I took in what was left of my garden today. We are expecting to drop down to zero on Tuesday night, but since Tuesday is supposed to be rainy I didn't want to be mucking about in the garden then.

I picked all of my tomatoes, my remaining beans and my cinnamon basil. I had three sunberries that were close enough to ripe that I picked those too, and a single pea pod that I missed last weekend (the birds have been at the rest). I pulled up all of my beets without much optimism; I'll have to see if someone else has more beets than they want or else buy some from the grocery store if I'm going to eat pickled beets this winter. There was just enough Swiss Chard for us to have it with our dinner tonight.

After going through the back yard I walked around to the front and cut some flowers. I wanted to leave some of the sunflowers for the birds so I only cut five to bring inside. They look nice and showy on the kitchen table.

I also put away hoses and tools and things like that. I still need to pull up plants and toss them on the compost but I think I'll wait until we've got our compost bin built so I don't have to shovel around frozen plant matter any more than necessary. The carrots are still in the ground; Jane tells me they can stay there through the frosts but I'll need to pull them out before the ground freezes because then I just won't be able too. I'll probably collect them at the end of the month.

I'm going to miss my garden horribly - I find it so satisfying to work in - but getting it ready for the winter feels a bit like getting ready for company. I'm making sure everything is put away and tidy and 'just so' before anyone arrives. It makes it kind of fun to be expecting the cold weather. It also makes me want to do a little more in our house to get ready for when we don't want to go outside so much.