Thanksgiving: Tucking the Garden in for Winter

There’s nothing about Thanksgiving I don’t like. It involves gratefulness and I am grateful for much: a secure childhood, loving parents, family relationships, good friends, a job I like, a cozy home, good health, a garden, and the joy and wonder in creation retained into adulthood.

My maternal grandfather grew these strawberry popcorn ears. I use them as a fall decoration now.

This year in particular I am grateful for a little extra time off–four days counting the holiday. I took Friday off, knowing the forecast was for a lovely day. While Jane, Sarah and I put the large Plot Against Hunger garden to bed last weekend, I still needed to finish my own garden clean up and the small garden needed some work as well. I spent the afternoon ordering my garden for the winter. I weeded and hoed and then I piled on compost. I gathered the stakes and tomato cages and secured them for winter. I watered the tiny lettuce seedlings in the cold frame.

The roses are still blooming and still have buds.

The garlic plants are doing well and the parsley is flourishing in the cool. Lots of flower seedlings are up, boding well for the spring.

Perhaps the parsley is thriving because it’s no longer shaded by the okra.

Until it frosts heavily or we get snow or freezing rain, I will have the parsley, leaves from a beet I never harvested, chard, and kale. I also planted some onions and shallots in short rows, hoping they will mature in the spring. We’ll see. Potatoes and onions are terra incognita for me and once in a while I make a stab at figuring them out.

Garlic center; beet to the left; blue Russian kale to the right.

Many of the zinnias have been bitten by frost and I pulled some out, shaking the seeds over my outside border, which would be lovely if covered with zinnias.

Black-eyed susans are still blooming.

I won’t be back to the garden except to close the cold frame completely when it stays under 50 degrees every day, grab some greens, and prune the roses and the trumpet vine. Ah, and collect fresh lettuce if it grows well.

Maybe now I can focus on getting the kitchen remodelled…