changing seasons

Warming up, and a morning harvest

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While doing my morning rounds, I make a point of looking at the squash blossoms to see if any need to be hand pollinated. With the chilly nights we’ve been having – we dropped to 6C/43F last night – I’ve been finding bees in the flowers, curled up and covered in pollen.

Not this morning!

These bees had made their way out to warm up in the sun!

You can even see how wet their “fur” is. That’s not from rain. That’s from the morning dew!

I am so happy to see so many bees this year. They got hit really hard the last two springs, and it’s good to see them recovering.

I also got a small harvest this morning.

We’ve got so many tomatoes inside already, waiting to be processed, and I still have the unripe Romas sitting on screens under the market tent, until we have room to move them indoors, but when they’re ripe, they’re ripe. They need to be picked!

Then there was just one, lonely zucchini. 😁 Which I’m quite happy with, since we almost had no surviving zucchini at all, this year!

With the overnight temperatures dropping lower than forecast, I find myself wondering if we should gather all the tomatoes and bring them in to ripen. We’ve got a couple of nights coming up that are now predicted to drop to 6C/43F overnight. Considering that we’ve been hitting that on nights we were supposed to drop to only 10C, it has me concerned. Sunday is the 10th – our first average frost date. We’re supposed to have a high of 18C/64F that day, and an overnight low of 6C/43F. The next day is supposed to have a high of 17C/63F, with no change in the low. After that, things are supposed to warm up again. Depending on how the forecasts change, we might be trying to cover the tomatoes, peppers and melons. There’s no way we can cover the squash bed. It’s just too spread out.

So many things depend on the weather right now. For things like the winter squash, peppers – only the Sweet Chocolates are far enough along to have ripe ones to pick – and our one eggplant that’s trying to grow fruit right now, a frost would mean no harvest at all. The carrots, onions and purple potatoes would be fine, at least.

Well, we shall see when the time comes. Just praying for the frost to hold off long enough for things to finish ripening, though even chilly nights will slow things down.

I know the bees would sure enjoy the warmth hanging around longer!

The Re-Farmer

Reading the signs

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Though it’s only the end of August, everywhere we look, we see the signs of autumn.

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This is one of the crab apple trees in the West yard.  The apples are smaller than usual.  Though the apples are not ripe yet, the tree, like so many others, is turning colour and dropping leaves already.

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One of the plum trees has completely changed colour already, and the plums…

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Most have already dropped, and what few remain on the tree are looking like these.

Today was our day for heading into the city for our monthly shop.  Along the way, we saw flocks of Canada Geese in the fields, taking a break from heading south.  We’ve been seeing them in fields on the way to town, too.

On the drive home (when it was warmer), the snakes were out.  I was able to avoid a couple, but the highway had many squished snakes on it that others did not miss.  They have been making their way to their hibernation dens to the north of us for at least a couple of weeks, now.

I had seen a news article about how it’s expected to be a mild winter this year, but earlier, I’d see that The Farmer’s Almanac is predicting a long and bitterly cold winter, with possibly a late spring as well.

From what I’m seeing, I think The Farmer’s Almanac is likely to be the more accurate prediction. :-(

Either way, we’re going to have to start our fall preparations for winter over the next few weeks.

The Re-Farmer