Last year, when I cleaned out my little garden (dead tomato plants, etc.) late in the season, I made it about a week looking at the bare dirt. It made me very sad ... surprisingly so .... and I had to plant something. I planted some cold weather crops and just those little sprigs of green (didn’t do any real growing until spring) made me feel a whole lot better. I guess this is the long-version-roundabout-way to say: what about doing a fall garden?
Plant some winter wheat, and it will be green all winter. On sunny days, it’ll look like spring.