Ready, set go!

You can smell it in the air. The end of summer. The days are starting to get shorter and you can feel a nip in the air. The rush is on now to get all the fall cleanup done and beds prepared for any fall planting. My garden is still not quite finished but I can start to tidy up a bit. Luckily I had a week off and it was spectacular. I spent quite a few hours at my plot puttering. I carted four more wheelbarrow full of manure to spread in my beds when they are all emptied. Right now I have it ready to go when I finish clearing all the beds.

Being an organic garden we are very limited as to what we bring in. I'm allowed Sea Soil (kind of expensive by the bag) Peat but no garden soil and all the manure we want. I brought in another bag of peat in the hopes that it will lighten up the manure that I'm spreading. If only life worked like that! I buried all my finished veggie tops and vines after chopping them up a bit and added the manure on top. I figured that will help to build up the soil. When all the lovely leaves fall I will use them as well. The compost I will cover and leave til spring and hopefully will be able to use it to fill up the beds as well. There is so much in there it should be great. It is pretty heavy to turn but when I last turned it it was steaming and I have never seen worms that big so I think it will be good. I'm going to plant something where the compost is now and move it to a different location. It will be prime real estate!

My garlic bed is all prepared with some manure and sea soil so will plant in another month. I cut down all my lovely tomatoes and picked them all :(. Even the green ones. Unfortunately I ran over a big green one with my wheelbarrow. I took it home and cut off the squished bit and made it into a fried green tomato. It was quite yummy. I wasn't quite sure what to do so I dredged it in flour, added salt and pepper and fried in a little butter. Never had them before. (Read the book though). The rest are all ripening in newspaper in the basement. I will probably roast these ones and freeze them for the winter. I always find that they are never quite as good as the ones that ripen on the vine.