Putting the garden to bed

Although I took a month-long break from blogging, I now feel the need to catch up on all my projects of the fall. This is particularly pressing as I go on vacation this weekend, so everyone should expect many upcoming travel posts.

I've been busy getting the house and garden ready for winter, so I won't be surprised by the cold weather. I've stashed the rain barrels and hoses and anything else that might freeze, and I harvested the very last vegetable, sweet potatoes. I had an extra gardening project this fall, which was to remove some side garden beds.  I suspect that when the previous owner put them in, decades ago, they weren't as shaded by the trees as they are now. I grew tired of soil that produced verdant weeds but spindly vegetables. 

The beds, lushly growing with weeds and unproductive vegetables. 

 Removing the meter-long iron rebar. A friend had the brilliant idea of using a car jack to wrench them out of the ground, and with his help, I got them out in an afternoon.

 Smooth, seeded dirt.

Done. The regrowing wasn't terrific - this fall we had so much rain that the seeds kept getting washed away. But I'm firmly of the "if it's green and I mow it, it's lawn" camp, so I'm not too fussed about the mix of grass and weeds.