Cleaning the Garden

It started the serious type rain apparently while we were traveling in North Dakota early mid October, probably about the eighth or ninth.  Upon arriving home I reset the rain gauge by dumping five inches.  During the following week I read and dumped two and a half and thence and a half inches.  The lawns are looking it and the little weeds are covering everything including the driveway.

So it's time to do the tasks that come with fall and the rainy season.  The plan is to transplant more of the saplings under the Red California fir down in the field.  I mow the area in preparation and between showers dug some holes.  The transplanting is still waiting for another break in the rain long enough to do the task.

We did prune the grapes back seriously.  During the prying we discovered that both arbor trellises need repair.  It's that old wood rots when wet syndrome.  Add that to the autumn to-do list.

Also we remove all the plants from the garden except the beets.  The tomato plants had a few small green fruits which had no hope of ripening.  The deer got the best of them.  One pepper plant had about five peppers varying in size from small to full grown, all green sweet peppers.  We pulled the weeds and turned the soil.  Now it's waiting for newspapers and leaves to cover the garden to prevent the winter rains from packing the soil hard.

The two potato plants that came from Rich's funeral service had nothing beneath them.  Really, nothing.

The rain continues, lighter now, but enough to enjoy me to find things to do inside and there's plenty of that.  The temperatures are cool and with the dampness, working in the shop requires an extra jacket and cap.  And so I'm off.