Photos of the Season

Just a short post tonight.  I love fall.  It was still 80 degrees this afternoon as I sat on the back patio shelling pecans.  I'm going to shell all the big ones we picked from the neighbor's trees and will bring all the small pecans from our tree to the feed store for cracking.  Then I'll shell those.  As the sun was lowering toward the horizon, I heard the unmistakable honking of geese and looked overhead.  There was a solitary line of geese flying west to east.  You can see them flying directly into the palm tree in the center of the photo below where the lowest green fronds are.

Pecan leaves are always the last to bud out in the spring.  Their leaves have held on until this week and now we're seeing a nice change of color as they turn yellow and fall to the ground.  The pecans have already fallen and we've already picked all we're gonna get.  That's a good thing as it is hard to find them once they are buried underneath a thick blanket of pecan leaves.  I usually mow the leaves into a pile and bring them to the compost pile in the back of the garden where they'll me amended into the soil.

We harvested the first of the fall broccoli.  It's either been unseasonably warm this fall (it has) or I planted the cole crops a little earlier (I did), because all of our fall crops have a head start over last year's crop.  You just never know.  When it stays warm you have a rough time with pests.  Army worms ate all the leaves off of my three rows of beets.  They are starting to come back now.  Hopefully, they'll make it.  I have a few carrots that can start being pulled, too.

Finally, I want to show you the neatest idea.  My sister-in-law came in from New Orleans for Thanksgiving and brought a creative centerpiece.  We put it on the island where we served all the feast buffet style.  She found a colorful pumpkin/gourd, cut out the top and inside and then placed herbs still in the pots into the empty pumpkin.  She used lemon balm, thyme, and rosemary, but of course you could use whatever plants you wish.  Then she got some Spanish moss and wove that around the herbs and top to hide the pots.

Isn't that the coolest idea?  We kept it in the kitchen until earlier this week when the pumpkin softened.  I took it out and composted it in the garden, but we'll have to remember this idea.  It makes a festive little gift to bring over to a friend or neighbor during the holidays.