I’m falling into daydreams . . . of next year’s garden, of what I can eek out yet this autumn, of longing for winter’s deepest cold and the resultant planning that comes of time spent indoors. But there is yet a month plus of beautiful autumnal landscapes and food. Perhaps these daydreams are tied into moments of lyme-disease induced fatigue. Whatever the case may be, I find the transition from one season to the next to be both delightfully optimistic for the future go-around, as well as nostaligic in the way of returning to school as a child; nature is about to go kinda dormant and that feeling of winding down tugs at my heart. Then again, we all could just be tied to the daylight like chickens and feel the drag for a reason as simple as that.
The October garden: I’m digging out potatoes and parsnips, enjoying lush salad greens, drying herbs before the first frost, and plucking the last eggplants. After one 20-yard dash downhill behind a rampant rototiller, I’ve also enrolled the help of Michael to mechanically dig up a lovely long bed for the (ee gads) three pounds of garlic awaiting a earthen home. When your friend tells you to experiment with different varieties for garlic, be ready for some 
long row planting; one pound of garlic, typically the smallest order-able amount, is a heck of a lot. Three pounds of garlic awaiting my attention was enough to put my previously entirely hand-dug garden methods on hold for a (delightfully restful) moment so that some rapid tilling could occur.
Mr. Dan Miller, of the Chester County Conservation District, came out last week to lay out level lines on our slopes. The home garden area is now staked out with fluorescent flags denoting level curves for me to follow in planting, leaving a three-foot grass strip between them to help hold the soil on the hillside. I began with a line of raspberries (planted this past April and bearing fruit right now), and added a couple of elderberry bush starts. A second terrace strip began with a previously planted blackberry bush, added three high-bush blueberry varieties (best pollination with this diversity??), and ended with another blackberry. I do not yet have trellises up for the 
blackberries, nor posts for the over-bush nets the blueberries will require should I desire the fruit before the birds arrive for feasting.
Garlic will be planted in a couple of weeks, and the winter greenhouse staked to the ground . . . it blew over earlier this week after a lovely gust.
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