Spring is my favourite time in the garden. I get to play in the warming soil, carefully prepping and planning what I am going to plant and where. The days fly by into summer and then?I?am cursing how fast the herbs can grow. Soon, I am able to start harvesting tomatoes, peppers and lettuce and the herbs are shoved to the back of my mind, until they rear their green tentacles once again to menace the garden.
Fall?arrives and brings?with it that nip in the air?and I spend days and days picking, sorting, canning and processing all the abundant, delicious bounty and yes, cutting and tying up herbs until I am ready to waive a white flag in surrender.
October 1?arrives and I survey the garden and realize?. it is finally done. Finito. Kaput.
WAH! I am not ready to let it go yet!
But Mother Nature is telling me it is time to chop, pull and yank everything out of the ground and toss to the compost heap.?
Fine. I hate it when she?s right.
The one thing I was looking forward to was finally banishing the mighty sage brush. This thing had been in the ground for three summers now and had gotten huge. Even with regular brush cuts, it came back each time with a vengeance, threatening to take over the garden. I grabbed my pruners and started hacking away, saving four good-sized branches for my Thanksgiving feast and tossing the rest. Wow, there were a lot of stems to this plant as the bottom four inches was a mass of tough, brown, woody stems. Next came the shovel. I giggled with glee. My turn to uproot your life, you fuzzy, green-leafed blob. I dug and I dug and I dug, and?finally, it popped free from the ground, desperately trying to hang onto the soil with every last root.
Next year I will start a new one, but this time it will stay in a pot like my other herbs. They just grow so fast, like dandelions in May. All the other herbs that were in pots this summer were placed into their winter resting spots after I tore out the toms and peppers. I dug each one a hole, about eight inches down, and sat the pot into the hole, backfilled with dirt, mounding up the sides of the pot and then mounded mulch on top of the dirt. There, all set to ride out the winter in their cosy beds until they are released next spring.
I took the thyme plant out of the rectangular window box it was in and decided to plant it in the ground. Thyme creeps along slowly, not as vigorous as mint or sage. So I am hoping it doesn?t try to take over the garden next year. The other annual herbs were yanked out of their pots and composted. Basil, parsley and chives said bye-bye to the summer. Although I did keep a few sprigs of basil for bruschetta.
The hanging flower baskets were emptied of their contents into the compost heap. They didn?t do so well this year ? too dry and hot for them. I may forego them next year at home, but keep them at the homestead as the hummingbirds love the fuchsia that I plant in them.
So that?s it, everything is ripped out and gone for another year, leaving behind an empty, brown space. It looks so forlorn. I will miss playing in the garden?.but in another four months or so, I can dig out all my little starter pots and get all my seeds planted for next summer. Thank goodness I have something to look forward to in the dark, chilly days ahead.
I wish everyone a warm, healthy and happy winter season!
Deborah L. Sykes is a sales rep with Sutton Group-About Town Realty in Burlington, Ont. Licensed since 2003, she has a background in new home construction and the residential resale marketplace servicing Burlington, Hamilton, Oakville and outlying areas. Email deborah.sykes@cogeco.ca?or visit www.deborahlsykes.com.
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Source: http://www.remonline.com/?p=14017
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