November gardening advice...

...Apache Plume...

For all you gardeners...
I learned a new composting technique yesterday... gutter neglect composting. I have a birch tree that overhangs the gutter on the front of my house. In autumn the falling leaves land in the gutter, and being the often neglectful homeowner I am they have accumulated to the point of totally clogging my gutter. Every time it rains the gutter overflows, water pools around my foundation, and I have a small anxiety attack about my crawl space flooding, or ice dams forming in the winter and ruining my roof causing leaks in inside house. Then the sun comes out, my anxiety dissipates and I forget all about my gutters until the next deluge. This has been my routine for a few years, but yesterday, finally, I remembered that I really needed to clean out that gutter.

So I hauled out my ladder, and climbed up to peer in to my gutters, where I found two inches of the most lovely compost I have seen since I moved to Utah. It's dry here, so unless you are an attentive composter, it is hard to make compost. Since I rarely remember to water mine, my bin is mostly contains years worth of fully recognizable fruits and vegetables. But my in gutters, black gold! Home maintenance nightmare, gardeners bonanza. I grabbed my trowel dug out the muck and tossed it into my flower beds. My flowers are happy, and I'm glad to no longer have gutter anxiety.

The weirdest thing about this is that it THANKSGIVING week. Mid November and I am in shorts, a t-shirt and sandals cleaning wet muck out of my gutters. Normally I'd be hoping to be breaking out my skis this week. I'd heard recently that according some global warming research Utah had greatest temperature increase of any local on the planet. I think I believe it.

My next door neighbor, an avid gardener who was also out taking advantage of the unseasonably warmth, renamed the month Novaugust!