Hello My Dear Gardening Friends,

Tonight is the last eclipse of 2005 - hopefully it will be clear and I will finally get to see something in the night sky. The meteor shower this year was hidden behind the clouds. The 4th of October is a very special day for it is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Happy New Year to everyone – may it be a wonderful year for you all.

A few small tasks for you to do that will keep you busy during the dark days ahead:

Think of yourself as the caretaker of your very own relationship garden. As caretaker, you can manage your relationships in a nurturing healthy way.

1) Buy some flower seeds, soil and pots.

2) Plant the flower seeds; this can be done in your garden or anywhere else you wish to plant them.

3) Give each flower a person’s name.

4) Water and talk to your plants as if they were the people in your life.

Now watch your plants as they blossom and grow. You will realize their true beauty is that they do not demand very much of you, and more importantly, they never talk back!!!!

It is almost the fall season; next weekend is Thanksgiving the last long weekend of the summer. What a busy one it is going to be for those of you with cottages that are only used in the summertime, for traditionally this is close up time. Docks, boats, summer furniture brought inside, lake water turned off, shutters or storm windows on – but do leave time for that last canoe ride, one last swim and one last walk around the garden.

Do not bag your leaves; they are the best and cheapest fertilizer. When they are crisp and dry as they should be this weekend, just run the lawnmower over them several times. Come spring time, the worms will have taken them down into the garden and the cycle begins again.

Working outside in this wonderful weather is quite different to springtime. In the spring the ground is cold, wet and if we trample on it then the soil becomes compacted. It can also do us harm, for after a winter of little exercise, pulling weeds can lead to pulled muscles, whereas now that we have been busy working outside all summer we are in tip top shape and can take on a whole day of weeding!!!

I know that a lot of you think that weeding at this time of year is a waste of time – not so! If you apply a good layer of mulch, leaves, wood chips (check out the garden centers, there are lots of chips and bark around and they are on sale), not only will your flower beds look better but the mulch will keep down the re-growth of the weeds, should we get a prolonged and late Indian Summer. I know that there are lots of weed seeds in the soil right now and some of the mulch will break down over the winter, so it will not be thick enough to totally prevent the spring sprouting weeds, but it will make a difference and the ones that do sprout will be quite obvious and make the elimination easier .

I know that we have all been putting it off but it really is time to start cleaning up the flower beds. As traumatic a experience as it is to destroy those beautiful blooming plants, soon oh so soon the frost will be here and there is “no mercy given”. Once the frost has hit, the beds look dreadful, the weather is colder and you will have to work outside, and I know that the spirit will be willing, but the flesh will be oh so weak!!!

Once the annuals are in the composter and the dead perennial stalks are removed, you will feel as though someone has lifted a huge weight from your shoulders.

No, do not put that wheel barrow away just yet - you still have to clean out all that crab grass, purslane and in my case creeping Charlie, and whatever it is that torments you – after all it is a good excuse to be “playing” outside. I am afraid that I may have to give in and spray some odd things in the garden – poison ivy for instance because my grandson is so allergic to it.

Fall is not the end of the gardening year; it is merely the start of next year’s growing season. The mulch that you do put on your garden will help to protect those precious perennials during the winter whilst feeding the soil at the same time. A cleaned up flower bed will give you a huge head start next spring.

Gardens, just like us, do not have to accept the inevitability of old age. If we help them just a little, the spring will find them just as young as ever!! The rest of us too – just make sure that you go for your flu shots!! Land that is overwhelmed with weeds, vines, and litter sometimes cannot regenerate except by being nurtured again and replanted. In nature, as in all things, good does not always triumph , therefore any of us who not only garden but borrows this land for the short time that we are here, we are charged to watch over and care for it. Yes even the poison ivy.

I heard the “weatherman” talking about our forthcoming winter. He announced that our part of Ontario will have the same kind of winter as last year, whereas the south of the province will have a very mild one, but “as you know, it is very difficult to predict weather patterns. If you wish to be really sure, then you should consult the almanac”!!!! I laughed and laughed at this suggestion. Here are some others:

If you find a frog that is pale yellow, the weather is going to be fine. If it is going to be wet, within hours that same frog will turn either dark brown or green. If you hear a cockerel crow long before dawn in the winter it is predicting snow.

The early Victorian encyclopedia “Enquire Within” contains instructions on how to predict the weather by keeping a leech in a jar. Although it may seem like witchcraft it is not. You can purchase a leech at the chemist; you put it in a jar with 3 gills of water, which you change once a week in the summer and once every two weeks in the winter. “If the weather is going to be fine, the leech lies motionless at the bottom of the glass; if rain is expected it will creep up to the top of its lodgings and will remain there until the weather is settled; if we have wind, it will move through its habitation with amazing swiftness, and seldom goes to rest until it begins to blow hard.” “If heavy storms are to be expected, it will lodge for some days before, almost continually out of the water, and discover a great uneasiness in violent throes and convulsive-like motions; in frost as in clear summer weather it lies constantly at the bottom; and in snow as in rainy weather it pitches its dwelling at the very mouth of the phial.” The top should be covered with a piece of muslin. It does not say though what one feeds this poor little creature – wonder if Shopper Drug Mart still carries leeches???

I keep saying that nothing is coming in this winter, why have I spent the day potting up plants? Oh dear I can see my good resolutions are going down the drain instead of into the composter.

If you have any nice plants, especially houseplants that have been outside all summer and you really do not want them – The Brock Mission on Brock street would be very grateful for them – I have taken some of mine there. If you do not live in or around Peterborough – check with your local Women/Men's shelters, any seniors’ homes, or teachers that would love them for their classrooms. Please if they are healthy and still flowering do not just throw them away, students away from home for the first time also appreciate plants and have not usually budgeted for them. Take them to your meetings or as I did last time, place them outside your home, someone will pick them up. I forgot that I was also giving away my huge pots, so perhaps you wish to put them in something a little cheaper!!!

October is a good time to repair your lawns. Cleaned up, bare spots can be topped with sterile loam and new seed put down. While you may not see growth before the cold weather sets in, the seeds are sending down new deep roots, and you will have stronger and a better stand of grass in the spring from the fall sown seeds than the spring seeding produces. You can also add a few small bulbs at this time such as snowdrops, scillas, crocus, chionodoxa. They can be planted just below the surface and will look “natural” in the spring. Even though you will eventually run the lawn mower over them, they will spread for you.

This is also the time to bring that Christmas cactus indoors, put in a place without light for at least 4 weeks, 6 is even better. Do not water during this time and you should have flowers very soon afterwards – I just go and buy another one – seems so much simpler.

As I said last time I had planted my tulip bulbs, big mistake – with this warm weather they will start to grow – I am seriously thinking of digging them up again.

Have you noticed that this is the year that the Hosta leaves are fairly whole? The dry weather kept the slugs away. Someone brought me a branch that was covered in a grey lichen type growth, which should be left alone and it will not harm the trees in any way.

I hope that some of you are growing sedum. These days it is getting darker day by day. By mid-May, the blue-green foliage forms a really neat globe. Beautiful even without flowers, the stems and expanding leaves make a substantial contribution to the early summer garden. Pink fuzzy flower heads gradually turning rose-red enliven the perennial border for at least six weeks, beginning in late August. Now it is a rich red colour, but when each dried flower head supports a cone of snow, there is nothing so beautiful in the winter garden.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all – indeed we have much to be thankful for – we are alive, well and still gardening!

So my dear friends it is time to say Good Gardening!

Hats, gloves, sunscreen and yes still bug repellent, do not forget those hats!

Lovingly, Beryl