This past weekend the pond builder and I started putting everything away for the winter. Saturday morning’s weather forecast encouraged us to pull the pumps, drain some lines and cover our garden plants.

I’m getting better at covering the plants each year. I end up wrapping some perennials because the rabbits and deer will nibble on them when they get desperate. I’m not covering the hedge contoneaster this year and hope that it will not be a bad decision. Of course I might change my mind and cover them later in November. The Japanese weeping maple has an increasingly larger windbreak created for the winter.

This is is the first year that I have pulled in dahlia tubers. I have cleaned and dried the tubers…and bagged them in some vermiculite. I’m betting that at least half of my tubers will be viable next spring. I’ll probably order a few online just to get some more variety. It’s possible that I may have dug up the tubers a little early. I did wait past the first frost but some sites recommend leaving them in the ground a few weeks after the first frost.

Meanwhile, the koi indoors are doing very well. They fight over food and are all very active. Their color seems to improve in the indoor pool. We’re going to rehome a koi or two. We have a very large shiro utsuri who has very little sumi coming out. While some koi keepers will say “be patient”, when I described the koi to the breeder he said ‘there’s always a chance, but probebaly best to move on.’ So I have found someone who will love this big white koi. I will keep observing the other koi at home and look to determining which ones will need to find new homes in Spring 2019. Less koi and more water is what we will adhere to this upcoming year.

Natsumi is the biggest bully koi when it comes to eating.

The tough showa look.

While we did not see this koi in person, we have purchased a female kujaku from Omosako Koi Farm through GenkiKoi. She is a nisai, about 22 inches long currently. We had hoped to purchase a koi when we visited in October and had worked out some details in advance with our dealer. Unfortunately, the koi selection we wanted to look at was still in the mud ponds. (If we had visited a week later, we would have been able to see her 🙄). This koi will stay one year with Takahiro Omosako and then we will re-evaluate if she will come home to Minnesota. The pond builder does not like the kujaku variety but she’s pretty cute. I hope she will continue to grow and develop.

So pretty boring in koi land. Boring can be a good thing. I don’t want to write about taking care of any sick koi this winter!