A woman on a mission
I’m on a mission. Well actually if I’m honest, it’s a race against time.
I’ve been reading the weather forecast and today is going to be THE LAST DAY OF NICE WEATHER.
You know what that means?
Tomorrow temperatures will drop…oooh, 15 degrees, and rain is forecast every day for the forseeable future. Temperatures are going to be dropping quite low. Too near for comfort to that critical temperature, where we could conceivably get some of the unmentionable….(I’ll spell it out. I’m not tempting fate. S…..N…..O….W…). Maybe not quite yet, but before the month is out….
Every year this sends me into a clearing the garden frenzy. I love gardening, but I really hate gardening when the weather is cold and grey and horrible and I hate it even more when I’m clearing dead and rotting vegetation that has been snowed on.
‘Well just leave it for the spring’, I hear you cry.
I did that one year. Never again. My poor little spring bulbs – my shining lights when the days are grey and cold, the markers of the end of a long winter – were well and truly covered with slimy vegetation and had a devil of a job getting their heads through. I suspect some just turned tail at the sight of the slime and went back to bed.
So today you will find me cutting back like a mad woman, weeding and tying things back… and planting bulbs….hundreds of ’em….and hoping that they will flower in the spring and not just feed the rampant mice colony that lives in my garden (and which clearly outwits poor old Bumble Bee – there are noticeably fewer tulips these days than when she was younger!).
Needless to say that my next door neighbour has already finished and his garden looks like it’s been manicured. He took a week off work and it is so perfect that whatever I do is very second rate.
But even sub-standard garden clearing is better than slime and no tulips!
Helen
October 6th, 2011 at 9:08 am
I love hearing about your winter preparations! I know I have a romantic view of snowy winters, and it’s ridiculous of me, but there is something quite special about the thought that all your garden will be under actual snow š Maybe I need to travel more.
October 6th, 2011 at 9:11 am
I love that terracing at the end of the garden – hope you get lots done today.
October 6th, 2011 at 3:21 pm
I too have yet to clear the vegetable patch and then plant the bulbs. We have another month before I need to worry about it, but I’ll still be doing it at the last minute.
Love the terraced area at the back of your garden. You keep a beautiful garden!
October 6th, 2011 at 5:11 pm
WOW! What a wonderful garden!! I once had visions of such, but quickly gave it up when I discovered quilting. Gardening in the USA South means we have a 9-month growing season, and weeds and such are a strong force to be reconned with… it was just too much for me in the heat. I can sit inside, under the comfort of AC and quilt without sweating!! Congrats on an absolutely gorgeous corner of your world!
October 6th, 2011 at 7:12 pm
Hope you managed it!
October 6th, 2011 at 9:17 pm
Marge says they are due snow tomorrow. And she has a garden still full of summer flowers looking ok, but I suspect they may be dead in the next week. And she has also got a mountain of bulbs to plant!
October 9th, 2011 at 9:37 am
Winter has arrived here too. We seem to have missed out on autumn! Straight into woollies and wellies and hand-knitted sock! I haven’t planted any bulbs this year. I did trillions our first year here, and it’s kind of put me off for a while …
October 10th, 2011 at 8:43 am
The temperature has dropped here, too. But still no rain for the foreseeable future. You’ve reminded me that I have some bulbs to plant, but the ground is like concrete at the moment…