But if this little woolly woodpile hitchhiker’s coloration is any clue, we may be in for a mild winter.

Which would be just fine with me!

The recent hard freezes signaled to me that it was time to put the garden to bed for the winter. In gardens past, specifically the community garden plot I tended in Arlington, Va., I have simply ripped the blackened stalks from the earth and retreated to the comfort of central heating and daydreaming with seed catalogs. However, even when I was doing that I left a thick mulch of straw over the entire garden. After a few years—right around the time I decided to leave the city for the country—I noticed that without hardly trying I’d built an incredibly rich soil thickly inhabited by beneficial earthworms.

Though I acted out of instinct while I was tending that garden, I have since come to know that others, such as the incredible Ruth Stout, tout the benefits of a thick mulch. Watch this video and you’ll see the woman who’s influenced my approach to my garden, both physically and philosophically, as well as the woman I hope to be in 50 years. Actually, I pretty much aspire to be her right now. Particularly when it comes to the Roman couch breakfast.

If you’re really in to it, she continues:

This post started out as my explanation of the sheet mulching I undertook last weekend, but while writing I grew too re-enamored of Ruth to even go there. So I will stop and pay attention to this inspiration. I hope that you will enjoy these videos, for this woman has much to say.

And some day, while working in my garden, I may make the cars stop on Free Union Road.

Here’s a hint:

And man, what an indulgence to publish such a journalistically inept headline! All those sensationalist exclamation points, the hyperbole, and my favorite—the weak “update,” which belies semantic laziness.

My old editors are probably cringing at how low I’ve sunk now that I am alone out here in the country with no one to hold me accountable for decent reporting.

How I miss having anyone around who would call me out on this crap.

Tucker has no idea how close he came to being dressed as a spotted cow for Halloween. But his still-unbroken dignity stopped me from inflicting that humiliation upon him, even though I was sorely tempted.

There’s always next year.

My summer 2011 garden is officially over.

The first freeze of this winter arrived last night, capping off a day that started with snow (!) This morning the garden is black and wilted and the only thing left to do is rip out the plants, dump compost and straw on the beds to enrich the soil during winter, and retire to the house. For a long, long time.

This summer passed the fastest of any in my life, and in many ways I feel I missed my favorite season this year. Although a part of me is ready for a break from the work of the garden, I am sad to see it go. Summer is my best time because I feel healthiest when I am outside a lot, working in the dirt and sun, sweating and nurturing young plants and taking my food right from my land to my kitchen.

I view the approaching winter with trepidation. I hate waking up in the dark. I hate driving home from work in the dark. I work in a windowless office so in the winter I only see the sun for a few minutes each day. Which, for someone who needs light, is a form of torture.

I am trying to get excited about a winter of resting and reading by the wood stove—bribing myself with new books and lofty self-enriching goal setting—but I know the next several months will be a challenge that’s even greater than the physical one I put myself through during the growing season.

Summer 2011, I barely knew ye.

It was a preview for the aurora spectacle, which I am so distressed to have missed! If I were still taking Tuck out for his late walk like before I got his invisible fence installed, I would have seen it!

If you’re into aurora photos, check this out. Did any of you see the light show?

My dinners this week have all looked like this:

How lucky to be able to eat a painting for dinner in late October!

These greens are the product of my experiment with row covers, fall planting and benign neglect. As you know, I scratched these seeds into the soil after ripping out summer plants. I watered them maybe once and then left them alone other than to occasionally snip in half a renegade caterpillar.

The salad greens, bok choy, and Red Russian kale (which wins my esteem for its beautiful color and shape) are doing the best. There’s also a very bitter green that’s satisfying my fall craving for bitterness…and probably more healthfully than the imperials I.P.As I have been drinking to scratch the same itch.

I have to report mixed success with the Agribon 15 row cover. I am sure it is better than the wedding netting at keeping out bugs, except that in even the short time that it’s been up it’s started disintegrating.

And the wedding netting is still looking like the day I put it up. Something to keep in mind when I use the Agribon for next year’s garden–I will more than likely have to replace each cover a few times during the growing season.

My little Fuyu persimmon has put all its summer’s effort into these three beauties.

There was more fruit on the tree, but as the season progressed it fell. These three hung on and I’ve been watching them get oranger. Each morning I expect them to be gone, but if my luck holds I’ll get to enjoy this “fruit of the gods” very soon.

All summer I tortured this shade-loving perennial by forcing it to live in clay soil on a south slope with full-sun exposure. It’s foliage was bedraggled and weed-like, and I often considered ripping it right out of the ground. And then this happened.

The thing is covered in blooms! It’s particularly gorgeous when the light shines through the small hairs that cover each flower. The entire plant shimmers and it has a mythological, magical feel about it.

As soon as it’s finished blooming, I am digging it up and relocating it to the shady side of the house. If it bloomed this well under duress, who knows what it will do when it gets into a happier spot?