Tucking in the Garden...Too Late

Tucking in the Garden...Too Late

Posted by Heather Harris

 I'm getting a very bad feeling that I've been a lazy gardener and now I will have to pay. I woke up this morning on an bright, sunny, gorgeous day with miraculously nothing planned for the entire Saturday, and thought,"Today, I can finally clean out my vegetable garden and put it to sleep for the winter, just like a good little gardener should". I did not, however, consult any common sense.

Yesterday, I literally used my trowel to hack into an inch and a half of freezing rain that completely glazed my mini-van like a hand-dipped ice cream cone. Once I'd chipped an access hole into the windshield, I couldn't find the ice scraper, so I had to use the white spatula that came with my KitchenAid. Needless to say this was a long, agonizing process that ended in just enough window clearance to drive, although I'm pretty sure if a cop saw me, I would have been pulled over. It was all apparently traumatic enough for my daughter to regale her classmates during Writer's Workshop with the whole story.

I live in a valley, "Happy Valley", to be correct, but it is trapped high between two ancient volcanic buttes at the western end of the Columbia River Gorge. Thus frigid cold winds whip through my yard anytime the East Winds blow, meaning that ice can hang around our house for a very long time, long after the suburbanites in the lowlands have donned their shorts and shades.Last night I had to warn dinner guests to tread very carefully down our walkway because it was still an ice skating rink.

Why all of this did not register as less than ideal gardening conditions is beyond me. I just thought it would be cold outside. Well, it turns out that the five giant redwoods that someone with little foresight planted by the creek block all of the low sun rays this time of year and my vegetable plants were in much the same condition as the mini van. I attempted to yank out a tomato plant, but it didn't budge, its roots held tight in a giant soilcicle. The "bright lights" swiss chard reflected sharp rays like shattered stained glass on the floor of an abandoned church, the reds and oranges encased in a thick coat of ice. Tomatoes lay like broken, over-sized marbles discarded by neglectful children after a long forgotten game.





It appears the garden went to sleep without my nurturing tuck-in and much like a child, I expect it to wake up very grumpy...