September daze

Muggy August seemed to transform overnight to crisp September mornings. Hints of yellow and scarlet appeared in the trees and we suddenly noticed large green persimmons hanging above our walking path. Then they were yellowish, and soon some orange and red ones began falling in the grass. Our dog sniffed and walked away, sensing they still weren’t ripe. Still, our garden acted like it was June or July, with small green clusters of tomatoes, squash blossoms barely burgeoning, and volunteer melons spreading across the gravel in a tangle of leaves, blossoms and golf ball sized fruit. The fig tree, which gave us unexpected bounty in summer, was full of green promises a month ago, but now, thanks to the crows or the dry weather, it’s mostly bare. Meanwhile, unripe persimmons drag the branches nearly to the ground. We wend our way between soybeans and autumn olive (still too sour to pick) to harvest some pawpaws. We find them mostly hard and green or rotting on the ground among last year’s black walnuts. I’ll remember this September as a dizzying month of early and delayed harvests, spinning clocks and flapping calendar pages. Will everything fall back into place in October?

rakes and shovels
hibernate in the dark shed
tomatoes still green

~~~
Inspired by dVerse and a party of foragers who visited us on Saturday.

pawpaws

spaghetti squash

autumn olive

pomegranates

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