Fall Happenings

The stunningly tall August garden makes me feel a little short.

The garden has definitely turned a seasonal corner.  In July the days are growing shorter each day but the soil is nice and warm; leaving the garden for a week in July may well spell the end of your gardening year.  In July the weeds seem to spring from the soil fully formed and half grown, overnight.  But then in August the balance of power turns back in the gardener's favor.  It takes energy to grow after all, and there just isn't as much sunlight as there used to be.  This time of year the plants are all frantically trying to produce seed - weeds and crops alike following some genetic program warning them that it's now or never- and I spend most of my time picking, or clearing away the things that are spent to make way for fall crops.  There are insects everywhere: mosquitoes, grasshoppers, squash bugs, cucumber beetles, harlequin bugs, stink bugs, ladybeetles, swallowtail butterfly larvae, and more, racing me and the plants to the finish line at the end of the summer.  How fascinating the life-and-death melodrama playing itself out in a boring, dried-up, late summer garden.  How fortunate that my life doesn't depend on winning.