Unusual Becomes The Usual

September or August Revisited?

As we rolled into September, the weather switched seasons. Now it feel like the dog days of summer with 90 degree temperatures, sticky 100% humidity and thunderstorms.

It is never what you expect, is it?

Well, that is how it seems this year, at any rate. Here are some photos and a review of this summer as I experienced it. The weather made beautiful tomatoes, but my cucumber crop was a bust ( big fat, yellow cukes that tasted bitter- lots of them). If I hurry and put in my fall veggies, I may be able to redeem the season.

September flowers

As August Became October

It is as though we had turned the climate dial from August directly to October. Not that it was at all the usual hot, humid, and drought-inclined time Ohioans are used to experiencing in late summer.

August remained bright green with increasingly cool temperatures. We were still mowing the grass as though it were June. Thick, green, fast growing swards. Sure some hot humid days were thrown in just to keep us off balance. This is Ohio, after all.

Cosmos wildflower mix

Don’t misunderstand me, I am not complaining. It was the most agreeable weather! It just wasn’t the late summer that is considered “normal” around here.

It kicked me into gear in yard cleanup. I can’t help it, my inner clock says autumn when the weather turns clear and crisp.

This past year I have termed so much as “unusual” that that seems the new normal.

I did some Periscope experimentation, which explains the awkward aspects on the video. but this was one of the many thunderstorms we had this summer.

I was writing in July:

You know it from the news, but living here, the fields ponded, the garden muddy, and the arrival of heat and humidity is to experience the sticky atmosphere, the attentive insects, and the lush rainforest weeds in quite an unusual way.

It was so wet. Mosquitoes flourished… and marauded during the afternoons if they stayed clear. I started to look “polka-dotted”.

I never finished that post, because the changes rendered my writing moot.

Carpe Diem

Now it is an ideal time to put in the fall vegetables. My cucumbers were a bust this year- produced like crazy, grew giant quickly, but didn’t taste very good. Time to clear their space and plant some Chard and Spinach.

Keeping up with the tomatoes as they ripen, picking them off the vines gives strength to the new ones. My tomatoes have been successful and very tasty!

A perfect pink

Don’t know why the past year was so hard on many trees, but the Cherries need trimming out, and one Crabapple must be removed. Something girdled it last year, keeping it will prove an exercise in futility.

White Nicotiana

Garden Lesson

Any loss paves the way for something new to be planted, for a shift in plan, and new inspiration for what the garden is to become next.

This past August weather made me look forward to the fall.

I am grateful to own a house and garden, grateful for the ability to work and enjoy life.