PUTTING THE GARDEN TO BED

I put my garden gloves on, grabbed a garbage bag from the drawer and looked over at my husband Steven. “I think it's time I put my garden to bed.” I said as I opened the back door and went out on our deck.

Steven started to laugh as he filled his cup with coffee and followed me out the door. “Well, that shouldn't take you too long when you only had four pots of cherry tomatoes!”

I picked up the first pot where one lone green tomato was clinging to the shriveled vine. “I used to have five pots at the beginning of the summer.” I reminded him. “Until that fat groundhog attacked them.” I pulled the plant out of the pot and tossed it into the trash bag. Then I walked to the edge of the woods and emptied out the rest of the dirt.

“He only got one plant?” Steven asked as I went over to get the hose and rinse the pot out before bringing it back to the deck to dry in the sun.

“Nope, he got three of them.” I pulled the next plant out and showed him where I'd Scotch taped the broken stem. “Who knew Scotch tape would work so well.” I looked closer at my taping skills. “I taped them back together as soon as I saw what he'd done.” I looked over at Steven and smiled. “I obviously did such a great taping job that I never had to replace any of it all season!” I was still smiling as I tossed the plant in the trash and moved on to the next plant. “It was like it had never been snapped in two!”

Steven just shook his head. “Well there's a gardening tip you can pass along to your friends.”

“Exactly!” I put the last wet pot on the deck to dry then looked around to see if anything else needed to be done.

Steven looked at his phone. “Well that took you about ten minutes.” he laughed. “I think that's the quickest I've ever seen someone put their garden to bed.”

I looked at him, a bit confused. “Who said I was done?” I went over and picked up my hand clipper. “I have to winterize my garden tools now.”

“You have a pair of hand clippers!” Steven laughed again. “That's not really what you'd call garden tools.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I'm thinking of investing in a trowel next year.”

Steven just shook his head.

“And I'm also thinking about making it eight...no wait.” I thought about it for a moment. “Make that ten pots of cherry tomatoes next year!”

Steven looked at me for a moment. “You know, now that were getting the yard ready for winter maybe I should winterize the grill.”

“That's a great idea.” I was rubbing the dirt off my clippers. “How do you do that?”

He put his coffee cup down, walked over to the grill, opened the drawer, and pulled out the grill cover. “I put this on it.” He shook it out before he draped it over the grill. Then he walked back over to his coffee cup, picked it up and took a sip. “As you can see my winterizing is even easier then yours.”

I had to smile. “Somehow I feel like you're making fun of me.”

“What me?” he shook his head. “Never.”