The End......Is Just The Beginning

As I simultaneously look forward and backwards at my gardening season, I'm also trying to focus on what needs doing now. While many are wrapping-up their gardening efforts , I'm pondering whether this is the year I finally keep my promise to release the year-round grower that lives inside me. In our climate, it's certainly possible, with planning , excellent timing, and a bit of hard work, to grow veggies right through the winter. It's mostly the timing, I think.

There are still summer crops still to be picked and enjoyed - a few tomato and pepper plants , both in and out of the greenhouse. Salad crops are still being successionally sown.The Brassica beds, planted over the last three weekends, need feeding.  I have fall/winter stuff to either plant, or get ground prepped for. A box of Leek plants arrived in the mail yesterday, gotta get them in the ground today. My onion plants - four varieties -  should follow towards next weekend. Later this month, I'll attend a Garlic Growing seminar at UCSC, and collect the 4 lbs. of garlic seed from the man giving the seminar. He farms 30 acres of garlic , at over 5,000 ft. elevation, in the Wasatch Mtns. of  northern Utah.

We're about ready to leave now, to get another load of horse manure, then visit Common Ground  in Palo Alto which sadly, is closing down. Two sixteen foot , rough-sawn redwood 2 X 12's , to be used as borders for a raised bed, await installation, allegedly today, also. Two other  growing beds need cleared of their summer crops and then will be refreshed with manure and compost, and immediately replanted. Seeds need starting - spinach, chard, lettuce, beets, and turnips.Gotta see why the row of Oregon Giant peas that  I planted last weekend aren't showing themselves just yet, maybe need to replant. Damn! And I want to see my new grandson today, if I am able to guilt my daughter into bringing him around. I'm gonna give him something he's not supposed to be eating yet. Well, at least according to my daughter. But this is her firstborn, I've raised three already, and believe I know at least as much as the experts in her childrearing books do. I know that I do. Chocolate for Conner today, maybe, when Mom's back is turned. Ahhh, grandparenthood.

Late this week, summer returned, over 90 F daytime temps, though still cooling to the mid-forties at night, perfect for sleeping. We need rain, but I dread what winter brings, namely shorter days, more time spent indoors, more weight on my body. Gotta break that cycle.