Oct 2, The Foliage is a Changing!

Water Beech

Pond Red

Rock Color

Hancock Autumn

The autumn colors are slowly changing, the swamp maples are a brilliant red, the sugar maples are starting to turn gold, and the gardens are just glowing. The swan song of summer if how I look at it. The weather has been unusually warm and wet. We have had a number of stunning days, warm and sunny, but they get forgotten about when they get sandwiched between days of rain.

I have been toying with cutting out two of the apple trees in the vegetable garden, I need more light and space in there, especially this time of year when the light is getting so low in the sky, so the other day I pulled on my chapps, grabbed the chainsaw and “timber!” . Well it wasn’t quite a timber because the vegetable garden fence caught them and because the trees were good size, ( having been in the ground for the last ten years) it was quite a job to get them over the fence. I didn’t want to limb them up because of our friends that use them as sculptural pieces in their shop. We hauled a tree up to the goat pasture for them to work their magic, and it didn’t take them long to totally strip off all the foliage and bark. The trees will now start to get the beautiful sun bleached look, (that is if the sun ever comes out again)

I had a bumper crop of peach’s this year and am glad to see the last of them. I have been freezing and drying them like crazy, now I am drying grapes and apples to be used in my oatmeal this winter. The most of the beans have been harvested, and now I mostly just have the plants left that I am keeping for seed, I have pulled all the tomatoes except those in the little greenhouse, they are still producing quite well, and the garden is looking as though it is really at the end of its season. Yes, I still have salad greens, pumpkins, Brussel sprouts, turnips, carrots growing well, but that deep lushness of summer is gone.

Just got the five day forecast, yeah, showers for the next few days, the a week of high pressure, with the possibility of frost at the end of the week. That will certainly put a kibosh on the gardens.