So it’s almost the end of fall. Getting antsy about the change of seasons.
Love fall. I even like winter. Makes for
some great pics when it snows. This time of year I just had to plant something. Something that LASTS. Some “green stuff” .
My mother had the same affliction. Edgy near the end of
August. Fall looming. Time to plant .
But in her case, she wanted to BURN stuff. She’d dress in her engineer overalls,
look for matches and get ready to torch stuff. She’d rip out plants with great
glee.
These past few weeks, I ripped out all of the spent flower
pots. I took great delight in giving
them a good thrashing, as I stuffed them into compost bags.
My mother liked to do the same thing with fire. She was renowned
in the neighbourhood for her fires. She waited till she could get her permit,
and then it was all hands on deck.
She’d make a pile of old flowers, branches, twigs, etc. at the
back of our lot, set fire to the bunch.Then “Boom”. Flames danced. I’m not sure
what she put on the pile to make it burn, but it sure worked great. I think she singed her eyebrows once or
twice. She kept adding to the fire. She’d stay out there, alone, keeping watch.
Until the neighbours gathered.
The only thing I watched this year, was for a deal on ferns. I was
going to dig them out of the greenhouse, but
kind of impossible. So it was whatever I could find leftover at the
garden store. The stuff that no one wants. The stuff that is marked down. One tray left. $4 for the tray.
This year, I also planted “Lipstick Strawberries” in pots.
Green. They make nice little berries. Provided deer don’t take a hankering to
them. I don’t mind if they do. I got
a flat for about $3. Enough to fill some empty troughs and pots.
My mother didn’t replant with ferns. She stuck lettuce in the
porch pots where she grew geraniums. Lettuce plants leftover from the corner
garden store which shut down over the winter.
And she’d tend to her fire at the back of the lot. It seemed
to burn for about a week. Give or take. The neighbours came by with coffee and
sticky buns. They had chairs. They’d sit
in the dusk and “Chew the fat”, as some
were want to say.
Once she tossed into a couple of the plant pots , by accident.
They made a horrible smell and she had
to fish them out, with her rake. Everyone applauded. Pots were all scarred and half melted. The fire burned on. The neighbours talked late into the night, keeping my mother
company.
When they had all gone home,
my mother still held the hose. She’d sit there till almost morning. Then she’d wake me up and I’d have to sit
there with the hose, while she had a break……
Some nights she threw grass clippings on her fire. She was an avid lawn mower. Neighbours
oohed and ahhhed at the display.
The grass didn’t so much burn. Twigs underneath popped and snapped.
Everyone told stories, and passed the
thermos of coffee.
My mother wasn’t too
keen on the lettuce she planted. Discovered it was cheaper to buy it in the
stores. So the lettuce found its way to the fire . One by one. Poof. Burned up.
Eventually the fire died out.
This year, I got tired of stuff dying in the rain, burning
up in a heat dome, or eaten by ginormous
slugs. Ferns and strawberries seem
to last in pots. I ‘ve had some growing that way for
years. They come back after a hard winter, bigger and better. They even lasted
the heat dome from last year. Not sure why I didn’t figure it out sooner.
So there should be lots
of green this year. I’ve left a few pots for the geraniums I’m
over wintering this year, like my mother used to. I have
24 ready to go inside, in a week or so. Every year they sit on their window sills
, in the sun, and long for spring.
For years and years my
mother saved geraniums . It was her mission. A few she kept in the dining room.
Some she put into mason jars full of water and left on the downstairs window
wells. I found skads, after I cleared out
the house when she was gone.
I collected as many as I could , into one jar to take with me.
For years they lived again in the summer.
And every year I save geraniums I am reminded of her. I remember the fire she tended,
and the people who sat with her.
I can still hear their voices talking low, late into the cool fall night, crickets chirping in the dark, and the gush of the green stuff……
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