October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came:
The ashes, oaks, and maples,
And those of every name.
– George Cooper –
The season of mists and mellow fruitfulness is upon us. I’m looking forward to some relaxing days in the garden to putter around and do some clean up. There is none of the urgency of spring at this time of year. I always enjoy the winding down of the gardening year. The weather is usually beautiful and there is a sense of accomplishment at getting various clean up jobs checked off my mental list.
I try to take a little time every fall to add some compost or similar to both flower and vegetable gardens. I can’t help but notice that the most productive area of one of my vegetable gardens is where I used to grow greens under a shadecloth. I added horse manure to that bed for years and years and I can still see the difference that made. I can’t be bothered with the greens anymore but the years of improving the soil for them had a definite long term benefit. The tomato jungle grew there this year and did very well.
This fall I will add bagged sheep manure to some of the vegetable beds. I don’t do every bed every year. Doing half every year seems to be enough to keep everything productive. I also dig in any leaf mulch that remains at the end of the season.
Which brings me to another important job in the fall. I rake the leaves and keep them in an open enclosure ready to use for mulch in the spring. They make great mulch in my sandy garden and leaves add much needed organic matter to the soil. Very easy and the price is right.
We have not had a frost yet here in the valley. A frost free September has been great for the self seeded morning glories. They are still blooming and they didn’t seem to suffer at all after being toppled in the recent windstorm. I was lucky that there wasn’t more wind damage. It’s a relief to be able to clean up the frosted cucumber vines and the tomatoes but I’m always sad to see the morning glories go.
When it gets a little cooler I will plant my giant alliums. These arrived a few days ago along with a rather unfortunate brochure about how to achieve natural looking groupings of bulbs. There is no way that something that is five feet tall with a big purple globe on the top will ever look natural. We are going for dramatic effect here. If Dr Seuss had a garden it would be full of giant alliums.
A word of caution to those who strive for drama in the spring bulb garden: try to avoid my neighbour’s mistake of planting fifty or so giant fritillaries. These look great from a hundred feet away but up close they smell like something died in the garden. Unfortunately the bulb catalogues are less than honest about the smell issue with these. They just don’t bother to mention it and leave the unfortunate gardener to learn the hard way.
I am hoping that the giant alliums do better than the supposedly giant ornamental rhubarb I planted recently. It barely survived the drought of July and is not looking remotely large. Maybe next year it will be happier. Isn’t that the perennial wish of the hopeful gardener?
I am relieved that nothing needs to be watered or tended to at this point. I will eventually get a bed ready to plant garlic. I’m not in any hurry to do that and I have waited as late as November some years. As much as people like to be very opinionated on the best time to plant garlic, I have found that it doesn’t really matter.
Fall brings dry sunny days for painting, wood piling, leaf raking and so many other seasonal jobs. I will be out there trying to get a few things done or maybe more realistically just puttering around. Happy fall everyone.
By Jill Williams
