape hyacinth). They will be up and over with before the trees leaf out and shade the garden. I made the mistake of buying 150 bulbs at a time about five years ago, and will never repeat it. Not only was I worn out from grubbing on my knees, I ran out of room in the flower beds and actually sneaked into the neighbour's flower beds while they were gone to plant the extra bulbs. This time I bought 20, and I still may find it challenging finding a root-free spot to plant them in.

Speaking of roots and trees, we are losing the Mock Cherry in the front. Its trunk has become dangerously rotten and unstable. The robins nest in that tree every year. I hate to have it taken down but it's going to come down on our heads one of these windy nights. The robins can move 20 feet further along and build a nest in the Mock Cherry at the end of the shade garden.

Out in the garden this week we will be able to harvest and eat bok choi, Brussels sprouts, and kale. I'm looking for ways to keep the kale alive over the winter, and found a great idea for row covers over at A Growing Tradition. I will probably put a thick blanket of leaves over the kale and cover it all, then pull it back once it starts to warm up a bit in spring, so we have an early crop of kale.

Now off for a night of well-earned sleep,