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November 07, 2007 02:09 am
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Photos
Eagle-Tribune staff
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A warm fall day good to dig in - and dream
Yard Dirt gardening column
By Julie Kirkwood
CNHI News Service
— Two weeks ago, I had resigned myself to the fact that my yard work season was over.
My long list of unfinished projects — lawn fertilizing, garden cleanup, preparing new garden beds — would have to remain unfinished until the spring, after my baby is born.
Then I was out shopping and got seduced by the displays of spring bulbs.
I grabbed a bargain bag of crocus bulbs and, because it happened to be a sunny afternoon, decided to stick them in the ground right away.
It was one of those gardening projects that was so spontaneous that I left a bowl of fruit half eaten on the kitchen counter and didn’t take time to change into proper gardening clothes. I just grabbed my garden gloves and dug in.
Two hours later, my husband came home and found me untangling dead tomato plants from tomato cages in the vegetable garden. I was so engrossed he had to shout to get my attention.
That’s how yard work goes for me. When I’m not doing it, it seems like a chore. But once I start, I don’t want to stop. It’s such a strange hybrid of hard work and fun, of drudgery and creativity.
As I planted the bulbs, I couldn’t resist pulling a few weeds here and there. Then, I had little piles of weeds, so I rolled out the garden cart to collect them. Then, I thought I might as well pick up some old piles of dead weeds left over from a spontaneous mid-summer weeding spree. Then, the cart was half full, so I thought I might as well pull some dead plants out of a front-yard flower garden. I ended up cleaning that entire garden, which conveniently freed up space for the last of the crocuses.
As I wheeled the cart of weeds to the backyard, I passed the vegetable garden. I couldn’t resist. Rather than putting the now-emptied cart back in the garage, I took it to the garden for a second load. Then a third. When the garden was cleaned out, I picked a bunch of parsley to bring inside. I carefully gathered the dead and dried cilantro plants so I could keep the seeds.
I probably would have kept going if the sun had not set.
I can’t promise I won’t have another burst of activity on another unseasonably warm day, but overall, I think my yard has been put to bed for the year.
As I was pulling up dead plants, I thought about how well my vegetable garden turned out this year. It recovered from early spring rabbit damage and ended up producing an abundance of things to eat, which was certainly an improvement over my first vegetable garden the previous year. Many of the seeds I started on my own survived and grew into perfectly functional flowers and vegetables.
And the lawn has never looked so good in the fall, at least not since I’ve been managing it. We lost a few patches of grass to grubs this year and had a moderate amount of crabgrass but, unlike in previous years, it actually still looks like a lawn.
Already, the seeds of ideas for next year’s garden are germinating in my mind. I want to plant leeks for soup broth. I’ll need to plant squash and other vegetables that can be pureed into baby food. And, of course, I have fantasies about expanding the boundaries of nearly every vegetable and flower garden.
It may be a tall order for a new mom, but who knows? Maybe the spontaneous yard work impulse will grab me and the results will be surprising.
Julie Kirkwood writes for The Eagle-Tribune of North Andover, Mass. E-mail her at jkirkwood@eagletribune.com.
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