Autumn Makes Spring

The path in our brownstone apartment garden is carpeted with the fallen gold leaves of our thornless Honey Locust tree (Gleditsia inermis). Chrysanthemums open in one last flurry of color. I get my haircut. My husband rearranges all the furniture in our home. A mockingbird headed south chatters at a Brooklyn squirrel who is burying supplies for winter. All around there is a sense of change and preparation. The warm months are stretching out their good-byes this year, but still the leaves fall and the seeds drop and sooner or later the first freeze will hit.

Every garden task right now marries an ending to a promised beginning. I dig up caladiums to over-winter indoors. I will miss their bright leaves in my window box, but the fact that I am bothering to dig them up means that I plan to grow them again next year. The geraniums, too, will spend winter dry and dark in our front hall, to be resurrected in the spring. Pruning the raspberry canes is another exercise in combining an ending with a plan for tomorrow. I clip back the canes that bore fruit this year, but leave the virgin canes that will be fruit bearers next year.

Mulch gets piled around the remarkable 'Arp' Rosemary bush that thrives in the community garden despite the fact that I never bring it indoors for the winter as I'm supposed to. I've discovered that the two-foot long leaves of the Greek Mullein that is running rampant in the garden make excellent mulch. I pile the furry leaves several layers and cover them with shovels full of compost. More mulch comes from the oak leaves I sweep off the sidewalk by our front door. All return to the earth to nourish the promise of another spring.

But while I'm clipping, composting, mulching, and bringing things indoors, I haven't given up on the harvest yet. There are cold frames ready to put over the remaining beets, leeks, swiss chard, and winter lettuce. There are still herbs to gather, and wild roots to dig. There is a whole list of things I haven't collected yet because they will be sweeter after a frost or two: Jerusalem artichokes, parsnips, crab apples, rose hips, evening primrose roots. The wild winter staples like chickweed and field garlic are just starting to reappear. And there are seeds to collect--enough to share and swap and still have plenty to plant next year.