One of the First Fall (End of Summer?) Jobs in the Garden

I love all 4 seasons. I love summer for the slow pace, the sleeping in, the garden, dirt in my toes, and the weather. Oh, the California summers. There's just nothing like it. With that said, by the time the end of summer comes, school starts back up, and the weather starts getting cool, I am ready for summer to end, and fall to begin. Fall means snuggling in a quilt with a hot cup of tea and a good book. It means baking bread, and a trip to the pumpkin farm with the students from school. Today, it also meant ripping out part of my summer garden to make room for a winter garden. I put my gloves on, and started to pull up all my cucumbers. And the volunteer melons, that I thought were cucumbers, so they went in the same row with them. Then I got to my peppers, that I could have left in for another month or so, but I decided that I would just rip everything out, so I pulled out the basil, too. Everything in the row. I tried to put the stuff in the chipper, but it was much too wet, so I just piled it in a corner of the garden. I put bags and bags of steer manure on top of the row, and this is what it looks like now.




Beautiful, huh? If I would have thought ahead, I would've gotten a few bales of wheat straw when I was at the feed store yesterday, but, I didn't. Now I will have to go in the next few days, and then I will be ready for a few winter veggies. Yes! Another trip to get plants!

Anyway, when I was pulling out all my plants, this is what was left, hiding underneath the leaves, when I thought there was very little.


So now, we will have a few veggies left over for a couple days. Sort of like one last hurrah. It was wonderful while it lasted, and I loved it, but now it is starting to be fall'ish, and time for fall'ish things.