Garden Diary - October 2021

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October

All Hallow's Eve
Saturday, 30 October 2021

There is a meme going around. Which one? you ask. This one.

My favorite color is October.

It's a rather poor autumn for color other than yellows and oranges. As the days shorten and temperatures cool, less chlorophyll is made. This allows the carotene pigments, disguised by green chlorophyll, to be revealed. Reds are a different matter. They are anthocyanins and are specifically manufactured by those plants that have the potential to do so - dogwoods and sumac for example. But sunny days and cool temperatures are required. And our weather has been rather mild. Goodness, we have not yet even had a frost.

Another event that happens at October's end. Call it All Hallow's Eve. Or know it as Samhain, one of the four quarter days. Here it is halfway between the autumn equinox and winter solstice.

A time when the boundary between this world
and the other world can more easily be crossed.

Perhaps this is the rusty ghost of a once upon a time more functional truck.

Be warned, this sign declares. Not everything is as it seems.

Small skeletons dance in the wind on the branches of Cedrus atlantica 'Glauca Pendula'.

Another, massive by any measurement, waves at passersby from
across the street from the post office. Was their mail that delayed?

And this one, accompanied by two small dogs.

As I was setting up for this picture at the Frenchtown Market I murmured something about "head cheese." Counterman looked through the cold cuts in the case and then apologized. "I'm sorry." he said. "We don't seem to have any."

Leaves are falling. Soon enough the trees will be bare.
It will be not rain, but snow. I'll sit by the fire, cat in my lap, and knit.

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