After two weeks of enormous rainfall, which managed to compensate for the whole summer drought, we’re back to sunny and warm weather. This is helping us finish the needed winter preparations and prolong our garden season.

Another dry period

September ended with 330mm of rain. This is well above our September average and above the whole summer average. Even worse is that the whole amount fell in just 14 days. But, luckily we needed that rain, and there was no damage in the garden. The intensive rain did ruin the garden paths, which more than once, turned into little rivers. But due to the anti-hail net, there was no damage to the beds.

As soon as October started the drought period returned. We haven’t had any rain during the month, but the September amount was enough to keep us well-watered. The temperatures are back over 20°C(68°F), with many afternoons above 25°C(77°F) which makes this a late summer period. Still, I can’t be certain the weather will keep on being this nice, so I have to do everything that I would normally do in October.

To be honest this has been a slight issue since my shoulder pain has been getting worse through the summer, and now I can barely move my arm in the evenings. I’m still doing 90% of the normal daily chores and special garden jobs, but the one thing I’m struggling with the most right now is writing posts. I can’t use my left hand on the keyboard, so I’m far behind on photo, video, and blog posting. Right now I’m concentrating on doing what is urgent and I will catch up on posts later.

Preparing for the winter

As I mentioned before I’ve started preparing the garden for the winter and one thing that needed to be done was to remove the anti-hail netting. Usually, the netting stays over the garden, but due to the proximity of the forest, this is simply not possible here. The leaves have already started falling and in just a couple of days, half of the netting was covered in hundreds of leaves. So last weekend my hubby and I decided to remove the netting.

We didn’t remove it completely so that we wouldn’t struggle to put it back up in the spring. This is why we rolled both and secured them for winter storage. The small garden netting ended rolled on the garage side, and the big one is in the middle of the garden. The main garden netting is quite heavy, and we decided that it would be smarter to roll the upper half down to the middle and the lower half up. This way we will work with two halves of the netting, and the rolls are not too heavy.

Digging the garden

After removing the netting I’ve started digging the garden for winter. Right now I have 1/4 of the garden dug up and ready for snow and frost. I decided to sacrifice some of the beans to get the job done. The rest of the vegetables are still growing well, so I didn’t want to remove them. I will clean and dig the rest of the beds when temperatures drop below 5°C(41°F) and everything stops growing.

I’ve also started digging the orchard for a new garden. I’ve decided to make a “field garden” in the orchard where I’ll plant potatoes, onions, garlic, and probably pumpkins. The soil in the orchard is still very dry and hard, even with all the rain we had, so I’m struggling a bit with the digging, but another good rain and the new garden should be ready.

Still harvesting

Against all odds, I’m still harvesting. The harvests are now much smaller, but it makes me happy that there are still vegetables that are growing well. To my surprise, the July zucchinis are still producing fruits, and this is the first time in 20 years that I have zucchinis so late in the season. Peppers are also doing great and still flowering, carrots, beets, chard, and lettuce are growing slowly but making progress. It would seem that we’re still in August.

Still, the lack of warmth and sun in the garden is very visible. The forest is making the shade over the garden; right now, 90% of the garden is in full shade. Until all of the leaves fall down the garden won’t see any sun. The position of the sun is just too low at this time of the year.

These conditions do wonders for the grass which is growing like mad, I will need to mow the garden this week once more. I have no idea when was the last time I had to mow so late in the year, but I don’t mind. Big grass means the vegetables are also getting enough warmth to grow and that’s the most important.

I wouldn’t mind if this kind of weather continues until December.