This could be due to the organic nature of my entire operation. The plants are growing in compost that I have made right here at the back of the garden. It grows absolutely lovely food. And I want to continue growing and eating food that is chemical free and gorgeous to boot. The making of the compost is no big deal, and the changing of the bins is no big deal. There you have it. Fresh compost it is, it wins.

The bins are three feet square and eight inches deep. Each bin grows one, and only one, tomato plant. One dynamite tomato plant. Or two cucumber plants, or two melons, or two red bell peppers. This sounds like underplanting, but it allows air to circulate, greatly reducing mold damage. With eight bins in use you can see how things can add up.

I scrub out the empty bins with a drop of dishwashing liquid, enough water from the hose to make the whole enterprise effective, give them a good rinse and put them back, filling them with fresh compost. The greenhouse is now ready for the third week in March 2007.

The big tools are in the process of getting their handles sanded and oiled. The metal parts will have a good go with a wire brush to remove any loose soil and possible rust spots. And then the metal edges will be sharpened, honed, oiled and stowed out of the weather.

But the hand tools are still seeing action. I have not stopped gardening. There is still lettuce and peas (I have never seen peas like this, I think the package is mislabeled, at least I hope so) in the beds, begging to be harvested. I always leave the artichokes in the ground, hoping that perhaps this will be the year that they will winter over. The pumpkins really do need to come inside, they are starting to suffer, although they are also looking nice and orange, better that happen outside than inside, although it is possible. So keep that in mind, if your pumpkins are still green you can harvest them, wipe them off with a mild chlorine bleach solution to inhibit mold, put them in a laundry basket and let them hang out in your living space, looking gorgeous and, well, homey, for lack of a better word.

The perennial beds are still being weeded. Grass has to be the most invasive weed in the whole world, or at least at my house. So why not keep removing it while everything is nice and wet and the roots are so easy to pull? What about any errant chickweed that you may have missed along the way? Now is a very pleasant time to take care of those things.

I have been enlightened about the needs of bulbs, i.e.: they do not need bulb food, just compost and manure. But I still have bulb food and I am going to use it no matter what. There is no way I am going to just throw it away. Onto the bulbs it will go this one last time and that should be that as there won’t be any left.

I really like to mix my compost with manure, about half and half. I don’t have all the compost that I want and this method stretches the gold. So all of the vegetable beds have a nice layer of manure/compost. The perennial beds will get a little something for good measure. But I will be sure to have enough of both saved aside to apply come spring.

The peonies need attention. When the foliage dies back, be sure to cut it off at ground level and either burn it or take it to the landfill. Do not compost or throw it aside, you need to destroy it. There is the slim possibility that it could harbor botrytis, a nasty fungus that can ruin your peonies and you certainly do not ever want that to happen. It will cause leaf blight and the stems will rot. Nasty.

The peonies will also get a last dose of bonemeal, something else that the enlightened say is unnecessary. Sprinkle it around the drip line, not directly over the crown of the tubers.

It is becoming increasingly obvious to me that all one needs in the garden is manure and compost. The simpler the better, the more people will garden.

You need to keep reading. I know that we have the holidays stretching out ahead of us but the Homer Public Library has a subscription to Organic Gardening that I intend to peruse. I don’t really want to own it myself, but there is usually a nugget that is applicable to the Far North.

Take care of your houseplants. Mine need me. This is always the time of year that I realize that I did not serve them well all summer long. I have about 30 African violets and they could use dividing and a general cleaning up. I am looking forward to this chore, which happens about every three years. But October is a tough time for them to recover from the ordeal. They may need to spend some time under the grow lights. But I know that they will recover and bloom come spring, just when I need them to.

Note: Homer Garden Club meets at 2 p.m. Sunday at City Hall, downstairs in the council chambers. Paul Castellani, who many of you know from the Farmers’ Market, will speak about organic gardening. Don’t miss this.