The Garden in Fall

Often by the time fall comes, especially late October and November I’m over the garden until spring. Hibernation has set in and I’m completely fine with that. I’m ready to hibernate too. But even during this season of dormancy it seems there is so much still happening in the garden.

Fall is the perfect time to plant bulbs like tulips and daffodils, and my favorite, garlic. Because of my apathy towards the garden by this point I’m usually racing to get my garlic planted in October, digging quick holes and tossing the organic cloves in. Luckily this year I got it planted right before days of rain came so I didn’t even have to water it in. There are seeds to collect and save. And this year with our weird weather, my strawberries think it’s spring and are blooming and growing again, although it’s chilly enough that unlike this beauty,

they won’t all ripen fully now. 

I try to clean up the garden in the fall, tossing all the old plants in the compost bin, the leftover rotting tomatoes, the tall, thick, head-bowed-over sunflowers, all the new weeds cropping up, but honestly I’m usually so over it that I don’t do a very thorough job. This year with our nice weather I left things till much later and I’m so glad I did. Most days when the kids are at school I sit by our living room window to do my writing. Our living room window is huge and lets in so much light and I crave the light like a cat. For the last few weeks I’ve gotten to watch the squirrels and birds come and collect sunflower seeds from the garden leftovers. One day I took these pictures of a squirrel who was completely unconcerned by me or my camera. 

The spiders seemed to be on steroids all summer so I suspected we’d see lots of webs this fall too.

They love the tall garden phlox, the tomato and peony cages.

One even built it’s web from the leaves of our magnolia tree to the grass, catching a leaf in mid air.

One thing I always look forward to in the fall is how the shimmery morning dew creates works of art in my garden. They make the spiderwebs look spectacular, my simple parsley flowers become a treasure with a dewey spiderweb tangled around it’s blooms,

even the dandelions look gorgeous covered in dew.

And of course, again, the colors of fall just take my breath away.