Brown Gold

It makes me sad, driving about and seeing big brown Home Depot bags along the curb, waiting to be picked up to go to the landfill. I am always tempted to pick them up myself for my compost pile, or as extra winter mulch. My soil is lovely, black and crumbly, from years of using chopped up leaves as winter cover. Looks a whole lot better than that awful dyed red stuff, that so many people pay a fortune for.

I sometimes wonder, would anything sell if you could convince the big stores to carry it? Could an evil gardener start a trend for say, huge plastic blow up figures to disfigure front yards . Oh wait, someone already did that.

November

Beautiful weather we've been having, warm and sunny. Pansies, violas, Montauk Daisies, blue salvia and coneflowers still going. Russian Sage also, this is my first year with that, and it is a great addition to my garden.

More Halloween

Halloween

I grew some pumpkins this year, and brought some to my daughter's pumpkin carving party. They were pretty on the vine, but really cool after they were carved.

The October Garden

Many of the flowers, vegetables, and herbs are gone, but not all. It still looks attractive out there, the stone gives it a shape even in winter. I'm trying a shortcut this year, using the dead leaves to create compost right where I want it, in this case the new pumpking patch, and the ongoing side yard/stone wall project. This will save me a lot of hauling. My neighbor dumps his leaves for me, then I'll add the usual vegetable peelings, old fruit, the soil from my many containers. It is all right out in the open, no composting bins. This way, they'll get wet and be easy to turn. By spring planting, it will be nice rich soil.

Autumn

The first frost will be here any time now, so I am enjoying the last of the annuals. For the first time in years, I am not clearing more garden space. My whole front lawn has now been turned into a garden, a few feet at a time.

The best time to prepare the lawn for the transition to garden is fall. I spray vinegar on the area set aside for change. This is most effective on a warm, sunny day. After a couple of hours in the sun, the vinegar starts killing the grass, with out harming anything else. Then I cover it with news paper, about 6 sheets deep. Next, dead leaves chopped up by a lawn mower, or leaf mulcher. After that, what you do depends on your plans for this particular patch. At my place, some areas are for plants, some are mulched, some have slate walks or patios.

More stone

The downside is when the weeds get to taking over. Then the stone has to be moved out of the way, or I have to spend hours pulling theweeds out, one by one. I usually put down newspaper (several sheets thick), then mulch, then my rocks. But after a year, or two, the newspaper and mulch break down, dirt blows in, and the rocks are just in the way of weed pulling. My project this week is putting down more newspaper, more mulch, and finding the rocks that have sunk into the earth. Messy job, but what beautiful results!