Putting the garden to bed

There's something about having a toddler in the house that made gardening a tad difficult this year. Years past I've started the new gardening year in January, sowing seeds in flats and transplanting to individual pots indoors while we waited for Spring. I can garden year round here and I enjoy having a summer garden, with all the heat loving vegis, then starting all over with a winter garden in September - carrots, kale, swiss chard, broccoli and cauliflower all thrive in the cool nights, warm days of 'winter' in California. This year was a tad different. All Spring I kept meaning to get out in the garden to double dig and sow some seed. Eventually, one weekend (right around Memorial Day) I dashed out to the garden center, bought a bunch of already-6-inches-high vegetables and thrust them into the ground. DH dutifully watered them for me throughout the summer, but I think I tended to them once. I even had a hard time getting out there to simply pick the ripe stuff. Despite beyond benign neglect, those vegetables just kept on growing and flowering and fruiting. We were rolling in yellow crook neck squash there for a while (although the zuccini faltered completed). For the last month I've been meaning to get out there and compost what remains...with the noble intention of sowing the winter garden seeds.

Today, seeing no free weekend days on the horizion, I put what passed for this years garden to bed. As I yanked each plant from the soil, I gathered up the remaining fruits - cucumbers, baby zuccini, summer squash, a couple of still green pumpkins, an already yellow acorn squash, and two half eaten red ripe tomotoes. (I'm glad somebody was enjoying them!) The new compost pile is started. And there is one less thing going unattended nagging at my conscience.