What’s Growing on in the Garden: September 2024

Here it is, October, and fall has fully embraced the farm. I am so ready for my favorite season to begin. I am a sweater-weather girl through and through. I love the smell of freshly fallen leaves and how they crunch under your feet, the nip in the air, and nature’s beautiful fall color palette. I adore apples, pumpkins, gourds, fall flowers, and the smell of pumpkin spice filling our home from freshly baked fall confections. Fall also brings a slower pace and change in focus on the farm, which is welcomed. It is time to start preparing our beds for fall plantings, all while soaking in the last floral gifts from the garden.

But before we move forward and fully immerse ourselves in fall on the farm, let’s look back at what was growing here in September.

As the growing season winds down, the flowers evoke autumn vibes in their orange, yellow, and burgundy shades. The last of our sunflowers in September were a sight to behold, and their cheery faces were a delightful contrast to the changing season. We enjoyed treating our CSA members to fluffy-petaled and bi-colored varieties.  Our CSA season wrapped up in September, and it was bittersweet. I thoroughly enjoyed visiting with our CSA members, getting to know them, and sharing stories and flowers each week during our growing season.

September was filled with other fall blooms besides sunflowers, such as hydrangeas (which take on a gorgeous color transformation in the fall), Japanese anemones, helenium, marigolds, cosmos, zinnias, celosia, and, of course, the queen of the fall garden, dahlias.

Last month, our dahlias finally seemed to have recovered from the early-season heatwaves and drought and, with the help of some cooler temperatures and a little rain, started flourishing. These magical, fairytale-like flowers are always mesmerizing, and it is such a joy to see them bloom on the farm once again. We lovingly tucked them into our bouquets and arrangements for our community to enjoy.

Speaking of dahlias, our dahlia seedlings are coming along nicely, and I am constantly in awe that these blooms are unique to our farm. They have been a popular pollination station for all the whistling bees and butterflies. It has been a privilege to usher them into this world, and I hope someday they will spread joy in other people’s gardens. I have been busy keeping notes on their progress and characteristics and have thoroughly enjoyed dipping my toe into the world of dahlia hybridization.

Besides harvesting fresh flowers, we continued to pick flowers such as gomphrena, celosia, verbena, and statice for drying. These dried florals will be bundled and used in future holiday craft projects. I love sharing our dried flowers with our community; it is a lovely way to extend the season. Last month, I also spent time harvesting and saving seeds for our 2025 season. September is a great time to preserve seeds and flowers for future enjoyment.

Last month, I also had the opportunity to work on several special-order arrangements and bouquets. I relished spending extra time practicing my arranging skills and loved letting my creativity flow. The color palettes differed for each piece, but they were all fall-inspired and included some of our favorite fall blooms. Having a background in art, I look to the flowers as a live medium and each arrangement or bouquet as a living piece of art. And I find a unique beauty in their impermanence. In the future, I wish to continue improving my arranging and photography skills to capture these art pieces in the moment. At times, I hope the moments would last much longer. But life tends to march on whether we are ready or not. I am reminded of this with the changes in each season.

In preparation for the winter season, I will focus on preparing the farm for its winter rest soon enough. In the next two months, fall bulbs and plugs will need to be planted, tubers will need to be dug, divided, and stored, and beds will need to be prepared for the next growing season. While the flowers are starting to fade, much work still needs to be done. And I will keep soaking in all the floral gifts from the garden until the growing season ends. The memories of the past season will remain fresh in my thoughts long after the last flowers fade.

That’s what’s been growing in our garden; what’s been growing in yours?