Oct 9, 2009 “Fall” My favorite season of the year!
These fall days
are filled with brilliant, clear sunshine; smells of crisp, fall morning air
with sweet, warm afternoon scents of leaves & pine needles; tastes of the
last pickings of delightfully sweet, green grapes & deep red alluring raspberries,
strawberries & apples but also crunchy green beans & crunchy snow peas;
sounds of chirping, busy squirrels & hungry singing birds or loud,
squawking, circling crows. We see
bright orange pumpkins (one in a neighbors yard over 400 pounds), the many reds
of our apple varieties and the last days of our perfume scented delicate white,
yellow, reddish-orange & pastel-like blended roses…all loving these days of
sunshine without November’s rain beating on their petals. Our Japanese maple is presenting her delicateness
in light greens, burnt yellows & scarlet tips! The pale purple fall crocuses are showing themselves
too! It feels like earth is
celebrating! What a glorious, naturally
intoxicating time of year!
We not only
get to harvest the last of the vegetables (potatoes, tomatoes, spinach, kale, 4 kinds of basil, & mint –
and the garlic is ready for storage) & fruits, but we get to watch the
cover crops of red clover & Austrian winter peas pop up! They love fall too!
Many have
expressed the delights of the season & the joys of having a garden far, far
better than I, so here are a few quotes I found:
“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to
it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive
autumns.” George Eliot
“The kiss of
the sun for pardon,
the song of the birds for mirth,
one is nearer God's heart in a garden
than anywhere else on earth.”
~Dorothy Frances Gurney, "Garden Thoughts"
“Why try to
explain miracles to your kids when you can just have them plant a garden.” ~Robert Brault
“Plants give
us oxygen for the lungs and for the soul.” ~Linda Solegato
“I have never
had so many good ideas day after day as when I worked in the garden.” ~John Erskine
“One of the
most delightful things about a garden is the anticipation it provides.” ~W.E. Johns, The Passing Show
“I think that
if ever a mortal heard the voice of God it would be in a garden at the cool of
the day.” ~F. Frankfort Moore, A
Garden of Peace
“Coffee.
Garden. Coffee. Does a good morning need anything else?” ~Betsy Cañas Garmon
“I know that
if odour were visible, as colour is,
I'd see the summer garden in rainbow clouds.”
~Robert Bridges, "Testament of Beauty"
“Gardening is
about enjoying the smell of things growing in the soil, getting dirty without
feeling guilty, and generally taking the time to soak up a little peace and
serenity.” ~Lindley Karstens
“I used to
visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over
my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who had
never taken part in the process of creation. It was one of the most
bewitching sights in the world to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the
soil, or a rose of early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line
of delicate green.” ~Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mosses from and Old Manse
“Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer
an oil painting and autumn a mosaic
of them all.” ~Stanley Horowitz
“No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace, As I have
seen in one autumnal face.” ~John
Donne
“The best
place to seek God is in a garden. You can dig for him there.”
~George Bernard Shaw
“Weather means more when
you have a garden. There's nothing like listening to a shower and thinking how it is soaking in around your green beans.” ~Marcelene Cox
