Autumn In The Air

There's a cold front bearing down on Georgia this week. It should arrive in metro Atlanta Friday afternoon. How appropriate.  Yes. it's a bit cooler this week but looking into the lush green woods you'd never guess there a change in seasons upon us. It's what I call the endless fall and it's one of the events I most enjoy here in north Georgia. Endless fall usually persists  well past Thanksgiving which means Christmas has a tendency to sneak up on you. I had an even harder time with that in Savannah where fall colors usually "peaked" in January if at all.

We do have signs of change as summer's clusters of color give way to the singular happy blooms on the patio and around the house. 

Perhaps the biggest seasonal change here on my little ridge is the sound. For one the tree frogs are quiet now that summer showers have ended and we're approaching the driest eight weeks of the year.

In addition we no longer have the sunset symphony of cicadas, katydids, and other insects at our door. 

In late September the concert begins well after sunset and is confined mostly to the deeper woods at the top of the ridge. Soon I'll miss their sound completely but at least conversations on the porch will no longer be drowned out by the accompaniment.

To Autumn

O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stain'd

With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit

Beneath my shady roof; there thou may'st rest,

And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe,

And all the daughters of the year shall dance!

Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.

'The narrow bud opens her beauties to

The sun, and love runs in her thrilling veins;

Blossoms hang round the brows of Morning, and

Flourish down the bright cheek of modest Eve,

Till clust'ring Summer breaks forth into singing,

And feather'd clouds strew flowers round her head.

'The spirits of the air live in the smells

Of fruit; and Joy, with pinions light, roves round

The gardens, or sits singing in the trees.'

Thus sang the jolly Autumn as he sat,

Then rose, girded himself, and o'er the bleak

Hills fled from our sight; but left his golden load.

                                                                                  William Blake (1757-1827)



And so here's to fall, the color, the refreshment of cool breezes, pumpkins, mulled cider, and the smell of wood smoke. Perhaps it's a quieter time but there is much to be done. Take it at your own pace and have fun in Autumn 2022.

Seasonal Minimums

For a bit more than three weeks, we've been adding a few more seconds of sunlight to each winter day. Those seconds don't translate into perceptible warmth for us though I'm sure somewhere in the physics of the great Earth Engine, a tiny needle on an invisible gauge has registered an uptick. For those trembling in the ten-day cold penetrating life in east metro Atlanta, that uptick has real meaning for this is the climatological rock bottom for winter in these parts. Both historically and statistically, the only way for the thermometer is "up" until the dog days of summer mark the opposite of the heat cycle.

These brilliant, cold, blue-sky days are best reserved for perusing seed catalogs and cultivating imaginary gardens. I do these tasks best sitting in my Florida room in an overstuffed rocker. There, tired eyes may lift from the page or be distracted by peripheral movements to focus on the sun-drenched woods beyond the patio. In a matter of weeks, I'll be out there prepping for the growing season and, with some luck and reliable climatology, soon watching those gardens in my mind bloom into reality. I've heard some say that I should be more productive these days, if not all days. That may be true, but to be productive you sometimes have to stop producing and quiet yourself. And quieting oneself is not as easy as you might expect. In quietness, you occupy a netherworld between consciousness and unconsciousness. Like the seeds I hold in my hand, it contains great potential. With proper temperatures, water and nutrition, the productivity will follow. Though I look forward with enthusiasm to the warmth and the garden, the seconds will pass in their own time. Time doesn't care, and why protest this a priori dimension, a mystery from the deep beyond. No worry here. Warmth in due time, yes, but for now, these coming days are the quiet.

Container Gardening Means More Than Flowers

Temperatures in south metro Atlanta reached into the mid-sixties today reminding me that it's time to order seeds for this year's garden. If you enjoy landscape gardening, there's almost no way to avoid spending hours bending, stooping or working at ground level. The best way to avoid the annual aches and pains in this case is to go with flowering shrubs and trees, and smaller perennials that return year after year. But giving up the flowering annuals - they last one season - usually means you give up variety and a full color palate in the garden. I've had good success the past few years with a combination of landscape perennials and container annuals. Less work and easier work still resulted in pleasing color and variety.

Last year, I decided to expend that saved energy in planting a vegetable garden in containers. The result exceeded all expectations. We live in the woods with only a few patches of more than dappled sunshine during the growing season. There is a nice eastern exposure by the garage that provides about seven hours of direct morning sun - not a blade of grass at that spot, unless it's coming up through a crack in the concrete. I put the container garden there in three tiers between ground level and two feet high, planted with cut and come again lettuce, sweet peppers, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, and zinnias to aid pollination. The entire plot was in containers up to five gallons in size, and covered about 20 square feet.

Within fifty days, the harvest began with lettuce, then tomatoes, quickly followed by cucumbers and peppers. It lasted into December when the frost finally killed the tomatoes.

If you have a garden or want to start one on a simple and manageable scale, I suggest you give container gardening a try. Many web sites can help, especially those extension service sites maintained by your state's land-grant universities. You'll get some good outdoor exercise, enjoy watching the garden grow, and savor the goodness of your very own crop of pesticide-free vegetables.

Life Force

The average date of the first frost at our home has come and gone without the freeze. I like that. When I was in college in suburban Washington, there was one good thing about the advent of freezing weather: Winter Break in Miami or the Keys. Now that I'm retired and puttering with a container garden, cold weather tells me that I'm about to lose some "close friends" unless they are potted and moved to the Florida Room. The tropicals, USDA Zone 9 through 11, are already inside, but most of the annuals will only see the Spring sun through the seeds they drop.

The annuals that remain outside, in spite of dry, gangly stems and withered leaves, are producing one or two blooms or fruits that would rival those of any mid-summer day. They are indeed being true to Dylan Thomas's plea to "rage, rage against the dying of the light."

On the other hand, the foundation plants - evergreens - don't seem to mind the changing weather, as they are on another cycle. We can enjoy the brilliant crimson pyracantha and the varieties of blossoms and leaf textures from our wonderful Encore azaleas - they bloom three times a year. The camellia buds are already an inch long and showing hints of color. They seem on track for an early February bloom. Maybe that's a sign of a mild winter, and a hot sun in Tampa instead of the Everglades.

Today, all of my garden paraphernalia sits ready for the coming cycle. The seed catalogs arrive in January. My wife will choose the color palate for the flowers. I will select the tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, bush beans, and lettuce. The average last day of frost at my home will be March 24. Virtually everything will be in containers. It will be wonderful.