The tender green sprouts of fall greens are coming up amid a slow shower of early leaves. It is one of the peculiar hazards of fall gardening in the vicinity of trees that spring seedlings don't face. The new rows have to be checked and cleared as necessary until the seedlings are big enough to shrug any leaves aside.

The weather is cool in the morning and warm to mildly hot in the afternoon. I'm still putting the hose on the garden between showers, hurrying out to put it in position to outrace the mosquitoes still hunting for human prey. I'm already nursing a few bites for dawdling over the tomato patch, picking another bowlful of small but tasty tomatoes.

The cats don't mind falling leaves or mosquitoes at all. They are back outside snoozing in their favorite hiding spots, occasionally watching for unsuspecting prey. A carelessly drifting leaf makes a fine toy to bat around the yard now that the young birds and squirrels have gotten as wary as their parents.

The crepe myrtles are putting on the main show of color in the garden, with sparks of lavender, pink and white from the roses and altheas. The zinnias are adding pink and gold blooms among the peppers by the fence. Most of the yard is clothed in the somber greens of late summer, still capturing sun for winter strength but with the slight weariness of hue that will slowly merge into the reds, golds, and browns of fall foliage.

The garden centers are switching from summer annuals to the fall traditionals, but so far I haven't succumbed to the temptation to plant more flowers to brighten the garden. We sometimes get a pot of mums for the terrace, usually from Mom getting one from a church luncheon sale, but the fall gardening here is generally confined to the vegetable garden.

After the spring and summer press of work in the garden, I'm getting weary of the activity, too. Fall is the time of harvest and resting upon one's laurels as the last goodies are brought in. I'm at that stage of life where autumn more reflects my condition and strength than even summer, and the mosquitoes are almost a welcome excuse to wind up the gardening for the year.

Our little fig tree is well established but didn't produced any fruit this year. Perhaps it will next year. It is about three feet tall and covered thickly with leaves. It does seem to like its spot next to the pink rose.

The big news of the week is that I finally finished the patchwork jacket. As is the norm for my projects which I design, I dawdled and fiddled and changed things right up to the end. It still fits, though, and it is very colorful and warm.

It is an assortment of stitch patterns and fair isle patterns knitted in rectangles in a size which tiled together to give a basic unshaped jacket in my size. The wide double breasted ribbing pulls the front together in place of the corresponding row of rectangles in the back, folding back into a collar at the neck. This one was made on size 6 needles with worsted weight yarn for a casual, boldly colorful style, but they can be made with smaller needles and/or other yarns and threads for a more subtle look.

The technique is useful for using up leftover yarn much like a patchwork quilt uses up fabric scraps, with an almost infinite variety of stitches and different shaped patches useable as long as they all fit together to fill in the shape of the fabric piece needed for each piece of the jacket. This one is actually fairly tame compared to some of the wearable art jackets I've seen, but it should be a lot of fun to wear once the weather cools down.

Now I'm tempted all the more to sneak into the latest fabric.com sale. They've got the yarn marked down even further so that it is about as low as I've found it in the discount store. I'm still knitting the country rose sweater that I started around sewing pieces of the jacket together, trying to remind myself that I still have a lot of yarn to use up. The back of that sweater got finished last night, so I have the front and the sleeves yet to go. However, the last sale email said that they were moving still more stuff out to make space for new fabric, so I keep cruising among the pages wondering when I'll simply have to buy more pretties.