The Daily: 19 September 2023

It took all week and a herculean assist from both my sons, but the basement is scoured bare and free of stench. An unexpected consequence of dumping a couple hundred square feet of stuff, mostly wooden shelves full of books, is that I feel lighter. I am not ready to embrace making trash of one’s life, but if nature does that for you… There is great calm in lightening the load. I also got the quarter inch layer of mud and debris out of the garage and tossed a few of my formerly rustic garden things that had run to true rot with all this moisture. So that smell is gone now too. As I write this on Sunday morning, there is unfamiliar sunshine and cool temperatures, so everything is open and airing out. There may be more rain tomorrow, but the weather might finally be shifting to a drier and cooler pattern, though first frost may not hit until October this year.

This is good because the tomatoes are producing at last, and I’d like to get a few weeks of fresh garden tomatoes before winter sets in and there is only chutney and sauce. Perhaps I’ll even get a few in the dehydrator for sweet dried tomatoes. There are also potatoes to cure before the cold sets in, and before that can happen I need to put the garlic and onions in the basement. For obvious reasons, that project was put on hold. Just because the mold down there had stuck to infecting woody materials doesn’t mean I trusted my harvest down there with fungus running rampant. I also haven’t managed to sow my fall peas yet because the groundhog is still very much active and hungry. But maybe she will stick to day length timing and bed down for winter in spite of the warm weather and late abundance of green leaves. So perhaps I can plant peas this week with the arrival of the autumnal equinox.

I am already preparing the whole garden for winter. It took so long to get decent enough weather to address the garden disaster that I decided go beyond merely dead-heading and pulling weeds. I have cut down the astilbe and ferns in the back garden and the daylilies in the front of the house. The roses and spireas are in their winter trim ready for the weight of snow. I hauled many barrows of prunings and pullings to the brush pile in the deep jungle — which is slowly building up soil on the bank next to the garage and covering up the decades of dumping in that pit. Everything from beer bottles and abandoned tires to a bike and a whole telephone pole is festering under a screen of wild clematis. My plan is to bury it and forget it exists.

Returning the garden to spareness in preparation for the snows that may fall as early as Halloween here in New England always brings me peace. I do love the growing garden. I love watching plants do what they will. But at this point in the growing season I am tired of rampant growth. I want cleaner lines and less chaotic mess everywhere. The last few weeks of every growing season are a time of plant desperation. Every vine will send out meters of trailing plant to smother every surface. Every stoloniferous plant will wind its way out of beds, sending up suckers wherever there is sunshine. Every tree and shrub is a rain of seeds and leaves, small dead creatures and large limbs. It’s exhausting. I often feel like the plants are taking over, smothering the house and choking each other in their late season Dionysian frenzy. This year, with all the rain and the late sunshine forcing plants to do most of their photosynthesis in September, it felt oppressive, like I was living under siege. So cutting it all down is one of this gardener’s greatest joys, especially this year.

There are always discoveries when the overburden is sheared away. This year I found that the ajugas in the back garden had not only spread under the ferns, but they’ve crossbred. There are new silvery green streaks on the new variegated plants and some of the plain green ones have white undersides. I may get rid of the astilbes and ferns the former folks planted back there so I can enjoy the colors on these low-growing beauties all summer. (And also just because I’m really not fond of either astilbes or bracken…) A not so happy discovery is that the rodents have been digging up the hyacinth and daffodil bulbs. Many of those are now ruined. They don’t actually eat these bitter bulbs; they dig up the bulbs and leave them to desiccate and mold. On the outside chance that some life might be lurking in the hidden middle of the shriveled bulbs, I shoved them all back into the ground and covered them with potting soil and compost, but we’ll see if much comes up next spring.

For now, I’m just enjoying a clean garden. Some autumns I wonder why I go through all the stress and mess just to get to this leveled state again. But I suppose I wouldn’t enjoy the tidiness as much if there were no recently removed chaos for comparison. That’s the lesson in this time of year. Balance. There is too much of everything, good or bad. The trick to life is to find the fulcrum. Growth is wonderful, until it is too much. Spare lines are beautiful until they are not.

In this season of equal day and night, the inflection point between waning summer and waxing winter, I find myself seeking out that balance in everything — from the garden to the demands on my time. I am very glad my flood clean-up is finally done. Now, I can take back those hours and try to be more productive for myself. Or maybe less productive and more rested. But I will also have more time to process all this harvest, as well as a mold-free basement to store it in. I can get my bread and yogurt and hummus made on the weekends and a pot of something to keep me fed each weeknight. I might even find time to sit and do nothing but read. Maybe something just for fun! In September I often note with wonder that it’s been months since I did anything that I just wanted to do. And isn’t that the point of living? To do things that make you happy and healthy? This year that feeling is especially pronounced because so much of this summer work has been remediation, getting back to the baseline before the flood. It has not been a productive year. I’ve been running the Red Queen race, sometimes not even staying in place, but sliding backwards…

So, I am happy for this clean garage and empty basement and restrained garden. I can breathe again. Without inhaling swamp…

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©Elizabeth Anker 2023