Early October visions

The Brussels sprouts are beginning to “sprout” out in the field! They’ll continue to size up over the next two months and be perfect for Thanksgiving harvests.

Neighbors offered to let the kids and me pick up the chestnuts from their trees this year (since they will not be using them). What fun it is to pick up these smooth brown nuts — they feel so good in the hand. So far, we haven’t roasted any, but it is in our plans to do so on one of the first truly cool evenings of fall.

We went to Miller Woods for our weekly nature outing last week. The forest is still mostly green, but we could see the orange creeping in and the air just “felt” more like fall.

The kids took a break from hiking to draw in their nature notebooks.

Casey has been bringing in the winter squash, a bit at a time. These are some of our favorites: Marina di Chioggia — HUGE squash that get sweeter in storage over the winter. These are for eating in February and March!

When I was out by the greenhouse yesterday, I looked down and tried to brush what I thought was a leaf off my pant leg. Turns out it was THIS fellow instead. It hung out on my pant leg for a while and then slowly made its way back into the greenhouse. At the end of the summer, our fields and greenhouses are full of thriving predatory insects, such as this praying mantis. This one was particularly large!

The sunchokes (aka “Jerusalem artichokes”) are finally blooming! The part of the plant you eat is the tuber that grows at the base of this native annual sunflower. The variety we’ve grown the last two years is especially tall, towering well over our heads. With so few blooms in the fields this time of year, it’s a treat to see these sunny blossoms in the field.

What is fall without a messy-looking field corn planting? This image is quintessential autumn to me.

Late summer is all about fruit, but fall is so much about SEEDS. Everything left in the field (including weeds) is setting and maturing seeds right now. Everywhere we walk, seeds pop out of the brush, sticking to our pant legs or falling to the ground for next year. This fennel plant is working on joining the crowd with some late blossoms.

Earlier this week, Casey disked in a cover crop on this large field for the second time this year. Growing a cover crop and working it in is important work for next year’s crops — we’re adding organic matter and fertility back to the soil as well as working through the weed seed bank. The ash trees in the distance are just starting to turn colors.

I found a small patch of phacelia (aka “Bee’s friend”) in an older planting this afternoon. We plant this flower in our fields to attract beneficial insects to our crops. We’ve observed that when phacelia (and calendula as well) grow nearby our brassica plants (such as Brussels sprouts), we have much reduced aphid pressure. Plus, the unfurling blossoms are gorgeous and beguiling.

We have so many apples maturing in our orchards right now! (And we’ve harvested so many for you to eat already!). We are grateful that we planted many varieties of apples that mature over a long season so that the work of picking doesn’t all pile up at once. We’ll be picking apples all fall, as each variety becomes ready, and then storing many of them in our cooler for eating all winter and into next spring.

And, back at our house, I have to admire the second-growth hollyhock blossoms by our front door. I think this second round is always my favorite of the year, especially because they come at a time when the garden contains so few flowers.