Fall Gardening

September 8, 2024

Gardening is a hopeful hobby. Each Spring I carefully select seedlings and seeds. I pull up the plants from the season before and turn the soil. It may sound silly, but I thank the dying plants as I remove them, for the produce they gave me and for the oxygen they added to the atmosphere. I add compost and turn the soil again. My vegetable garden is relatively small, no more than 4 feet wide by 20 feet long, so I prefer to till using hand tools. My husband Nick has a larger plot near our shed and he pulls out the rototiller to turn over the soil there. Typically, I only do vegetable gardening in the Spring and Summer, but for the past couple of years I have tried my luck with cool crops that are planted in late summer and will be harvested in the late Fall. Last year, some of my best produce came in December.

Today was our day to switch out the gardens for Fall. We took a trip to Southern States to find pansies and violas for the container gardens on the patio and flower beds near the street. Each of us selected some seedlings to replace the summer plants. I also grabbed a packet of carrot seeds since they did surprisingly well last fall. When we returned home, I set to work on adding the pansies to the front beds and violas to three containers we will enjoy seeing regularly as we enter and leave the house. I looked at the time and realized an hour had passed as I planted flowers, but it felt like seconds. Such is the mindful, meditative quality of gardening. I get lost as I work and feel grounded as I touch the soil. After watering the flowers in, it was time to get to work in the sad-looking vegetable garden on the south side of our house.

All summer we enjoyed the sweet one hundred tomatoes and pickling cucumbers. The rabbits ate all my green beans, and the violets took over my strawberry patch, so those crops were a bust. I pulled up the expired cucumber vines and removed all but two of the tomato plants, since those are still filled with blooms and might yield more tomatoes until the temperature drops. I harvested the last of the kale and found a couple of cucumbers hiding in the weeds. It feels like an experiment each time I plant something new, so I tried a few vegetables that have been consistently productive in that spot: lettuce, carrots and some winter hardy kale. The Brussel sprouts and beets are unknowns. I hope they do well, but only time will tell. Gardening also teaches me to be a cautious optimist. I can amend the soil and water regularly if there is no rain. I can select plants suited to the climate zone in which we live. Like many things in life, I can’t predict the outcome of my gardening efforts. Just for today. I will be grateful for the cooler temperatures, the sunshine and the couple of hours I spent being hopeful that my fall garden will be successful. In the short term, I will enjoy coming home each day to see lovely flowers in bloom and to watch the progress of my new vegetables.