End of Summer Blues...and Reds

Just a few days left before school starts. It's the end of the summer. This is usually a tolerable week for me. I try to lay low, commitment-wise (although I have four story deadlines this week...managing it...kind of) and coast into that first week of school.

This week is usually great in the garden. All my late summer flowers are blooming, roses give another shot at being spectacular, and they are (even my white roses which have been dinner for deer all year), and the veggie garden is usually giving me more tomatoes than I know what to do with.

This year, my veggie garden is full of weeds. I weeded three times all summer. I normally put straw down to mulch - I didn't. I usually lay down soaker-hoses - nope. I usually tie my tomatoes up on the stakes every few days - try once a month. There's a canopy of overgrowth around the garden, too. The wild roses around the garden took steroids, apparently. As did the poision ivy, the weeds and some burr-bushes.

Amazingly, with all the neglect, I got a pretty good crop of tomatoes. I didn't think I'd have any...so some is good. I didn't water, didn't feed, the tomatoes fell over and wilted and I still have fruit.

It's a garden I used to have time for. Somehow (see also: four deadlines this week), my time was directed elsewhere. The two days I'm home from work, I spend doing other things..catching up in the house.

I did keep up with the front flower bed and the one by the pool. Everything needs work. With my son moving into middle school, I'll be up earlier. Hopefully I can use that extra half hour in the gardens - at the very least to look at them. I miss the soil in my hands. It's always a peaceful time in the garden.

Work less, garden more. Just found my new motto.