Fallow Time, or "How I learned to worry about all that other stuff..."

We chopped up and churned in the last of the tomato and pepper plants today.  It was a bittersweet moment, as it is every year.  I think we overestimated our ability to garden while under the influence of colic, but I'd still call it a fairly successful fall crop.  We certainly got more than enough jalapeños for our wintertime salsa needs, and at our house, that's a significant step.

In fact, we joked over dinner a few months ago that if a Pompeii style event snuffed out our familial candle in an eye-blink, what future archaeologists would gather from an inspection of our home would be this:  these people really loved chips and salsa.

Anyway, with the interment of the final veggies, and the pulling up of the basil (our primary annual herb), our garden now just looks like a yard with some boxes and some lumpy patches.  You wouldn't know we actually produce stuff back there.

Next year, knock on wood, we will at least have grape vines draped all over the trellis (that's that wooden structure you see right outside our back windows, in front of the chicken coop).  Granted, muscadine grapes are a deciduous vine, meaning each winter, it will look like we've put a bunch of kindling on a trellis.  Lord only knows what the Aggie bonfire lunatics will make of that.

You may notice some dirt-piles in the foreground of this picture, as well.  That's the start of our raised olive tree beds.  We've kinda gotten behind schedule on that project; hopefully, we'll be done by Christmas, so we can plant at the beginning of January.

You may also notice that our tallest oak is getting ready to shed.  We haven't raked our own leaves yet (we leave that for last, although we can't remember why), but we are getting a steady trickle of bags of leaves from well wishers.  Thanks y'all!

I should probably point out at this time that someone gave us a bag of leaves with a stuffed animal in it.  Looks like a squirrel or chipmunk.  Is that Mr. Darcy's?  If so, do y'all want it back?

Finally, it's an ill wind as blows no one any good.  We gave away as much basil as we could, and we put cuttings of the african basil in water (Love that stuff!  Beautiful purple flowers, and the aroma is milder, not so anisette, a little more piquant), and then, when we couldn't think of what else to do, we gave the rest to the birds.  They seemed grateful.

That just leaves.... all those projects!  The pond, the leaves needing raking, the blackberries needing mulching, the olives and pomegranates needing planting, the roof on the chicken coop needing replacing, the gutters on the roof needing installing, the benches and seating areas needing building, the brick oven / open pit needing constructing... all while moving from colic to frantic watching-of-the-crazy-toddler-who-is-getting-into-WHAT-now?! 

Looks like 2010 is going to be every bit as interesting at Myrtle's place as 2009 was.

Happy farming!