I cut back all but one of the Tuberous Begonias. The very best looking one I watered and have left to see just how late into the season it is going to be before we get that killing frost. I’ve never made the first of November before, so we are trying for a record. Lots of other autumn activities are keeping us out in the garden as the weather cools but stays mostly sunny. The massive Walnut tree continues to drop its fruit from great heights. They hit the pond like depth charges or smash their hard shells on the boards of the new deck. I grimace as each one hits, smashes and leaves behind the inevitable dark stain on my shiny new wood. It was getting difficult to walk across the deck so I had to gather them up. This is a dangerous occupation. Being out there, under that tree, requires same strange gardening attire. I hope I never need the hard hat but these 5cm green bombs have landed close to me and it’s a touch scary. All of the leaves and the fruit go into the municipal composting bags and head for the street, as I don’t want them in my own compost. It uses a lot of bags. Three layers of walnuts in the bottom of the bag comes close to its weight limit. Add some leaves and it’s done.




Scattered throughout the vegetable garden this year, I had a selection of different types of Gladiolus. They grew well but the flowers were a bit disappointing. Nonetheless, as I clean up that garden, I dig up some nice large Gladiolus corms and have to decide what to do with them. Toss them out and buy new ones next year is the easy choice but gardeners, particularly frugal gardeners like me, find that a very difficult choice to make. I really don’t need anything else to overwinter but somehow I just can’t seem to toss perfectly good corms. They were set out to dry and now I will remove the excess dirt and all of the little developing corms and store them until next year. I have had Glads overwinter in my garden, by mistake of course, but it was interesting to see them come up the next spring. I will not keep all the tiny developing corms and line them out to grow into bigger ones next year.