The leaves, they are a falling!

It’s already October the 1^st, can you believe it? The weather service is even talking about the likelihood of frost across the northern parts of Missouri by the morning of Monday, October the 4^th.

I got up this morning to the reality that the leaves have begun to fall off some of the trees. Always a sad time for me as it means winter is next on the agenda. I’m much more a spring personality type. That’s the time of year when nature re-awakens and puts on a burst of new growth. This time of year is more about the ending of growing things as we all get ready for a cold chill in both the air and ground.

Cold weather also means longer nights, shorter days and a severe restriction on my garden activities. Thank goodness I have the two small cold frames in the front of my house. They will become a focus for me and a continuing spark of life while everything else slumbers. As you can see, the romaine lettuce starts which don’t look like very much right now are actually growing rather quickly. Interspersed among them are Cherry Bell radishes that should be ready for harvest by the end of October.

September means cooler weather!

September is here and not a month too soon! Magically, the brutal temperature regime we had been experiencing in southwest Missouri has now moderated considerably. (As I write this tome, the mid-day reading was a very comfortable 72F). Part of this was due to overcast skies heralding arrival of the remains of tropical depression Hermine. (A much diminished low pressure system whose name could well be changed to Hermie).

With the official first day of fall arriving on the 23rd of this month and with a few days of rainy weather pending, I thought it might be a good idea to transplant my small romaine lettuce starts out into my small cold frames. Right now I have about twelve small starter plants with about ten more on the way. I plan to put a few out every week or so until I have the eleven square foot combined space used up. The soil will be amended with a little leftover blood meal I have in the basement and that will be pretty much it.

Sometime around mid October I expect to have some edible plants to harvest. Any remaining plants will be covered with window panes by the end of that month to help keep them warm and happy when the weather gets cold.