Decapitated worms

Hi,
the garden is officially closed for the season. I pulled the last of the elephant ears out today, decapitating at least 30 earth worms. Yeah, I know you can't cut a worms head off, but they do squirm a whole bunch when you slice them in half with a spade. It's hard to imagine still having to garden in November. As a Canadian, the mud raking session is usually done by the end of September. There is never anything to bother with in October, and November is usually when some silly winter weather starts to roll in. Not in Pennsylvania. September & October we still had blooming flowers and I was trimming bushes back for the 10th time. This never-ending growing season is brutal.

The canna plants hit 9' tall this year and I dug out 40lbs of tubers. I have already dumped 10lbs of them on women at the health club with instructions to plant them next April and I am not responsible for what they produce.... which is a whole lot of flowering plant, and more tubers. The elephant ears were even more prosperous and plentiful. Leaves the size of kitchen tables and stalks reaching over 10' high. It looked very tropical in the front of our house. Chopping it all down was heart breaking but if I don't get it out before a hard frost these plants will die, and I'll have nothing to wow the neighbours with next year. I really did have to yell 'timber' when I felled these monsters, and they land with a definitive 'thud' they are so heavy. I think I'll invest with a machete next year and wear jungle paint as I make my way through the yard work.

The flower beds are cleared, the detritus is dealt with and my back is only a little sore. This year it was 12 hours of labor for clean up of just the flowering plants and some dead tree branches that fell from last weeks snow event. I don't even touch the falling leaves, that's for hired help and it can take 3 guys with leaf blowers 2-3 hours to clear out our yard. Mature trees are lovely until they shed... and then they aren't so pretty to pick up after.

Some aspirin and a hot shower await me. I need the winter to recuperate from all this gardening.

xox
m