What a great feeling to finally spend some time in the garden working hard. Digging up plants, chucking some into the compost and moving others to new homes. I have taken the KonMari decluttering method to the garden. If a plant doesn’t bring me joy….out it went…

The beds have been stripped down to the bare essentials. Peonies, roses, gifts from family and friend’s gardens will provide a base from where I can rebuild. Every plant that needs to be moved needs to be moved before the rains come this week. I really need one more good day’s work.

I am looking forward to long winter months poring over gardening books for new ideas. Maybe with a glass of red in front of the fire.

The veggie beds are cleaned out and the last of the tomatoes are harvested. The remaining greens are outside the fence for the deer and rabbits. The total tomato harvest was 150 pounds. Probably 100 pounds more than we need. I tried to share as many as possible but suspect friends are starting to hide when they see me coming.

Five years ago, a heron was found in our garden early one September morning. The fish disappeared and we thought they were all dead. Better late than never, we put up a net over the pond and two weeks later the fish showed themselves. Goldfish have never been known for their bravery.

We now put a net over the water for the winter months to discourage our resident wildlife from snacking in the unsupervised pond. This week, the heron was in a tree at the garden gate. Our twenty odd fish had been happy and healthy the day before so I figured I better get the net out pretty quick. It could have been a day late, as we haven’t seen any fish since. Hopefully, the fish are just scared and laying low.

E has been adding the lattice around the base of the bunkie. We don’t want the local otter making the crawl space their home. The boards will eventually get painted black. The left over bits will go in the garden. It will all get used.

Neighbours have mentioned that there seems to be fewer birds around this summer. Almost to the minute that I pulled a huge Mexican Orange shrub out of the garden the birds arrived en masse. My first thought was that the birds agreed that the shrub was overgrown and a menace. When E joined me in the garden and saw the birds he commented that I must have disturbed lots of yummy bugs. Given a second thought, that explanation was probably

the more likely