As the nights begin to draw in and summer's heat fades fast, we may spend less time in our gardens and mourn the departure of the sun. But for me, fall is absolutely my favorite time of the year. Though the days are shortening rapidly and the summer garden may be fading fast, there is a lot to love about a garden in this season.
As gardeners, we often focus on the physical yields that our gardens can provide. But fall is a time for contemplation. After the primary annual harvests are in, and we have put up and preserved food for the winter, we may have the time and energy to think about the intangible yields a garden can provide, as well as the tangible ones.
At the turn of the year, we can think more not only about the produce we grow, but also about the way our gardens make us feel. This is a time when we can and should really feel a connection to the passing seasons.
It is this closeness to nature and the sense of really feeling a part of the world around us that, for me, makes the fall garden such a magical place to spend some time.
A fall garden can still be a hugely productive space. While summer annual main crop harvests may well have been gathered in, fruit trees will often still be producing an abundance of fruit, their laden branches bending under the weight.
For those who work hard to grow food more intensively, the natural bounty of fruit trees in fall can be a wonder—gifts from nature that have taken far less time and effort on our part to grow.
Fall can also be a time when we observe the fruiting bodies of fungi in our gardens—the visible portions of vast underground networks that inhabit our gardens and aid us in our gardening efforts. Edible or not, mushrooms are an amazing sign of the
Read more on treehugger.com