Prepping for winter in the garden

Our winters here in P'land are so mild that I hesitate to call it "winter", after decades of Minnesota cold and storms. On the other hand, it does get cold enough to freeze, and the rains get as depressing as the dry coldness in Minnesota, so, if one associates the term "winter" with "unpleasant weather", then we have winter.

Our fall has been unusually warm and dry. At the end of October, we have had about 1.5 inches of rain, about half of normal. The last two weeks have been unseasonably, unreasonably, beautiful, with intense leaf color, balmy afternoons and sun and clear skies every day (even better, every morning has started with atmospheric mist -- "atmospheric" meant both literally and figuratively -- which burns off about noon). I haven't spent as much time outdoors relishing the weather as I should have done, but about every other afternoon I've tinkered about the garden a bit.

I won't post photos, because it's all boring dirt to look at. The good photos, I hope, will come next spring. I've planted about 100 tulip and daffodil bulbs all over the front yard, and another 100 or more bluebell bulbs, plus another 50 crocuses, snowdrops, and other early small blooming flowers. I've also pulled up about 50 dandelions and other deep-rooted weeds from the weediest part of the lawn (so weedy, almost no grass is there, just clover, moss and weeds).

Yesterday I finished by tossing grass seed over all the bare parts of the lawn, and I moved the hydrangea to a more prominent position, and I planted 24 fava beans and about that many garlic cloves in the old tomato bed in the back (the best thing about the lack of a tough winter is that we can actually grow some stuff still). I'm smug about the work, because this morning opened with a pouring rain that hasn't stopped in 4 hours, and which is predicted to last as far as the forecasts go. November usually gets twice as much rain as October (over 5 inches), and we have an inch and a half to make up for -- it looks like Mother Nature is starting early.