Preparing for winter...

October 25, 2022

Over the last few days, Mother Nature has blessed us with sublime warmth and sun, a reward for enduring close to a week of wet, grey days. It has been great weather for getting the garden beds ready for winter. Today is a little overcast and dawned foggily, but it is still fairly warm, and expected to go up to 20C (68F) later. Over the weekend and yesterday, the afternoon temperatures topped out at 23C (73F).

The leaves are mostly off all of the trees now, just the oaks

 

and beeches

 

 

still cling firmly to theirs.

 The trembling aspen leaves

seem reluctant to drop until a breeze wafts through and then they shower down like fat gold coins, carpeting the ground beneath the trees. 

With the last few dry days, the colourful leaves covering the trails, have dried and faded to brown,

 so now a walk through them is a noisy, crunchy business.

The garlic was planted a week or so ago,

and over the past few days, manure has been spread on the other beds, and my quota of mulching leaves for next summer has been collected, bagged and stored in the barn.

I just love my 'Yellow Beast'! Its makes short work of collecting all the leaves I need. (I reuse those industrial strength bags until they are in tatters.)
I dug out the crocosmia bulbs and rearranged them in the tire planter, so hopefully they will give me more blooms next summer.  It was obvious that the corms had spent a lot of their energy making babies instead of blooming! 

Asparagus ferns are cut and laid over that bed, a little more protection for the roots, until we get a blanket of snow. 

The strawberry bed has been dug out, replanted and mulched with some fresh straw I scored from a neighbour.

Hubby has reinforced the hardware cloth sides, and once the lids are put on next spring, I defy those striped vermin to get my berries!

The bed of greens and the broccoli patch soldier on, as we have not had a frost heavy enough to finish them yet. 

The winterberry bushes are loaded this fall, a vibrant pop of red colour.....lots of food for my feathered friends. 

The colours of autumn.....

October 13, 2022

It is a very busy time of year, getting the gardens cleared and put to bed. We have had a wonderful string of warm, sunny days and frosty nights. 

Here are a few shots of what has been going on here over the last while, as well as some drone shots of the colours around our clearing. It is raining and windy today, and all those beautiful leaves are fluttering down with every gust. The next chore will be collecting them for next year's gardens. Soon we will be under 'bare poles' again. 

The pansy pot soldiers on, visited by a few bumblers, hunting for whatever sustenance is available now.  

The last, later planted broccoli, headed up right on time for Thanksgiving dinner.

The field garden, cleared, edged and ready for next year's bed arrangement.

The raised beds, ready as far as they can go, at this point. We've had frosts, but not one hard enough to finish the brassicas.  

 The morning sun, just starting to light up the tops of the trees behind the garden shed.

The north edge of the clearing behind the barn.

West side,

And cruising towards the 'back forty'.

Frost-tickles...

October 3, 2022

We have had fairly light frosts over the last few nights, each morning's temperature a little cooler than the last. This morning......

The sun is rising in a clear sky, after a cloudless night. The stars have taken on their winter brilliance, glittering diamonds in a black velvet sky. The Big Dipper, higher in the northern sky now, rotates on the end of it's handle throughout the night, showing the way to Polaris.

Gradually the gardens are being cleared and prepped for their winter sleep. Each day, as the frost made inroads on more plants, they were removed and composted. 

A week ago, on a warm sunny day, I spent the morning cleaning the alliums for storage.

More recently, the turnips and carrots were pulled, the turnips cleaned and waxed for storage, the carrots layered in a spare crisper drawer in the refrigerator.

The white clover planted in the bare spots of the raised beds, are a luxurious carpet of green, tempting me to leave them be, but turning them all under is rising closer to the top of the 'to do' list. I had a small packet of old pea seeds that I poked in around the edges of this bed.

The pepper patch continued to grow, sending up new branches and more blooms. It seemed such a shame to rip them out...but..time was up. This is the last picking off of the plants.

The stems are thick and strong, a result of pruning the plants, early in their life.

I chose one of the Red Carmen pepper plants, drastically pruned it back, gave it a spray down with soapy water, rinsed it's roots free of soil, then put it in a pot with good potting soil, and brought it indoors. It will be an experiment to see if I can overwinter it. I like the variety, and it is an hybrid whose seeds have become quite expensive, so I'll be interested in seeing how this works out. So far it has shown no adverse effects from the rough treatment.  

The first pumpkin, cooked and processed into pie and muffins.

With the wood stove going lately, at least in the mornings, I have been processing the pumpkins and freezing the mush in two cup portions. I need to free up space in the storage room!