It seems like just overnight, things have gone gold. The maples are radiant and dropping leaves for me to rake up.
The Ampelopsis (Porcelain Berry Vine) is golden against the blue green fence.
The oak leaf hydrangea flowers have appropriately turned Halloween orange.
More yellow and orange maple leaves against the green groundcover...
And Izzy stands guard over 34 green tomatoes. I expected only half as many when I pulled out the vines today! We're sure to have a plate of nice red tomatoes for Thanksgiving! Yumm!
For the past couple of weeks, our mail has been delivered late. We're talking later than 5 pm and now in the past few days after 8 pm. I didn't know that the postal service worked that late! So we've been getting our exercise since our post box is up at the street and we're down a 150' driveway. We don't like to leave our mail in the box overnight since we've had some mail theft in the area. We made over 10 trips last night and we finally had mail by 10 pm! We were expecting a large check which the sender said was being delivered yesterday.
Maybe we are experiencing a new US Postal Service enhancement called "Starlight Delivery." We call it "Flashlight Delivery!"
Okay, so this is a ceramic pumpkin. Looks real, no?
But there is a pumpkin shortage here in the Rogue Valley thanks to an early hot spell this spring, just as stuff was starting to grow and flower. It also messed up the corn and tomatoes, which just quit doing their thing as temps got over 90 degrees in April and soared to over 100 in May.
"What the @#%$?" we all asked.
Now we know why...seems the weather experts predict that Medford will be the new Redding by 2050! Snow will no longer fall on the valley floor but instead the snow level will rise to 10,000.' No more 20 minute drive to ski at Mt. Ashland...which is only 8,000.' Water will be in short supply due to little snow pack. Start taking out your lawn now! Golf courses will be plowed under (that is already happening here).
I guess that means that Redding will become the new Yuma?
Meanwhile, start hoarding cans of pumpkin as I'm sure the grocers will take advantage of the situation and jack up the price of a can to $3.
The good news? Maybe I won't have to haul in my overgrown lemon bush this winter and the growing season will be longer.
The mini greenhouse is rapidly filling up with tender succulents and geraniums. Sonia the garden angel watches over them all with her sidekick bunny. Seems like I keep finding more and more pots to consolidate or dump out. I'm afraid to count how many pots I have.
But the race is on to get them all organized before Oct 15...the date when the storm door usually opens and we get cooler and perhaps wetter weather. Meanwhile the temp in the greenhouse can get to 100 degrees on a balmy fall day of 75 degrees, so I have to remember to open it up each morning.
I'm trying to fit most of the pots into the coldframe next to the greenhouse. Heavy big ones on the bottom...it usually takes a couple of times to get them all stacked right. Oops, there's another one I forgot about! The definition of insanity comes to mind...
And just when you're thinking about winter, a clematis goes and blooms its head off in October! Who knew?
