Delicious autumn!
My very soul is wedded to it,
and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth
seeking the successive autumns.
- George Eliot
I love autumn! Everything I have enjoyed (and sometimes endured) with the summer garden is drawing to a close, and though I do find beauty in the slow decline, there is such vibrant life to the other plants in our gardens now. As the last tomatoes and peppers wind down and bean blossoms all but fade, the Joe Pye weed, heliopsis and goldenrod are just coming into their own. It’s something I look forward to every year not only for their showy color but for the butterflies, bees, insects and birds that feast on the nectar and seeds.
Not only are the native flowers happy, the brambles and fruit and nut trees have been baring their abundance, too. Apples, pears and blackberries have been harvested for us, elderberries and black walnuts left for our wildlife friends. They’re rapidly being snatched and devoured by our resident squirrels, birds, mice and chipmunks as are the almost ripe rose hips, sunflower seeds and the fruit of our Oregon grapes. I can almost feel a sense of happy urgency watching as the residents of our gardens prepare for the season ahead. I, too, feel that fall nesting intuition… an inexplicable urge to feather our nest and make ready our home for impending cold weather. These cooler days and nights find me happy in the kitchen baking bread, cooking soup and canning… it’s nearing the end of summer picnics and grilling and the start of everything home and hearth.
It’s not the end of the vegetable garden, though. Fall has its own harvests and we’re looking ahead to those…but in the interim I’m really relishing a slower pace, the colorful decay of one garden amidst the vibrant life of another and everything that each brings. Happy gardening!
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I love the way everything looks at this time of year…It’s a little feral, like Mr. Brown Thumb says, but everything is so big and there are so many beautiful reds and yellows, the garden is still producing so well, but the air is changing. It’s a lovely time of year. What are those red things that look like tomatoes with green growing out of the bottom of them?
It is feral, a perfect description! The red things are rose hips on our brier rose bush. They’ll be cooked into delicious rose-hip jam soon enough.
I wondered if that was what they were. Are they sweet or sour when they are fresh? I don’t think I ever seen anybody grow them before. How neat!
They’re actually seedpods common to many varieties of roses. The hips from our Brier Rose (in picture) are smaller than the hips from our rugosa roses but both are fruity with a very mild floral flavor and pack a big punch of vitamin C! I make rose petal jelly in the spring, but the rose-hip jam is really something wonderful!