Garden Report: November 15

It's autumn, a word I use deliberately. Because of our climate and the kinds of trees planted here, we don't get much in the way of leaf drop. Nonetheless, the fruit trees are starting to turn, and today I raked up a tiny pile of leaves from the nectarines.

Leaf pile

Given how few leaves we have, I hoard them. I also go get leaves from the big maple down the street (the owner is happy to let me take what I like), and from some of our neighbors. They all think I'm quite mad, but I need the leaves for my Compost Empire.

Turning leaves are not really what I think of as autumn in California. Of course, there is the autumn fruit and squashes, but this time of the year is what I call "greening." With the start of the rains (and heavy nighttime fogs), our hillsides wake up and start to turn from brown (summer) to green (winter). Likewise, the lawn has turned green practically overnight. We mowed today, for the first time in weeks.

Green lawn

In other old-house news, Noel dug a new dog poo pit today and found yet another trash pit. I'm sure plenty of other people with newer houses envy us the incessant glass-bottle bounty of our garden, but I have to admit that after a while the piles of broken glass and plate shards are a bit much.

Trash pit stuff