seasons

Colours of Autumn

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Growing up in eastern North America, autumn meant colourful leaves, fading to brown, bare branches. Green fields gave way to gold, then brown.

So it was a lovely surprise to find when we first moved here that in Canterbury, the opposite is true. Summer has its green bits, but because there is little summer rainfall, the summer landscape is predominantly brown.

But with autumn come cooler temperatures and more rain. Grass begins to grow again. Plants that were dormant through summer sprout new leaves. Autumn is a time of lush green—a time of life, not death.

For certain, the days are shortening, and the growth won’t last. Soon there won’t be enough sunlight hours to fuel plant growth. But winters are mild, and the green will remain all the way through until spring.

Today I picked a basket of autumn crops for dinner—all in shades of green.

Garden Rescue Mission

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

A southerly storm blew through yesterday, and the clouds cleared around midday today. The sun was warm this afternoon, but the wind remained chilly. This evening was clear and still. Perfect conditions for a frost.

There are few summer vegetables left at this point. The tomatoes outside the greenhouse are all dead. The peppers and eggplants are ripening their final fruits, the zucchinis and cucumbers are maturing at a tiny size. The corn has all been eaten, and the runner beans are giving just a handful every few days.

A frost will kill everything left in the summer garden, so I went on a rescue mission this evening. I gathered in everything that was still decent, whether it was fully ripe yet or not, assuming that anything left in the garden will be dead by morning.

It felt oddly good.

It’s not that I won’t miss the fresh tomatoes and eggplants of summer, but I also look forward to the pumpkins, potatoes, and beans of winter. As they say, variety is the spice of life. I would say that seasonality is the spice of life. Food marks the course of the year, and each crop has its own time. It gives the year variety and interest. It gives us things to look forward to with each season.

So, while I mount my summer vegetable rescue mission, I don’t worry about the loss of those summer crops. There are other delights to come.

Traditional Easter Jack-o-lantern

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

The traditional Northern Hemisphere holidays make absolutely no sense here. Easter falls at the Northern Hemisphere seasonal equivalent of mid-October. So a celebration of spring flowers, new-season’s growth, resurrection, etc. just doesn’t work.

We’ve just brought in the last of the harvest–pumpkins, apples, popcorn. The only summer crops left are those in the greenhouse, and they won’t be around much longer, either. Trees are losing their leaves. We’ve brought out the candles, and dream of sitting by a crackling fire in the coming months. Clearly, painted eggs, bunnies, and spring flowers are inappropriate.

So I introduce the traditional Easter Jack-o-lantern. Carved while snacking on roasted pumpkin seeds.

Great fun for the kids, and better for them than chocolate bunnies!

Completing the Cycle

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

Back in early December last year, I posted an update on the preying mantids on my rosemary bushes that I’ve been following since mid-winter, when they were eggs.

Well, I haven’t forgotten them, and I’m pleased to report that they are all grown up now, and laying eggs of their own.

On the one hand, I’m thrilled (as I am every year) to watch the entire life cycle play out in the garden.

On the other hand, I’m getting a little worried.

Last winter, I didn’t prune the rosemary bushes because the bees depend on their flowers in late winter. Then in the spring I couldn’t prune them because the preying mantids hatched out. All summer I waited and watched the mantids grow. The rosemary plants grew, too, engulfing a bench on one side, and the path on the other.

And now the mantids are laying their eggs on the very branches I need to prune off…

We may soon see just how big rosemary can grow here.

To Burn or Not To Burn

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

The firewood stands ready to go.

That is the question, on a night like tonight. If we light the fire, it will be the first fire of the season–always a bit momentous, because it’s an admission that summer is over.

Technically, we don’t need a fire tonight. It’s cool, but not terribly cold. We’ve had colder nights already this autumn, and never even considered lighting a fire.

But it’s been raining most of the day. The temperature has been inching downward since morning, and the wind has been picking up. It’s thoroughly unpleasant outdoors this evening.

It’s emotionally cold.

It’s not that I’m not thankful for the rain–we really need it. It’s not that I don’t enjoy hearing it on the roof and against the windows.

But it would sound even better accompanied by the sound of a crackling fire.

It’s not so much a need for warmth, but a need for hygge. A need for comfort.

And so, as a fresh gust of wind rattles the window, I think I’ll close this blog post, put on a pot for tea, and build a fire.

Mushroom Season

/ Robinne Weiss / 2 Comments

With the arrival of rain and cooler temperatures, the mushrooms have come out. Many fungi fruit in autumn, but this year seems particularly spectacular on our property. I can only guess that, after three years of drought, the fungi are taking advantage of weather that’s finally moist.

The most visually striking ones are naturally the Amanita muscaria–their bright red caps have reached epic sizes this year, and they’ve sprung up in profusion under the birch trees. They’re accompanied this year by three other species of mushroom with large brown caps (Paxillus involutus, Leccinum scabrum and a Russula).

Puffballs dot the lawn, and an assortment of smaller mushrooms have joined them.

The best find so far has been the presence of seven Noddy’s flycaps in the vegetable garden. I blogged about this mysterious fungus several months ago when the first sporocarp popped up. To find this many all at once is quite unusual.

There is another full week of rain in the forecast, and I’m looking forward to what new gems might spring up. There is also the exciting possibility of slime moulds in this weather.

So forgive me if I walk around with my eyes on the ground this week. I’d hate to miss the show.

Water Perspective

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“The weather’s been shocking! Where did our sunshine go?”

“I don’t know. All this rain is horrible.”

I listened to this conversation with a mixture of amusement and sadness. Amusement, because, though we’ve had seven days of off-and-on drizzle, it’s not been that bad. It’s not been cold or windy, just overcast with some light rain now and then.

Sadness because the conversation revealed how disconnected the speakers were from the desperate state of Canterbury at the moment. Three years of drought have left our streams dry, our groundwater depleted, and our land tinder-dry. The soil is dry as dust for as far down as you want to dig. This rain hasn’t even begun to bring us back to the soil moisture we should have. It has wet the top few centimetres of soil, no more.

The truth is, we need weeks and weeks of steady rain, just to bring us to where we should be at this time of year, then we need a nice wet winter to top us up.

Beachgoers have been spoiled with three years of clear skies and record high temperatures, but if it continues, there will be dire consequences for the region–a region that depends upon irrigated agriculture to fuel the economy. Not to mention the higher water bills, more frequent wildfires, rising electricity costs (because much of our power comes from hydro lakes), and fewer recreational opportunities.

While those of us involved in growing plants and raising livestock understand this intuitively, the majority of folks, living in town and paying little attention to more than the immediate weather conditions, are completely unaware.

It can’t be good, this lack of awareness. Our planet is facing such catastrophic climate change, that a lack of awareness of larger patterns in weather and climate can only lead to continued lack of action to address the issue, a continued blindness to the changes that to me are so clear and convincing.

Until we all understand that having nothing but beautiful beach days isn’t good, our fight against climate change is going to languish.

Winter Cat

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

The cat has decided it’s winter. We’ve had a few chilly nights, and some drizzly, overcast days, but the daytime temperatures have been pleasant, even in the rain.

The cat, however, thinks it’s time to hibernate.

He has distinct winter and summer behaviours. In summer, he spends day and night outdoors, coming inside only to eat or for the purpose of irritating us by demanding to come in and go out every three minutes.

In winter, he spends his days sleeping on my daughter’s bed or in my office, and his nights in front of the fireplace, going out only briefly so that he can demand to be let back in again once we’re comfortably engaged in something else.

The past few days, he’s been spending time on the couch and, last night, he stretched out in front of the fireplace, though there was no fire. Today, he claimed my office chair before I had a chance to sit down.

Never mind that it’s still warm enough to have the doors and windows open. Never mind we’re still eating summer vegetables from the garden. Never mind that autumn has hardly begun. The cat says it’s winter.

Summer Soups and Stews

/ Robinne Weiss / 2 Comments

One of the nicest things about the end of summer are those autumnal days that make me crave hearty soups and stews–dishes I haven’t particularly wanted to eat in the heat of summer.

To have a chill in the air, but still have a garden bursting with summer vegetables means we can make wonderful warming dishes with the very best of summer flavours.

We’re into our third day of rain, with temperatures hovering around 11°C (52°F), and enjoying the possibilities the weather has offered.

First up was a beautiful tomato soup, made with a king’s ransom of fresh, garden-ripened tomatoes, and handfuls of fresh herbs. It was amazing for dinner and made a wonderful warming lunch the following day, too.

Tonight it was black beans from this year’s harvest, cooked with more fresh tomatoes and herbs, accompanied by corn bread and our own melons.

It makes me look forward to more rainy days to come!

 

Mysteries of the Pomegranate

/ Robinne Weiss / Leave a comment

img_3242I know nothing about pomegranates. Sometimes my husband gives me one for Christmas, and I like them, especially in fruit salad. Beyond that, I’m completely ignorant.

So last year, when I saw a pomegranate tree for sale in a local nursery, I naturally bought it.

To be fair, I did do a little research first, just to make sure we had any chance of actually getting it to grow on our property. By the time I brought it home, I knew it had no less of a chance of surviving here than any other fruit tree (all of which prefer more water and less wind than they get here).

So we planted a pomegranate, and a couple of months later it lost all its leaves.

Are pomegranates deciduous, or is it dead? We didn’t even know this much. Turns out, yes, they are. Ours dutifully leafed out again in spring.

Once we knew it was alive, we promptly ignored it again, until a few weeks ago when we noticed little red bulbs on it.

Hey! Fruit! Though we had seen no flowers, we could easily have missed them. For all we knew, pomegranates had small, plain flowers.

Then today, one of those little red bulbs burst, unfurling this stunning big red bloom.

Wow! We had no idea. I’d grow this tree for the flowers alone. They have all the tropical exuberance of a hibiscus (but on a more cold-hardy plant).

I still have no idea when or if those flowers might become fruit (it seems the wrong time of year for any tree to be flowering) but, hey, we know a lot more about pomegranates than we did a year ago. Reason enough to grow something new.