Two shots of the garden I like from this season - Summer 2011 - it was a good year.
It's been difficult getting out to actually close the garden down because of all the rainy days which really made for a surprising number of healthy-sized weeds in the pathways where there hadn't been any to speak of a week ago - well maybe there had been a few (but we're not speaking about them).
Which brings me to something else we're not speaking about AND the reason there have not been many updates recently. It's not that I haven't been going to the garden - it's just been that it's taken me some time to figure out how to get to the other side of something that happened a month or so ago. I SAW A SNAKE A-G-A-I-N andThisTimeItWasn'tMyHose (iSortOfHadAFeelingLastTimeItWasn'tMyHoseBUT ... iReallyLikedBeingInHEAVyDenialAboutTheFactThatMyGardenCan'tHaveSnakesBecausePsychologicallyIGoThereToRelaxNotToWorkOnMyPhobias) So enough about that - ya right - you believe that and you'll believe anything I say - don't right now - suffice to say - I watched in utter horror as this one wriggled it's way out of my garden and into the woods and then back into my garden and back into MY little hut - after this I have no idea where it went nor what really happened because I called it a day and calmly left ... without packing any of my things up before going).
As I said I've been back. I just haven't blogged. Things are finally fine again. Seguay to another surprise found in the garden today - I almost fell over backwards when I tromped my way to the back bit by the woods which I'd not gone into for about a month or so and lo and behold there were two HUGE pumpkins the so big you could use them as chairs if it weren't for the sticky-outy stem bits.
I left one on the vine (this big one's not it) and covered it with dead leaves so thieves roving our allotments creating incursions (according to everyone I spoke with today) throughout won't discover it before it's ready. Bad enough the chipmunks seem to have grown teeth at least four times the size they were in Spring and are now taking really big bites out of my stuff. Maybe it's a good thing the Season is almost over - who knows what I'd do if I met one of them now as it was a couple of months ago I would see them leaping through the air ... those little Olympic Gold Trophy-Winning BigAsMonkey flying chipmunks ... at least ten foot high and strides four times longer than a giraffe's neck. It was like 'pop goes the weasel's but with chipmunks.
I'm not sure what the expression is but it has something to do with getting all your soldiers lined up ... at first I started just throwing things all higglety pigglety everywhere then I thought better of it and put the dirty ends of the sticks the tomatoes had been tied to all Season facing south-east (they had to face in some direction and that's the way the first one landed - my garden's on a diagonal so it's the way their cookies crumbled this year - some batches better than others - something to do with the humidity in the air and flowers or something, I can't remember - I'm getting older). I was nice to them because today I remembered coming into my garden on the first day I ever got my garden way back - four years ago - and I remembered I'd noticed Joe had left his sticks for the the next person (me) all nicely lined up and it felt good. I am also thinking ahead to Spring. I understand now why he did it - it's easier to put them there in Fall and it's easier then to get them again in Spring. The way I was doing it was so
make work at both ends (haul them into the hut and then haul them back out) when they can just be left in the garden near where they need to go again. I'm learning ... the little things ... the things that count ...
... what can I say but I ripped up my tomatoes today ...
... most importantly - there were no snakes today (nor last week nor the the week before but there was that little one the week before all that that took over the whole garden (NOTE: I didn't stop going to the garden - I just stopped blogging. If I can't say something nice I try not to say anything (often) ... aaaannnd I didn't want to go onANDon about it - you think this is and has been - it hasn't)!
SO NOW ending on a good note - these two plants are the healthiest-looking specimens I've grown in a while ... yeah ... I've had a stevia finally make it - not only that but it's wowed me all Summer ... now I'm taking it home to see if I can keep it alive - along with the rosemary. Chewing on a stevia leaf smelling the rosemary as I carried that into my home from my car ... again the little things ...
