Fall Happenings on the Farm: Produce, Late Flowers, Bumble Bees and Mother Trees

Tonight will be our first fall frost for growing season 2017. This is almost a full month later than we frosted last year. We had a super warm spring, cool summer, very dry summer and fall and everything is confused: we have strawberries flowering and fruiting right now...at the end of October! The chickens are dealing with the cooling temperatures by hanging out on our porch pooping everywhere. They just want to be near us...it's endearing and quite comical.

Beautiful autumnal colors are showing up daily here on our farm. The Asters and Goldenrods continue to feed the bees and the migrating Monarchs and Painted Ladies. We are incredibly grateful for these hardy natives whose seeds travel through the air and germinate all on their own and can somehow compete with aggressive and invasive European grasses. A friend gave us the new Goldenrod guide out from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and we highly recommend you get yourself a copy. It's fabulous and gives much deserved attention to the importance of goldenrods.

Interestingly, we have some Asters, Fleabanes and even Tomatoes that germinated on the North side (no sun side) of our house and are all flowering and setting fruit. Here you can see the shade shadow:

and the blooms:

Arrowleaf Aster (we think), Fleabane & Tomato:

and yes, fruit! Indeed, we have a happy tomato plant flowering and fruiting in FULL SHADE. This observation fits with the one we so often make: there is usually no one right way for anything, ever.

Our right way for acquiring winter squash this year was to visit the Owl Creek Produce Auction since our homegrown winter squash were killed by the Squash Vine Borer Moth. If you've not been to a produce auction near you, we say seek one out. The deals are incredible - we got oodles of winter squash all for less than $0.50 ea. and these will keep us through winter and the next growing season.

Finally, we made two really interesting observations this fall and made short videos to share.

Bumble Bee Nest Holes

Mother Beech Tree

Soon we will write about our high tunnel, lean-to greenhouse and one of our most favorite native trees: Eastern Red Cedar. Thanks for keeping up with us. We feel like our network of friends and supporters are like the Mother Beech roots and our lives are so much richer for your presence.