Homemade Harvest: A Good Day for Gardening

Things are winding down in the garden. Or maybe that's falling down! With all the winds and rains we've had lately, the 12' tall sunflowers have about had it, taking out the remaining pole beans in their descent.

Frost was in the forecast for last night (already!!!), so I took the afternoon off and spent it at home putting row covers over the tomatoes and sweet potatoes.

While I was out there, I tackled the weeds in one of the unused plots (that I just didn't get around to preparing last spring). Once it was weeded, I figured I might as well move the soil over - better now than wait until next spring.

Doesn't it look lovely? Now that I have a load of compost (leaves from the streets of Jackson) to add to the horrid "topsoil" I got this spring, I'm hoping I will have better growth next year. It certainly seems to be nutritious compost, for the weeds are phenomenal on the pile! I weeded a section before mixing it with the "topsoil" (the pale pile on the right), but both are so full of roots that I suspect this isn't the last I'll see of the weeds. One bed done, four to go...and then I can work on fixing the beds I did this year.

While working in the garden, I saw this fellow snoozing in the corn:

...and another in the sweet potatoes:

I just love these little frogs. They are grey tree frogs. I know what you are thinking: grey? They're green! But, grey tree frogs have the wonderful ability to change their color. Gotta love 'em.

Meanwhile, as I was yanking out weeds, I disturbed not only this worm, but the mother spider who's also in this photo. See the white thing? That's her egg sac, which apparently VERY recently hatched since she was still attached to it. And on her back are all her little ones (except for the few that were scuttling around on the soil).