Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009 - 4:59 p.m.

Finally did it, made the bed I've been promising for months now. It isn't as large as I thought it would be, but it'll do for starters. It also isn't really clear at this point exactly what it's supposed to be...sort of just looks like an area with a higher-than-usual density of leaves, with a little dirt and sticks topping it off.

Here's a close-up. It doesn't look any better close up, I find.

Maybe I should have dug that trench around it after all. But to tell the truth, I was pretty well exhausted just after doing this: laying out the cardboard sheets, raking the leaves over, and moving the contents of my ripe compost pile onto the leaves/cardboard. I was huffing and puffing. Digging trenches will have to wait.

Now, I don't really know if the leaves will decompose sufficiently over the winter to leave me a nice layer in which to plant things come spring. I think I'm supposed to add more greens to it, but I don't really want it to look like a regular chunky compost pile. You can see, it isn't exactly in a sheltered area. The neighbors already put up with a lot (as you may guess from the kiddie-pool-turned-turtle-pool-turned-mint-planter, in which all of the mint died during the period of drought we had during the summer. Classy!)

Ok, finally, just for Halloween, here's the fairytale pumpkin I acquired today:

�