Deconstructing the Garden

A lot of work goes into gardening in the spring as soil is prepared and planted.  Yard art is placed, furniture is set out and after months of work, summer is the time to enjoy it all.  

Then in the fall it's time to undo it all and put the garden to bed.  That involves just as much work.

With dry days, and a sense of urgency because of pending work elsewhere when Jill's house closes, we have begun the work of deconstructing the garden.

Today I picked flowers.

No, not these flowers, although we are enjoying a late blush of pink roses.

These flowers.

I collected all of the yard art, including the glass flowers, to be stored away for the winter.

 The flowers need to be washed of their accumulated dust and pollen and leaves and needles so I set up outside in the SUN ! to do the job this afternoon.

With the washing done, I set them in the sun to dry.

Tom had much harder work to do.  He got an early start (well, 10:00, that's about as early as it gets around here) while I went out for my 3.5 mile walk followed by my exercise routine.

Tom was putting the raised garden beds to bed.

 Yesterday he dug the dahlias and took down all of the vines and trellises that held sweet peas and beans and cucumbers.  I transplanted out some fox glove seedlings that self sow and thrive in the rich soil here.  Today Tom began the spading of the beds, turning under left over plant material.  Then he covers the beds with landscape cloth to keep the weeds from growing and the rain from hardening the soil.  It will be ready for planting in the spring.

It was after 4:00 when he tucked the last bed in for the winter.  

We still have beets and carrots in that final bed, so we will leave it for a while.

And so it has begun.  I got a start yesterday in cleaning out one of the perennial beds.  There will be lots more of that, crawling around on the wet ground.  The final step will be putting down leaf mulch, but that will be at least a month from now.  Hopefully it will be done by Thanksgiving.