Summer to Fall Transition in the Garden
The superheroes in our summer garden wore mesh. Seriously, the mesh coop covers we ordered from Gardeners saved our garden this summer. When the sun was intense, they kept the plants alive so that birds and pollinators would have food in the early fall. Using these covers to give the beds a break from the heat also allowed me a chance to directly seed a few more flowers and early fall veggies in the garden beds without having them immediately wilt.
In the fall, squirrels sometimes create their own gardens by buying acorns and nuts in the fresh soil in our garden beds, destroying new seedlings in the process, but luckily these covers deter their gardening plans. In the winter, I’ll bring out a set of canvas covers made for the structures that keep plants protected in case of frost or ice.
Chicken Wire Crop Coop Covers Kit
Chicken Wire Crop Coop Extensions
Chicken Wire Crop Coop Extension Covers (only includes bottom portion)
While the garden is a place where we grow herbs and veggies for our family, the garden is also a place for quiet reflection and connection to nature. Whether we are inside admiring the birds (our back windows are basically one big bird blind), outside letting our dog run around, or just walking around the garden to see what is flowering or changing as the seasons pass, the garden is a place to pause and soak in nature’s complexity and beauty.
Our garden is also where I do my part to give back and support wildlife. Creating a garden with nature in mind compared to a garden only for human consumption means that everything will not look picture-perfect. For me, that’s okay.
We received a much-needed cool front this week that brought rain and temperatures in the 90s compared to the 104 to 108-degree temperatures we’ve had all summer. Luckily my fall mums and several other flowering plants from last year made it through the hot summer by planting them in an in-ground bed with part shade.
I’m patiently anticipating the flowers that will bloom after the rain we had over the last few days, but in the meantime, I have a thriving forest of ground cherry plants with blooms that have been pollinated, and little ground cherries are now growing inside their paper lantern-like cocoons. When they ripen, they will turn orange inside their papery brown husks and fall to the ground.
Wondering what to do with ground cherries? Here are 9 Tempting Ground Cherry Recipes and recipes for Ground Cherry Salsa (and this recipe made with serranos), Ground Cherry Coffee Cake, Ground Cherry Upside Down Cake, and Ground Cherry Lemon Jelly.
Make sure you wait to eat ground cherries once they’ve fallen to the ground. The leaves, stems, and green (unripe) ground cherries are toxic. Once they have turned orange and fallen to the ground, they are safe to eat. Don’t forget to save the seeds from a few ground cherries to plant the following year!
For the past 6 months, I’ve been using an app called Notion to manage my plant library. Keeping a library of the plants in our garden helps me to stay organized and plan ahead with notes on planting information, photos of each variety, tags for each garden bed, a tag for plants out of season or plants growing in the greenhouse in winter, and even create a wishlist of plants that I’d like to play with in the garden. I love that keeping track of what I’ve planted reminds me of what to plant again the next year and what didn’t grow well that season. I recently counted over 150 different varieties of plants in our garden so far, with most of those plants making it through this very hot summer with a little extra water and care.
“…but when I look at a record I keep of things as they occur in the garden I see that I always think the leaves are late turning.”
-Jamaica Kincaid, author of Among Flowers: A Walk in the Himalaya
I see gardening as a way to experiment and adapt to the seasons as they change, but I also enjoy observing patterns. I find keeping notes in a garden journal helps me notice these patterns and save time in recognizing what chores need to be completed in the garden and when and where plants seem to grow well. I finally found a gardening journal that allows me to look at three years of journal entries all at once. I can’t wait to see the patterns that emerge over a three-year period.
Be sure to check out Tilth Alliance’s shop for this garden journal, gardening books, and great gardening gift ideas!
Among Flowers: A Walk in the Himalaya by Jamaica Kincaid
When it’s too rainy to be in the garden, I find a comfy chair (preferably with a view of the garden or trees), wrap my hands around something comforting to drink, and watch gardening videos or read gardening books and articles that I’ve saved for a rainy day.
During my lunch break this week, I’ve been reading Among Flowers: A Walk in the Himalaya by Jamaica Kincaid. I love Jamaica Kincaid’s anecdotes as a gardener and her self-described cautiously adventurous spirit. Her writing voice is honest, frank, and witty and reminds me so much of my grandmother’s writing in the letters she would send me in college. Jamaica Kincaid takes you along with her in this travel memoir as she joins a group of seed collectors on a trek through the Himalayas.
If the summer heat didn’t wipe out your late summer/early fall flowers, consider yourself very lucky! I’m sharing a few resources to take those beauties and use them to make something to enjoy all season long. I’m so jealous of all the wonderful flowers Laura from Garden Answer had available in her garden to make the wreath in her YouTube video!
I also came across this helpful video from Blossom and Branch Regenerative Gardening on YouTube to learn new ways to utilize even the buggy flowers from your garden. Be sure to leave plenty of flowers in the garden for fall migration season when pollinators are looking for a little snack on their journey south.
Wreaths: Fresh, Foraged, and Dried Floral Arrangements by Terri Chandler and Katie Smyth
Foraged Flora: A Year of Gathering and Arranging Wild Plants and Flowers by Louesa Roebuck
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin - Plant Database
In next week’s Nature’s Seasons post, I’m sharing videos and photos of some very special visitors to our garden. Get outside and put your hands in the dirt this weekend, and I’ll see you here next week!