The Winter Garden

I didn't get my fall beets planted until August 1st which is a little bit late. Never the less one of the two beet beds I planted has lots of healthy greens growing in it and even some bulbing ones. The other bed must not get enough sun because the leaves are small and I haven't seen any bulbs forming yet.

I'm scared to let my beets overwinter because what if frost and snow kill them? If I wait and they make it they may get bigger in the spring and that would be a nice reward for patience I only pretend to have. These are the kinds of things it takes quite a bit of trial and error to find out about one's climate. I had just been getting my nose into the real rhythm of my old climate when we moved. After six years of gardening in it I finally knew what I could get away with planting late in the summer and early in the spring. I have only been gardening in my current climate for two and a half years. So much yet to learn.

I don't think my lettuces are actively growing anymore which means we should eat it all before it gets tough and bitter as the cold continues to creep in.

Today I rode my bicycle to the grocery store downtown. The air is frigid and the trees are getting increasingly bare. I could hear people's snow tires everywhere. I love the sound of a town anticipating storms and snowfall. Though we don't get much here, it's a lot more than we got in California and I'm grateful for every quarter inch of it.

I'd really like to work on making my house and my garden look less like a ghetto. Mostly this just entails some regular cleanup and not leaving cardboard boxes everywhere. Getting my Monastery style garden finished and filled so that lumber isn't lying around getting uselessly warped from neglect. These are things that I am not good at taking care of. Routine maintenance. Even before everything fell apart I wasn't good at it. But three years of just clawing my way through each day, being happy if all I got done was to do the dishes or make one phone call have driven us much further from taking care of the little chores that make houses seem loved and pretty.

I don't really care what anyone else thinks of my house. I'll never keep up with our crumbs and dust. It isn't about impressing anyone. No, that's wrong. It's about impressing my house. It's about my house knowing it's getting the degree of polishing it deserves.

We are so happy with our house. Every day we look around at the walls here and we tell each other how relieved we are to have moved here from the other house. It certainly complicated our plans to rise from the ashes of our entrepreneurial disaster, but only for a while. This house has a lot of funkiness. Some that we love. Some...not at all.

A house knows a lot. So does a garden. Mine will have to practice patience with us as we are notorious for moving at an extraordinarily slow pace. I should show my house and garden the before and after pictures of my two California houses. I think they would feel reassured.

Time to get in my Pyjamas and watch some season 4 Grey's Anatomy and get pissed off at Meredith and Derek being so stupid and in case anyone wants to know- I think Cally is one of the best characters and has been given such a short straw on the show that she really deserves to kick everyone else's asses.

Good night house. Goodnight garden.