Ready For Winter

There was a frost advisory last night, so it was time to finish up the garden for winter. I never got around to planting any cover crops, so the beds will just have to be bare this winter. The Fall peas are still going strong. In fact, I picked them for the first time, and we ate them for dinner last night. (They were delicious!) There are dozens and dozens of peppers on the plants that haven't turned red (or yellow) yet.



I dug all the onions, then searched and found a few more taters. I came in yesterday evening with those, plus Brussels sprouts, chard, and armfuls of herbs: parsley, oregano, dill and basil. I dried the oregano, and made a bunch of pesto with the basil.

Now the garden is looking sad and lonely. The only things left are the asparagus, strawberries and blueberries which will over winter, some marigolds that will look cheerful until they freeze, and the peas and peppers, which we will cover and nurse along until they are finished (or we get tired of covering them).

click on the picture to enlarge it

Even Lazy Laura, the scarecrow, is in the barn for the winter. She will need a make over before she goes back to work in the Spring: new clothes and a replacement head. J tells me that she will still have the same personality, even if we give her a head transplant!

I think we will be moving the chickens into the garden this winter. They can work on tilling the left over mulch into the beds, and fertilizing everything. It helps me, and makes them happy too. They always seem to lay better after they have been in the garden for a day.

It is very satisfying to put the garden to bed each year. We got hundreds of pounds of produce from the garden this year, and it was a LOT of hard work. When I told JP how relieved I felt to finish the garden for the year, he reminded me that I will be so eager to go out and plant peas in March, that it will be hard to keep me in! He is right, of course. I'll be perusing seed catalogs in February and dreaming of digging in the dirt. For now, I'm glad to clean my tools and bring them in. My diggers are ready for a break.

This afternoon, I pulled out the plastic bins of clothes from the tiny storage space under the stairs, and the girls tried on their winter clothes. Friday, JP and I moved the sofa away from the wood stove, so that we could light our first fire of the season. Now, I'm going to sleep on the fresh, clean, flannel sheets on my bed. Mmmm...snugly! As much as I dislike winter in general, I look forward to the change in seasons. We're ready now!