Always seems to be some chores. With the first frost warning here this season for tonight there was a bit of a rush today. I had about 20 potted plants that needed to be pruned, accumulated mulch removed, rinsed off and then sprayed down with neem oil. I also covered up as I could some of the peppers, eggplants and tomatoes to protect from frost.

Next chores are removing all the frost killed plants into one of the compost piles, planting some more rye and collecting alot of fall leaves.

And then there's harvesting of the huckleberries and see if there's enough for a pie :-)

A year ago, on the date of this year's First Frost, it was 20F. So, I'm not going to complain.

Still, it wasn't any 20F . . . Thank Heavens! I'm going to have to wait awhile before the dahlias can be cut back and the roots dug. That will be a major garden task. It isn't a lot to do but it will certainly take a day's work to get them down in the basement for their winter's nap.

More effort will be expended digging out several beds to bury the plant debris from the little veggie and dahlia gardens. I'd like to do as little tilling as possible and killing whatever weeds (lawn grass) by moving dirt around with a shovel will be more effective than a quick pass over the ground with the tiller. As usual, there's a lot of stuff to carry over from the front and side yards, here at home.

Bare dirt! I wanna see lots of bare dirt! I'll mow the front lawn today and when that is done at the lowest setting, it comes back much better looking in the spring. Even tho', that setting takes the grass down nearly to the bare dirt! The question is whether this will be the final mowing for 2010, or not. Hard to know what KBG will do even with temps falling into the 30's every night. Of course, if it really warms up, I might spray some broadleaf herbicide on that lawn . . . for the 1st time in, like, forever. The flowering plants in the borders will all be out of the way.

Last year, I took my old lawnmower out to the big garden and just mowed over some of the plants with the machine set at the highest setting. I don't know if that old mower will start this year . . . kind of reluctant to use the new mower for such a task. Still . . . I already need a new blade on that mower, anyway.

Steve ;o)

I once used my riding mower to trim down the veggie garden. Looked like a tornado, the dust I was raising, and cars stopped to watch........

Speaking of which, the same day they had tornadoes around Flagstaff, we had one up here. I was watching it on the western horizon, thinking that it was a forest fire - no, thats a tornado - no, we don't get tornadoes here, it must be a fire.

We had our first frost last night. I've been hauling cubic yards of tomato vine and green fruit to the compost, do a couple cart-loads a day, finished that up Monday, and have been harvesting, wilting, and freezing Swiss chard with another day of that ahead.

I have been holding off mowing the lawn until the leaves fall, and then will do the end-of-season clean up, mixing the leaves with clippings and heaping it all up on top the vegetable garden waste to make the Mother of All Compost heaps, hopefully it will cook down enough before it gets too cold with a big enough mass.

I got rid of my globe willows a few years back - had 7 of the things, and they shed leaves in a very leisurely manner from about now until past Thanksgiving. Now I have green ash - now there is a tree after my heart. Leafs out in early June, and now, it turns yellow in two days, and all the leaves are off in a week.