I have been continuing to help at the Urban Farm here in Eugene, which has been going really well. I work with an awesome group of students this term who are hard workers and seem really interested and motivated to learn more about urban agriculture.
We are moving inside now for the remainder of the term mostly because we no longer have enough light. It gets dark right in the middle of class after the daylight savings switch. I understand the move inside, but it also feels like a hard end to the season.
Last week we finished applying cover crops to our empty beds. We left the kale, swiss chard and spinach in the ground. Garlic is already starting to push its head up. The bed of carrots is half filled and we harvested a few more from it. There are still some small pumpkins in the storage room that we need to take home and eat.
Typically I spend these cold Fall mornings inside with a mug of coffee looking out the window to keep watch on the silent garden, but this set up is a little different since the place I’m farming is not my backyard. Instead I’ll stop by once or twice a week to check on the chilly plants. Now I’m starting into my new backyard that is a sea of grass, with a little 10 x 10 plot I’m sheet mulching for a garden.
Part of me can’t wait until December when my term of school is over and I can finally sit down and pour over seed catalogs and maybe even read a book for fun. But part of me can’t help but feel reluctant to see another gardening season come to a close. What did I accomplish this year? What does next year hold for me? The falling leaves outside don’t seem to have an answer for me this morning.
