Autumn leaves

At this time of year, my one of my favourite activities is tromping through shin-high stacks of rustling leaves. I know, I know: Simple pleasures, simple minds. But I'm happy and that's all that matters.

Our tree, which has tar spot for the second year running, is less happy. I have been having a go at getting the leaves away from its roots, but since its roots are under our deck and the leaves have complete freedom to wander there I think we are looking at another year of tar spot next year.

I did fill the composter with leaves on Monday night. That was a surprisingly pleasant activity, too. We've had a fair bit of rain, so the leaves were tending to be in well-compacted piles. And I had to do most of the work in the gathering dark. At this time of year (especially after the clocks change) I don't get home in daylight hours. That has a slight dampening effect on my mood and a pretty serious effect on my chore-doing. Any excuse and the garden is neglected. But I do like our tree very much and I didn't want to leave the leaves to rot on our deck, either, so one composter's worth is on its way to the municipality. In two weeks' time I suppose we'll have to start filling bags to get rid of the excess.

Not much, but something

Well, the sweary one and I finally did deal with the garden. I think it was on October 4 that we went out and dug up the multitudinous weeds. What an improvement!

We had prepped the plot for the plot party the previous day. That meant pulling up lots of bits and bobs. We got rid of a good amount of rotting and bolted lettuce (but left in a few towering flowering lettuce plants ... they're awfully pretty) and we pulled up the last of the beans and we chucked a bunch of still-producing broccoli. Too bad it tasted so bloody awful, that broccoli. It grew nicely this year when other things sort of struggled. We threw away in the trash bins any tomato plants. They're all dreadfully blighted, but we got a good crop. Nothing ripe on the vine, though. The last of the tomato plants are still in the plot, but they're just nasty skeletons. They'll have to go into the trash cans when we have a few minutes.

We left the onions in to see what they turn into next year. We never thinned them, so probably this won't work, but they're looking healthy enough on top. I guess we can pull out what there is next spring and thin them a bit. It'll be like planting sets, right?

The side and front yards had been attracting bad things (notably, garbage) and when we finally tackled the mess, they were more weed than deliberate plantings. The weeds went crazy in the bit north of the chimney, and there were not that many in the front (even the new bit of the front) and the far south end. This presumably tells me something about the quality of the soil and the sunshine those parts receive. Unfortunately, I have nothing to do with the info because I am just not here on weekends. That's the main problem. I'm either travelling, prepping for travel, recovering from travel, or treasuring a day off in which I'm not travelling, prepping, or recovering. Hopefully December won't be so bad. But by then the ground and air will be too cold for gardening.

For next year: I really should carry out my scheme to plant mints where I need greenery but can't believe in flowers. They're so aggressive that no weed can survive the onslaught and wouldn't it be nice to have planted plants all around instead of weeds?