One last pumpkin carving site

Just one last site before the holiday arrives.

How to Carve a Fancy Pumpkin With this technique, you remove the tough orange skin from some areas and carve out other sections completely to let the light from a candle or small flashlight shine through.

(Via eHow.com: How To Article of the Day.)

Fallen leaves as mulch

While I probably abuse this concept out of laziness, I have been raking my leaves into my beds for a while. This actually works better in the Winter months out here as there is significant moisture to help the leaves break down. In Summer, I think it is too dry to let anything really work in the soil. It would also probably help to mulch up the leaves a little beforehand. During our El Nino year several years ago, the leaves merely matted together without breaking down much due to all the heavy rain. If it isn't one thing, it's another.

Tuck those fallen leaves right into beds

by CISCOE MORRIS
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Don't rake and rid your garden of leaves. Instead rake them right into your garden beds.

Leaves make one of the best mulches available. They form a protective blanket from cold in winter, slow evaporation in summer, and eventually will break down to form incredibly rich topsoil. The only exception is diseased leaves.

Springing forth...in Fall?

I have several roses along the driveway, beneath the kitchen window, that have suffered a lot this Summer. I don't think they were getting enough water, due to irrigation problems, and they are in an area that is becoming more and more shaded. I had thought I had lost off of them until just a few days ago.

I am now seeing new leaf growth on several of the plants, so I may still be able to salvage them by moving them somewhere else. It appeared that some bug was munching on them pretty heavily, too, so perhaps our cooler weather has controlled their population to slow a bit and given the roses time to recover.

Life in my garden is always a bit like this. Trying to discover what is happening and then why before it is too late. As the roses become more dormant, although they never go completely so, I will be able to perform some selective transplanting without stressing them too much more.