the october garden

While November is now sheathed in brown hues, October was a month shimmering gold. What a beautiful October we had. The great temperatures in the 60's and 70's have trickled into this month too. Last year the weather turned cold early in November with Jesse even hunting in the snow, so to enjoy sunny, warm days now is treasured.

Late in October we were gifted an amazing amount of free compost, delivered free. Gardeners NEVER turn down free compost. It's like gold. Jesse estimates it would have cost us a good $200 to order this ourselves and have it delivered. It was quite a chore distributing it to the gardens. We even made new garden beds because we had filled the existing beds and had an amazing amount of compost to put somewhere, anywhere.

We built two new beds measuring 2.5' by 6' that sit on our porch in front of the deck. We also created two long rectangular beds in the yard, one measuring 2' x 24' and the other measuring 3' x 24'. To say much more can be planted in these additional beds is an understatement. In the main garden area we had already built 3 more beds, two measuring 4' x 3' and one measuring 8' x 3'. The children have mentioned that we are encroaching on their play space, but I actually have an invisible boundary that I don't wan to go past. We've actually taken over more than half of the backyard, so it's probably time to stop adding beds!

October found me planting Garlic and transplanting Strawberries to a larger area. We also transplanted a Dogwood tree and a Magnolia tree from the front to the back. I decided we'd enjoy them more in the backyard, and it's been only a short time but we like the look of them there.

Essentially, gardening is complete for 2015. If we mow anymore leaves, we'll bag and distribute them to the beds, but other than that it's time for the indoor work of planning for the 2016 garden while enjoying the bounty of 2015 awaiting use in the deep freezer.