Transitions

Little by little, winter is creeping in upon us. Not in major ways, despite the little cold spell that's passing through at the moment, but in smaller ones. This morning I lowered the storm windows, raised the upper sash in the back room. Left the kitchen window open, since I'm not yet ready to close the house up completely. Some warmer weather will return, surely, before frost hits.

Out in the garden.....

The results of my work over the past couple of weeks -- all four beds cleaned of weeds and/or summer plants, fertilized, planted or made ready for planting or..... read on. There's plenty of more work to be done out here, but my energy is pretty much limited each day, so progress is slow.

Things are rather dull, I'm afraid, but it's all in transition, one way or another. Yesterday I pulled all of the basil plants and the tomato from the bed on the front right, trimmed the thyme and lemon thyme way back. The bed on the front left has little greens seedlings and a few leftover (but still good) leek plants. The winter frost-gard cover is waiting in the wings to cover the hoops when needed. The left rear is ready, waiting to be planted with garlic again. I wasn't going to plant garlic because I felt I would likely not be here to harvest it, but then who knows -- so I'll plant it anyway.

The right rear -- to be left vacant but with a twist. After years of piling kitchen waste in bins far in the rear, I've decided upon a layering compost experiment in this last bed. Dug all the weeds out, have started dumping my indoor compost into that bed one small hole at a time, covering it, moving on to another hole each time, and letting nature take its course. The earthworms and other soil critters should love it. Basically, it'll be one giant worm bed. And I won't have to walk so far or work so hard to a) dump the compost bin in the first place and b) make use of the resultant compost if I desire to do so next spring. The process can be rotated from bed to bed each year, if I'm here to do it.

This lone echinacea plant keeps putting forth new buds and blooms, making a welcome but somewhat incongruous sight amidst all the colorless surroundings. I have a vague idea of moving these perennials into the center of this bed soon, then transplanting some oregano and chives from beneath the runaway rosemary and eventually turning this into a strict herb bed, surrounding the perennials.

Winter also means that I'm going to start needing to think about bringing these lemongrass plants inside during the cold weather.  Where to put them, what to put them on for drainage, and such stuff.  I plan to harvest some of them soon -- but they'll just grow back.

So -- tis a bit of a dreary day here, inside and out. I was planning to attend my monthly half-day meditation session but had to cancel because I just don't feel so hot. That makes two months I've missed (last time because I was out of town). These are some of the only friends I have that are close by, and it would have been good to see them.