Winterizing 1

Rising at 8-00am to a clock which says 9-00am. Yes it's fall back time!
No cat calls to awaken the Happy Gardener on the wonderful

......sunny

...........Autumn morning. Recently temperatures have been varying between pleasant and cool, the evenings especially having been colder. No sign of any frost yet so the herbs

...... are still outside

........on the patio. Some have been harvested and are drying in the kitchen.

Here we have bunches of Basil Spicy Globe and Rosemary and a little Sage.

The forecast says of temperatures possibly dropping below freezing next weekend so we must be alert. Later today we are supposed to get light rain so better get started.

I've been giving the trees a bit of a tidying up, clipping off low hanging branches

....and generally winterizing.
I've also pruned

....the Fuji Apple and

.......the Forsythia.
These and all the new trees have also got a thick layer of mulch laid around the bases.
Despite the cooler temps I'm still pulling

......a few tomatoes every few days.
More winterizing

.............in the way of chopping up some dead trees

....... and sorting out the log pile in preparation for a new delivery.
I should have room

.......for another couple of ricks by the time I'm done.
Next, the garage

......needs a good clearing up so everything gets dragged out.
Alvin checks to make sure

......I've done a proper job.
Around the back I make a start on clearing out Plots 4 and 6. I pull the last carrots

....and dig up a few potatoes from Plot 3

......to go with them. The making of a Beef Stew, perhaps??
All the time I'm digging, someone is watching me.

This fellow was non too please when I politely asked him to "hop it" for a while to allow me to work in HIS plot.
Plot 6 gets it's primary digging over. My two surviving Parsnips

.........are left in place. I'll be mulching these and hopefully pull them in the Spring.
Two Parsnips, WOW. What a crop.
I dig out the Parsley plant, clip off some off the dead or broken stems and put it into a pot. This will be brought indoors and reside on one of the windowsills.

Hopefully it will give us a little greenery through the Winter months.
Autumn colours are here now

......in the hedgerows and

.....our small saplings. Above is one of the two Goldenrain trees I started a while ago.
This will be their first Winter out in the garden, last year they stayed in the nursery plot buried under a thick bed if straw.
Late afternoon skies

........look full of that promise of rain. Then the drizzle starts.

And I stop!