Paleo Harvest Workout

Who needs kettle bells when there is a harvestof 25 l. or more winter squash to move to the storage cellar? This 22 lb Blue Hubbard will be transformed into pies for Thanksgiving in two weeks, until then, I need to relocate all of them to the store room before our heirloom breed Narragansett turkey's get them. But don't worry, those turkey's won't be around for long. 

November can bring daytime temperatures that dip into the 20's, but today, I worked up an appetite by raking for 3 hours, thatching the lawn, harvesting winter squash and shredding about ten wheel barrow loads of leaves - transforming the lawn litter into a finely chopped mulch which was then spread deeply around the perennial border and the ephemeral beds where woodland plants from Asia and North America grow. These plants, such as hellebores, wood anemones, Anemonopsis,  bloodroot and Uvularia or wild oats. The shredded leaf mulch will provide protection from both deep winter freezes, and more importantly, early spring thaws, as the goal here is to keep the ground frozen until the air temperature is constant enough to avoid the thaw-freeze-thaw pattern which can happen in our unpredictable New England spring, which can wreck havoc with tender woodland plant roots, and perennials. This thaw and refreeze kills more perennials and plants than below zero temperatures can.

Mulch made from shredded leaves and pine needles is spread around a rare Speirantha convallarioides, a newly introduced Chinese relative of the common Lily-of-the-Valley. It has tiny, fragrant white flowers in the spring that look more like branchy grape hyacinths than they do that of Lily-of-the-Valley.