We have been enjoying temperatures in the 80's for the last few days. We took Hambet to the zoo on Saturday (a bit of a waste of time -- he was interested in everything but the animals -- never mind the elephant, Mommy, I'm trying to climb into the basket of the stroller!)
Yesterday was a big gardening day. I dug manure and compost into one of my vegetable beds, installed the raised bed my husband made for me, and planted some garlic. (We'll raise the other beds in the spring.) All that's left to do is mulching the vegetable beds, and I'll probably use chopped leaves for that.
Today I plan to dig a flower bed along the side of the shed, and plant some bulbs. I will probably be scarce this week; I want to take advantage of the nice weather, and then when it gets chilly again, I'll be catching up with all the stuff I didn't do before.
Remember those white eggplants I've been coddling all summer? What a story -- I think I planted fifteen seeds and got five seedlings, of which three plants survived. I planted this just because it was cute, and figured that if I got one crummy eggplant the experiment would be a success.
Our summer was so cool that I didn't end up setting the plants in the garden until mid- July (they just looked to small, but that was a mistake.) They liked being in the garden, though, and started to take off in August and set a few lavender flowers in September.
One plant has several fruits on it now! So even this experiment had some success.
I really need to put my beds to bed for the winter. We have had two killing frosts so far. I harvested my last white eggplant a month ago and sent it to my daughter's culinary school instructor (who got a real kick out of it!).
I need to cut back and mulch the rosebushes. This time of year is so tough.
I hope that next year I can find some rhubarb to plant.
I recall that, one time we took the boys to the zoo when they were quite young, it appeared to be Mating Season for every animal in the place. Sometimes it isn't so bad if they don't pay attention.