Design

It poured all of last night and today. It was a soaking and puddling rain, the sort that overflows gutters on not-so-well engineered streets, and overwhelms the storm sewers. Plenty of red 'mud' was flowing from bare or lightly vegetated areas, hardly a good reflection on any anti-erosion efforts. It wasn't a day for my gardening companion to move more leaves (he's determined to get the pile delivered by the city distributed before we leave for winter traveling). Nor was it a day to harvest lettuce, cilantro, or French sorrel, all of which still look good. But it was a day to think about projects to come, gardens to plants, and encouraging other gardeners.

In the early morning light, the bags of leaves looked like an odd sculptural arrangement. We've been snagging bags to cover the hardwood mulch with a thick leaf blanket, and these were from a neighbor's evening efforts. The city is full of fallen leaves: oak, maple, beech, and others. A beautiful fall weekend provided a great opportunity for folks to start moving leaves to the curb or bagging them up to go to the city leaf pile. Thankfully, rakes are the tool of choice in small yards, so the afternoon had been free of the noise of the leaf blowers that mar fall weekends in rural and suburban areas. We've picked up at least 25 bags by now, and my gardening companion is out hunting for more -- we've got plenty of space to put them so it's like getting bags of organic treasure.