FLYING WHALE STUDIOS
  • Home
  • News
    • About
    • Contact
  • Schedules
  • Galleries
    • Our Better Angels
    • Good Housekeeping
    • Deborah and Robert
    • Archive
    • Design >
      • American Landmark Festivals
      • Geneva Music Festival
      • Seneca Community Players
      • Darwin
      • Geneva High School Drama Club
      • Smith Opera House
      • FWS
      • Miscellaneous
  • Blog
  • Mailing List
  • Purchase

Not so snug as a bug just yet

10/25/2012

0 Comments

 
Putting the garden to bed sounds so peaceful — as if you’re gently tucking it in for a long winter’s nap.

The reality is back-straining work.

With clippers and pocket knife in hand last week, my husband, Kevin, and I set  out to the garden.

I snipped the twine from the once beautifully abundant tomatoes, loosened the unruly vines from their support rings and pulled up their trailing roots. The rings went into one pile, the wooden stakes into another and the PVC supports into a third. Then the diseased vegetative mess went into the trash.

It’s troubling to toss what could easily be composted, but septoria leaf spot and fungal blights are too destructive to risk letting them linger on the property.
After I removed all 25, Kevin gathered up the rings, stakes and PVC and stowed them in the basement.

So much for the tomatoes.

Next we removed the remains of peppers, snap beans, dried beans, soybeans, cucumbers, herbs, zucchini, winter squash, bok choy and tomatillos. We also bid adieu to the marigolds and dahlia.

All that former greenery Kevin hauled, wheelbarrow-load after wheelbarrow-load, to the backyard. Our two, huge compost bins are now overflowing with twisted, withered stems, but some rain and Indian summer heat should soon reduce the jungle to manageable levels.

After a lunch break, we cleaned and stored the pea fence, cucumber trellis and bean supports in the shed.

Next we raked up any fallen fruit to minimize volunteers next season. (I may rejoice over “freebie” cilantro, but I tend to curse the tomatoes, tomatillos and peppers that try to crowd freshly seeded beds.)

All that bare soil, of course, led to a bout of hoeing weeds and digging flower bulbs for transplanting.

With the day almost over, we assessed the health of perennial berries — honey berries, gooseberries, aronias, blueberries, black currants and huckleberries — and marveled at the growth on the almond tree (that has yet to produce fruit, but we eagerly await fighting the squirrels for its bounty).

Then we checked on the broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, parsnips, celeriac and rutabaga. The Swiss chard, too, is still going strong. Frost only makes these hardy specimens sweeter, so there are more weeks of harvesting ahead.

Our muscles sore and aching, we decided to call it a day, knowing full well we face another round once the fall crops give up the ghost.

Later in the week, when we were running errands, we drove by someone else’s garden that had been completely cleared of summer’s growth and neatly covered with shredded leaves. It looked so peaceful.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Kevin & Mary Schoonover

    In addition to art, Mary and Kevin are turning their front lawn into an edible landscape garden.

    Mary's "Front & Center" thoughts appear in purple; Kevin's are in blue.

    Archives

    May 2016
    August 2015
    July 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    August 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012

    Categories

    All
    Front & Center
    Front & Center

    RSS Feed

More


Show Schedule

Exhibition Schedule

About Us

Purchase


Good Housekeeping

Our Better Angels

Archive



Picture

COPYRIGHT © 2020    l    143 WILLIAM ST. GENEVA NY 14456    l    315-719-1499    l    ​FLYINGWHALESTUDIOS1@GMAIL.COM