For the love of Autumn

As many of you know it was a messy spring and summer here in the Dunedin/Otago area this year. Many of us felt we missed summer despite a reasonable few hot days, interspersed with rain. I am not going to lie, The bees and I were getting quite frustrated. The chickens loved it because the weeds took off, providing a lot of nutritious snacks for them.

In my attempt to make my garden "Public" ready, I have been making the most of the mild days of Autumn to "carpet", yes you heard me right, to carpet all the paths. This is in an attempt to keep the weeds down and get ready for the paths to get a generous layering of gravel in the near future.

I was in the midst of this project in my vegetable garden on Monday, and I stopped for what I call a micro-break and just sat there. There was a dampness in the air, the smell of earth and leaves intermingling and a quietness that you only get during the week when everyone else was at work.

Ahhh - the pleasure of the smell of Autumn.

Autumn is often seen as the time to begin to take your foot of the accelerator and slow down and enjoy the journey a bit. Given that my accelerator is permanently stuck at 30km/h, I tend to continue at that pace but I find Autumn very busy. It is always the time to preserve our garden bounty and make any changes to the garden and this year there are a lot of things to do before the next season.

Watch this space as I make my way, turning the garden from the neglected one it was, to a place worthy of you visiting, either to learn, to teach, to find company or to rest.