Farmer's Almanac Weather Prediction for Ontario: "Fair and unseasonably chilly"
I've been really lazy about my garden lately. Horribly lazy. I go out every few days to pick tomatoes, basil, and sage, cut off a few dead leaves and that's about it. Thankfully it has rained profusely during the last week. The grey days have been draining and tiring (that all day five-o'clock feeling) but at least I have been freed of plant neglect guilt.
 The tomatoes have been providing an endless bounty. I am regularly giving them away in pints and last week I slow oven dried a few trays full. The yellow pear cherry tomatoes (an heirloom variety) are particularly abundant. I've vowed not to grow tomatoes again next year since frankly I don't feel like watering 15 plants every single day. However, I will likely give in and grow one yellow pear. I have received countless raves about them. Everyone who has received a bag insists they are the tastiest tomatoes they have ever had. While I have had to limit my tomato consumption this summer (too much acid), I have enjoyed the compliments. It feels good to produce something that makes other people happy.
 I have a laundry list of things that need to be accomplished "sometime soon" but I just can't seem to get around to it. Something else always comes up and frankly I think I'm just procrastinating anyway. People have expressed to me personally or through the forums how oddly comforting their gardens have been to them during the last few weeks. I have to agree that tending to plants can be very relaxing. However, I just haven't been into it lately. I was feeling garden burn out before the previous weeks events so it's not related. I just simply got tired of hooking up the hose or lugging out cans of water on a daily basis. So I'm grateful and thankful for fall because as long as I avoid the inevitable tasks of fall (pulling out annuals, bringing plants indoors, preparing for winter), it means less maintenance and the break that I needed.
Tonight I'm considering building another new shelf in preparation for bringing plants back inside. I have one more small space near a window that is just large enough to fit a small shelf. It's right underneath the grow light which is a perfect place. For some odd reason I've been providing prime light and growing conditions to my dremel multipro TM instead of my plants.
The recent cold weather has been forcing me to think a lot about fall lately, yet I haven't really felt like it is fall. Evidence of this can be seen in the fact that I still haven't changed the season in the header bar of this site. I haven't participated in any typically fall activities. Getting a butternut squash in this week's organic delivery is the closest I've come. Okay, that and the oven dried tomatoes.
Today I received some exciting junk mail. I don't know if the sender was paying attention to who they were sending it to (let's pretend they were), but the stamp was an illustration of "english sundew", a carnivorous plant. As you can guess, I've already cut it out and added it to my stamp collection. It's one of those new fangled sticker stamps that I normally hate, but I've made an exception in this case. I'm partial to stamps that are only a few colours and printed on matte paper. Stamps from french Africa have a particularly high good design to bad design ratio.I really can't get into the glossy stamps which inevitably all the sticker stamps are. I know it's "easier", but it's just not aesthetically pleasing.
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