Hanging On

It is early December here in New Hampshire and the ground should be frozen, but it is not. Gardening for this year should be done, but it is not. Is it climate change or my stubborn nature to still be attending to those last few gardening chores of the season? Well, whatever, I am pleased to be able to catch up on things that should have been done earlier if I hadn’t been on safari in Kenya, a trip of a lifetime!

Last year I made the mistake of leaving our carrots in the ground for mid winter harvests. Oh, they were harvested all right. By the voles that is! So just a few days ago I dug up enough carrots to fill a bulging grocery bag. It may take a little more work than canned pumpkin puree but a carrot pie is just as tasty. We had roasted carrots at Thanksgiving and lots of raw carrots to crunch on. I have been advised that I might turn orange if I overdo it. Hmmm…

The seed pods on the wisteria tree are hanging in there late this fall. I still haven’t made up my mind if they are artistically attractive or just plain ugly. Sometimes I prune them off but this year I have other more pressing jobs to get to first. Today’s job was to reinstall one of the benches in the greenhouse. I take the benches apart in June so that I can use the space to grow tomatoes and peppers protected inside the glass house. Then in the fall I have to put the benches back together in preparation for growing seedlings in the spring.

The five fountain grasses I planted in the perennial border put on a nice display this year. Last fall I dug up a mature plant and divided into six pieces. Five were spaced out through the perennial border and one was put back in the original location. By the end of the growing season all six plants were almost as big as the original plant was.

Nope, this isn’t our back yard. I just had to end this blog with a picture I took with my phone on our trip to the Mara Triangle in Kenya. It is absolutely breathtaking and I haven’t stopped dreaming about it yet!