It’s that time already.  I feel like we didn’t even have a summer this year.  It didn’t get hot or dry until August.  Most of our garden didn’t produce well and some of it is just starting to produce now.  While we usually have tomatoes in July, this year we are just starting to get big tomatoes now that school has started – and that’s only on the plants that didn’t get blight.  No pumpkins, no big watermelons and no cantaloupes this year.  But it sure has been a bumper crop year for pears and apples and even the peaches did well.

We’ve started cleaning it all up and hoping for a better growing season in 2010.  We’ve had a couple of cold nights and there has been frost nearby so it’s time to get the vacationing houseplants back inside.  We have a couple of good-sized ficus trees that spend the summer outside on the deck.  I repotted them this year and it has been pretty wet this last week so they are really heavy.  Even getting them on a dolly is quite a chore. 

A friend recommended a contraption called a PotLifter.  It has straps with handles for the lifters to hold onto.  At the bottom of the contraption is another set of straps that go around the pot (or rock or can or what have you) and they snug up around whatever you need to lift.  The great thing about this is that you really don’t have to bend down to lift the heavy pot or worry about the pot getting off balance when you lift because one person stands up faster than the other. 

We’ve found lots of uses for these just in the short time that we’ve had them.  Of course, it does mean that two people will be lifting and moving your heavy object.  But, in many cases, that’s still easier than getting out the wheelbarrow or getting the object into and out of the wheelbarrow.  I can see a balled/burlapped Christmas tree being a whole lot easier to move with this.

If you have lots of fall cleanup ahead of you – I recommend you check it out.  It is called a PotLifter.  I have seen it in the Gardener’s Supply catalog (and I assume it is on their website) and I purchased mine from Lee Valley.  Go check it out!