Snapshots of the fall/winter garden

Looking outside the window, the world is currently frosted. I haven’t tended much to the fall and winter garden. Onions continue to send up green shoots, the garlic is sprouting, and baby kale plants promise to soon take over their own corner of the garden. I’m a lover of fall color, but I really miss the warm summer, being able to walk barefoot on the mulch paths and feeling the hot sun heat up my back as I bend over to pull up weeds… but I don’t miss the sweat and mosquitoes. As I’m growing comfortable in the newly established beds and feeling a sense of permanence, we begin talking and moving to the country. This makes me hesitant to buy new bulbs or plant new perennials.

I’m not sure if it is just common human experience of living in temporary world, but I’ll long for permanent home. I long to have sprawling gardens that will be with me for decades to come. Last time we moved to a new house, I made sure to dig up my favorite plants and pot them before you put our house on the market. That way I could be sure to take them with me to the new place. While I don’t believe in directing a whole lot of finances towards land which you may not keep, I do believe is important to love and tend to the land I am living on for as long as I’m there. In the end, we never truly own a piece of land. The land far outlives us, and so we are only stewards. All that said, we aren’t actually moving now, at least we have no plans to do so immediately. It would just be financially beneficial for us to downsize to a smaller house with a little more land in the country with a much lower mortgage. Selling, buying, and moving costs money though, so for now we are stuck here (and I’m not sad about that!)

From top to bottom: Fall trellis garden (peas, lettuces, cilantro, broccoli), frost on Chinese cabbage, onions, and baby butterhead lettuce.