Fall is in full swing here in western Pa, the leaves are changing, the days are shorter, and it is getting cold at night. We have had frost warnings a week ago and it will be down in the 30's at night for the next several days. We normally get one frost about the 1st week in Oct, and then what we call Indian summer, a week or 2 of days in the 70's. I am still picking peppers, a few onions, some yellow squash and I have the carrots to dig up yet. I planted my garlic today as well as some yellow onions. I have never tried planting onions in the fall, we will see how they go. My neighbor got me the onion sets, I figured the least I could do was through them into the ground. Pulled out all of the sunflowers in the sunflower garden and carried the stools into the garage. Picked up sticks in the yard all morning so that I can start sucking up the leaves. I got one load of leaves sucked up this afternoon. That is a little less than 1% of all the leaves I have to pick up here. Last year I got 52 cart loads of leaves, that is just under 52 short bed pick up truck loads of leaves. I put a cart load around every apple tree, 3 loads of pine needles around the blue berrys, several loads on the sunflower garden and the rest in the garden. That leaves about 30 loads of leaves to sift into the next hugel bed along with the wood chips and logs. I will be sucking up leaves from now until Thanksgiving. After Thanksgiving Hunting season starts here in Pa and I will be up at camp for awhile. I have picked which section of the garden I will double dig next, I have to wait until the tomato plants are 100% dead, and I have to dig up the carrots so I have space to put the dirt I take out of the hole and sift. I don't know when I will get to that project, it maybe early next spring.
PS. Update on the leaf sucking situation, I sucked up 9 load yesterday and 9 more today. That brings the total to 35 loads so far this year. 25 loads I dumped in the garden for mulch, 3 loads with alot of pine needles in them for around the blue berrys, and 7 loads dumped one load around one apple tree for mulch. That makes me about 2/3's done for the year. I should be finished by Thanksgiving.
PSS I am done with the leaves now. I finished before Thanksgiving, the total for the year was 52 loads, a goodly amount of mulch I would say.