I forgot autumn gets cold!

I’m still in bed, the sun has come up, but it is cold.  It’s the first morning where I have actually noticed the cold, even before getting out of bed!  The kids are moaning about the cold and Hubby the Un-Gardener is frantically searching for his beanie!  Apparently the overnight low was only 7°C so we will have to get used to things getting a bit colder than that in the months to come.

It sort of came as a bit of a shock!  The weather, while quite wet has been quite mild, and we were tricked by our memories of autumns past and lulled into believing autumn doesn’t actually get cold.

Yesterday I went out and made some timely purchases, but I think I need to go back out and buy more.  Yay!  I’m a girl and a gardener, what better collision of coolness is shopping for gardening stuff!

I am now the proud owner of a brand new pair of Red Band Gumboots and for some this may not seem so exciting, but for me….  well lets just say I’m having difficulty convincing myself to take them off!  When I first started gardening I had those cool funky, trendy gumboots, picked up cheaply at the red shed.  They were my first gumboots since childhood, and they had pretty flowers on them and they were cheap!  They didn’t last long at all.  Within the first couple of months my shiny new gumboots were dull, scratched, caked in mud and had bust open along a seam and were letting cold water and mud in.  I think their intended use was for a gentle bit of gardening in the suburbs, not hard core rural digging!

So the decision was made to purchase the real deal:  Red Band Gumboots – made for farmers!  And this pair lasted for years.  In the last couple of weeks I noticed my faithful boots had sprung a small leak up near my big toe where I had worn them out through season upon season of digging and weeding.  Cold wet squishy mud and water was sneaking in.  I had resorted to putting a plastic bag in the boot to protect my feet, but this solution wasn’t going to be a keeper going forward.  Now I have new boots and I love them!

I also bought new gloves with winter in mind.  I must be getting older and wiser or something.  In my early days as a gardener (5 years ago) I would work away quite happily bare handed, convincing myself that it is so much nicer to be in touch with the soil and the plants.  But what it really was, was I had never really worked with the right gloves.  I owned several pairs of these cloth ones that were never a close fit and when they weren’t filling up with dirt, they fell off.  So thoughout the growing season – and most of the year for that matter, my hands were stained to give me the green thumb I so desired.  All I needed now was my experience to catch up!

Then I found these cool gloves that fit well and have some kind of rubber infused into the palms and finger tips.  You can work and feel the dirt and keep your hands relatively clean.  They work a treat!  Although I can still be found with dirt under my nails as I will more often than not end up gardening when I hadn’t intended to.  It starts with a weed here and a weed there and before you know it a whole garden bed has been made over without the use of gloves and more than likely in my good clothes!

But these hard working gloves don’t last forever and I had noticed the tips had worn through, so while gumboot shopping I picked up a pair of gloves.  I reached for my usual pair, but then another pair caught my eye.  They were better!  The rubber bit went all over them, so while digging in the cold wet winter dirt my hands will stay warm, dry, cosy and clean.  Well that is the plan.

But to successfully do winter gardening I need more stuff!  I need thick socks, I need wet weather gear and I need thermal underwear….

Come again soon – daylight savings ends on Sunday!

Sarah the Gardener  : o )