Quote of the Day: Laura Ingals Wilder
In the mornings they ran through the dewy chill grass that wet their feet and dabbled the hems of their dresses. They liked to watch the sun rise over the edge of the world.
First everything was gray and still. The sky was gray, the grass was gray with dew, the light was gray and the wind held its breath.
Then sharp streaks of green came into the eastern sky. If there was a little cloud, it turned pink. Laura and Mary sat on the damp, cold rock hugging their chilly legs. They rest their chins on their knees and watched, and in the grass below Jack sat, watching too. But they never could see when the sky first began to be pink.
They sky was very faintly pink, then it was pinker. The color went higher up the sky. It grew brighter and deeper. It blazed like fire, and suddenly the little cloud was glittering gold. In the center of the blazing color, on the flat edge of the earth, a tiny sliver of sun appeared. It was a short streak of white fire, Suddenly the whole sun bounded up, round and huge, far bigger than the ordinary sun and throbbing with so much light that it’s roundness almost burst.
-Laura Ingals Wilder (On the Banks of Plum Creek (Little House))
This time of the year I start to notice the sunrises more and more. Perhaps it’s because they’re a littler later and I see them more often. Maybe it’s the fact that the leaves are falling off the trees and I can actually see them. This is the view from my upstairs window.
Regardless, I’m loving the sunrises these days. There’s no better way to start the day than by watching the sun rise!
Do you get to enjoy the sunrise from your house?
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Quote of the Day: Eleanor Roosevelt
“We walked tonight up to the top of the hill back of my cottage and saw the sun go down…Then, as we came home, the rain began to fall very gently–that soft spring rain which give you the feeling you can almost see things grow. My lilies-of-the-valley are just young green shoots coming up out of the ground…The lilacs are out, and as we walked through the woods two white dogwood trees gleamed, almost in full bloom. Yes, the world does live again. Perhaps nature is our best assurance of immortality.”
-Eleanor Roosevelt in her journal a week after the death of her husband FDR (Franklin and Eleanor: An Extraordinary Marriage)
Yesterday I spent a few hours cleaning up the garden. It’s that time of the year to clear out all the dead plants to make way for winter mulch. As I was working, I planned out next year’s garden, taking notes of what worked, what didn’t. I noticed the low sun casts a good deal of shade on on the potager during the fall, making this garden not as good for fall crops as the main garden. That can be remedied by taking down a few trees.
I’m actually quite happy that fall is here, I’m ready for the garden to go to sleep.
Are making plans for next year as you finish up this gardening year? Will you make and changes?
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Quote of the Day: Monty Don
“It is strange how autumn surprises you every year, even though it is as predictable as a birthday. You are conscious of summer stretching itself so thin that it is transparent, hardly any substance to it at all and yet enough colour in the garden, enough fragile heat in the sun to cling to. And then you turn away for a moment and it’s gone, autumn in its place, lumpen, damp and chill. Overnight you can hardly recall what summer was like. Yet something positive – if rather intangible – takes its place. It is the scent of apples and leaves, the amazing sight of cobwebs suddenly strung from branch to branch like a string of delicate seaside illuminations, and a mouthful of tastes that have lain dormant or inappropriate for two long seasons.”
Monty Don (The Ivington Diaries)
It certainly seems like it’s officially fall now, there’s a crispness to the air in the morning and evening. The air is starting to smell earthy as the leaves fall and start to decompose back into the soil. The sounds of rustling leaves is the most dominant sound in the garden.
I’m thankful that I live in place where the trees turn vibrant colors this time of year. It certainly helps bring some much needed excitement to what might be an otherwise depressing time.
Do you get to enjoy colorful leaves in your area?
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Quote of the Day: Monty Don
“The garden at the beginning of October flatters to deceive. The sun still has the heat to warm through your shirt, still carries the tang of summer during the middle of the day. But no one is fooled. This is not the real thing but borrowed from summer, little more than a good memory. Autumn has arrived. The leaves are changing colour daily and the air has an almost tangible opacity you only find in autumn.”
Monty Don from Fork to Fork
It’s certainly starting to feel like fall around here. Plants in the garden are growing much more slowly and brown in becoming the dominant color. This year I’m happy for fall to arrive as I’m ready for a long winter rest.
What does fall look like in your garden?
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Quote of the Day: Joe Eck & Wayne Winterrowd
We know, however, that if we were forced to it, we would abandon all the parts of the ornamental garden before we surrendered the little patch that feeds us most of the year. Giving up the vegetable garden would mean that we would cease to eat. We would continue to put food in our mouths, we suppose, though certainly we can both imagine states of loss and depression so grave as to make even that minimal effort at survival pointless. But at this time of our lives, the ingestion of food merely for the purpose of survival is not what we mean by eating. To be nourished directly from a garden for years and year, to become accustomed not only to the tastes but also to the labors and rituals it offers, the small festivals, makes even the fanciest gourmet market seem thin. Corn is not the only crop that, eaten as soon after harvest a possible, surprises even memory with what it can be. Carrots taste both sweeter and of the earth when eaten just pulled, their flavor rusty with minerals. Peas need no butter, no cooking even. Baby potatoes the size of marbles can be bought in no market, golden purslane and orach in only a few. In the door of no market that we know of can ripening tomatoes be smelled as we smell them in August when the garden gate swings open. Artichokes which we grow here with great effort, are tender and sweet, without the ferrous taste and fibrous chew that mark store-bought ones. From each plant we may coax two or three apple sized buds before frosts come to remind us where we live. From two long rows of fava beans we can pick at most only two or three company sized servings. From as many rows of butter beans, sadly less.
Joe Eck & Wayne Winterrowd in Living Seasonally: The Kitchen Garden and the Table at North Hill
I grabbed this book to read on my trip to Cincinnati this weekend. It’s my all time favorite book and I try to read it every year. At this time of the year, I’m always considering my vegetable garden and how much it have provided for us throughout the past year and for the coming months ahead.
As I put most of my garden to bed for the cold winter months, I’m reminded of how many different vegetables I grew. It really is amazing how little space you need to grow a lot of vegetables. My small potager behind the house is only 25×25 feet and yet it provided most of the fresh vegetables that we ate all summer long. From it I harvested: peas, beans, fava beans, chard, strawberries, asparagus, tomatoes, leeks, beets, peppers, herbs, celeriac, celery, broccoli, cabbage, flowers, carrots, arugula, radicchio, kale, chicory, lettuce, and a few other edibles.
