What's Happening in the North?

I finished all the outdoor work that I had set as my goal:  The garden is all cleaned, rototilled, and I planted a wee patch of 40 garlic cloves--my first try at growing garlic.  See the black arrow in the photo--that's my 4' square garlic patch.

 I have read too much unnerving information about garlic imported from China, which is commonly sold in grocery stores, so I went to the local Garlic Festival to buy seed garlic from the best garlic growers in the area.  I bought lovely purple-skinned garlic heads, then planted the biggest cloves.

I am told garlic is best planted in fall (like tulip bulbs), covering with straw insulates the ground, so roots can form before the garlic freezes.  Early in spring I will have to remove the straw cover so the ground can warm up.

We had our first snowfall a few days ago.

So even if I hadn't finished what I wanted to do, the snow would have declared an end to the outside work.

Have also been busy with greenhouse orders.  All the pre-started plants had to be ordered early, so those orders were done before the end of October.  The big seed order is in, and two smaller ones, Stokes and T&T will be ordered as soon as the new catalogues arrive.

Since I am making the garden smaller next year, I have to plan how to include some of everything we enjoy.  I can't reduce the 5 long rows of onions, or the 4 long rows of different types of potatoes.  Not likely to reduce the 26 tomato plants that I usually grow, nor the 2 doz slicing cucumber plants.

I hope our berry patch produces well next year.  We have about 40 Haskap bushes, 16 saskatoon bushes, 30' of purple raspberries, 30' of black raspberries, 70' of red raspberries, lots of gooseberries (green and red), currants (red, white, black), josta-berries (cross between black currant and gooseberry) and 5 goji berries.  I managed to get them all cleaned and a lot of them mulched with chopped leaves to a deep depth, which should keep down weed germination next year.  Our 9 cherry bushes have also been cleaned and mulched with wood chips.

And I hate watering the plants that I am keeping over for stock plants in the basement windows, and checking them for bugs.