Fall Waxing Blood Moon
Out in the garden this morning taking down plants that have finished their labors. Large cruciform vegetable plants grew from the seeds I started inside, but they never developed any fruits. They’re in the compost now. All the tomato vines save one have come down. The last tomato harvest went inside today, too. A few straggling yellow and orange tomatoes and a cluster of green tomatoes for a last fried green tomatoes.
A new crop of lettuce, beets and beans are well underway, lending an air of spring to the dying garden. While examining
carrots I have in the ground awaiting the frost, I discovered golden raspberries large as my thumb. A real treat at this late stage in the year. They await the vanilla ice cream I’m going to buy when I go to the grocery store.
The 49 degree weather made doing these choirs a pleasure. Odd as it may seem, I like the fall clean-up part of gardening as well as I do any other part, perhaps a little bit more. Most of these plants I started as seeds in February, March or April and they have matured under my care, borne their fruits and run through their life cycle. From some of them I have collected seeds to plant for next year. The clean up then represents a completion that goes one step beyond the harvest. It honors these living entities by caring for their spent forms in the most full way possible: helping them return their remaining nutrients back to the soil. I want no less for myself.
Got a new toaster and a new ladder in the mail yesterday from Amazon. Boy, shopping has changed. I rarely go to a big box store anymore, once in a while to Best Buy to check out DVD’s or for some computer accessory. I still go to hardware stores and grocery stores, the things you need weekly or right now or fresh, but everything else I buy online.
The bee guy, Mark Nordeen, had to cancel again today. His wife, Kate’s colleague, got kicked in the head by her brand new black mare. E.R. and a concussion later she’s home off work. Guess I’m gonna have to figure out how to over winter my bees all by myself.
