gardening and enjoying life in Salem, Massachusetts
After all of my planning and good intention about decorations, and centerpieces, and name tags, it came down to four simple candles arranged by my little guy, great food and my wonderful family. That’s all that really matters, isn’t it?
Happy Thanksgiving! I hope your day was as blessed as mine was!
Love, Michele
The title of this post has changed a couple of times since I took these photos the other day. I started with something like “Fall Color, Now and In Years Past”… I was going to include photos of past years too, when the colors were brighter and prettier. Then I went to “The Colors Before the Storm”.. thinking that all the little bits of color that we had this year would be gone by Tuesday. Then it went to “The Calm and Color Before the Storm” which morphed into “Watching and Waiting”. I’m pretty settled with this one. It best describes how I’m feeling here on the coast of New England today. Hurricane Sandy is projected to track south of us a little bit. We will likely experience strong winds, rain and very high tides. That’s our best case scenario, which isn’t too bad for New Englanders who don’t live directly on the ocean. I’m thinking a lot of our countless family members and friends who live on the water or right in the mid-Atlantic area that may be hit the hardest.
My “fall color in the garden” photos are pathetic this year. Here’s what I have:
A little pink and yellow and a happy looking spruce tree…
Bits of yellow..
and red..
and the garden. That’s it!
As you can see, we went from green, to bits of yellow and red to brown. I kept waiting for the day when I’d get outside and take those beautiful photos! It happens some years. I never made it out of town during the peak times to see the foliage north of here but it was probably quite lovely. This is a very small concern when we have much bigger worries on our minds this weekend.
I’m thinking of all of my east coast friends and family this morning and sending you love and safe thoughts!
I hear that Halloween is being celebrated wildly downtown. If I make it down there later today or tomorrow I’ll posts some photos that will be sure to make you smile!
Love, Michele
It really feels like fall out in the garden. I can’t say that I love it, I’m a summer person, but it is beautiful here and the Holidays are right around the corner, then the snow, and then spring will be here.. sorry.. I’m getting off track :).
Okay, out to the garden! Here’s our white pine tree undergoing it’s annual fall browning. It may look a bit sad but this is just part of it’s fall process. You can read more about the conifer life cycle here in this article by Margaret at A Way to Garden, one of my very favorite gardening blogs. The conifers will be just fine, they really will!
We still have a few hints of summer, like mesclun.
and some sage. I need to dry some for the winter.
The tomatoes are hanging on. This tomato plant volunteered from last year and grew all over the asparagus bed.
The peppers like this cool weather.
There’s lots of green tomatoes. My neighbor and I were talking about what to do with them last night.
This morning on the phone my mom said that they can be wrapped in newspaper to slowly ripen. I may try that… will keep you posted!
The cabbage are just about ready. 
There’s still some basil hanging on
and zinnias and gladiolas.
I’m wondering if the gladiolas can winter over in the ground, or should I pull them and put them away for the winter?
(I should probably pull them out)
Our trees are still quite green. we should be seeing some good fall color soon, I hope!
There’s so much clean up to do. We’ll get there, one bed at a time.
Happy fall! Enjoy everything!
Michele
The Salem Garden 