As the days get shorter, the nights get longer, and a heavy frost greets me each morning, I realize it is time to do the thing I dread each year. It is time to say goodbye to my garden.

My berries have stopped blooming, my cucumbers have gone away, and even the last pumpkin has been plucked. My least favorite fall task is closing up my garden for the year.

Part of it is the fact that it is just not fun! I have fun each spring planning and planting. I even have fun all summer watering, weeding, nurturing, and especially harvesting. To me, the fall cleanup is the drudgery work. It is like the closet that I keep tossing things in, promising that I will organize it, and then am content to just shut the door. Oh, how I wish I could just shut the door on the garden.

Unfortunately, that will leave me with a bigger mess in the spring. It is time to put on my boots and gloves and brave the task that I would rather never know existed.

It really shouldn’t be this hard. It’s not that it is a strenuous task; in actuality, it is more emotional. I have to say goodbye to all of the plants that I have lovingly cared for all these months. I carefully cut back my strawberries and covered them with mulch. I pruned back the raspberry and blueberry bushes. I carefully pull up any of the old, dead vegetable plants.

As I am doing this, I start to think forward to the next year. Do I have room for a few more berry bushes? Should I move my cucumbers so that they get a little more sun? Should I expand my tomatoes or add some new varieties?

Wait a minute! Maybe I should stop thinking of the fall cleanup as a goodbye. It is more of an “until we meet again”. It is not as if my garden will not flourish again in the new year. It just needs this time to rest, recoup, and, let’s face it, be buried by snow.

The sadness ebbs slightly as I start to think of all that I can accomplish next year. In the meantime, I can plan and prep in my head everything that I want to do next spring!