And could it be anything else?
Changing colors, abundant harvests, rain at last(!), mushrooms popping up in the forests, warm days and cooler nights, fish swimming up the rivers, geese gathering by the hundreds in nearby fields and flying overhead in V-formations that you can hear from a mile away… I love September!
Sweet September, I’ll remember
- Greens, reds, oranges, yellows – so many colorful vegetables at the farmers’ market! Tomatoes, peppers, carrots, squashes, turnips, greens, beans, cabbages, broccoli flowers, even melons — I fill three bags full, share them with my daughter, and we turn them into soups and stews to help battle the shared germs of these early back-to-school days.
- Fruit harvests and preserving: Picking plums and how softly they fell into my hand by twos, and the purple beauty of seven gleaming pints on the counter; apples slowly simmering into sweet apple butter; the smell of cinnamon-apples filling the house as slices dried in the dehydrator. Yum!
- A harvest moon that rose orange and luminous, temporarily shrouded with passing dark clouds.
- Autumn Equinox: we have passed the tipping point, but for now, I am practicing balance.
- Droplets of dew in cool early mornings, making every blade of grass sparkle in the low angle of the sun. What is it like for very small animals to live in a world reflected in a zillion tiny prisms? Such brilliance must be blinding!
September 2025 Weather notes:
Rain: 0.71” – at least it is something!
High wind: 40 mph – with 15 days over 20 mph – interspersed with a few calm days that allowed us to kayak nearby waters. The state is currently bracing for a major storm coming up from the southeast. It is a fitting way to greet October.
Temperatures: Occasionally dropping into the upper 40s at night; sometimes reaching the upper 60s in the day, but usually in the upper 50s/low 60s.
Fire: Bear Gulch fire is now at 20,185 acres, only 5% contained, over steep, inaccessible terrain; we wait for rains and winter snows to extinguish it. It jumped from about 12,000 to over 20,000 acres in a flash. At one point, our air quality was at the 365 “Hazardous” rating. People reported “raining ash,” and whether it was from nearby fires or transported from Mount Saint Helens, the sky was a thick smoky brown and the sun an eerie blood orange in a blazing sunset. Fortunately, the air has now cleared and the forecast is for more rain (and wind).
Everywhere you look, fall is full of color!
Bees seem particularly hard at work, right up to the end of their lives.
Meanwhile, the peafowl family migrated to winter grounds…
I admit, I am of two minds:
- Alas! The Peafowl family has left! It was so fun to watch this latest pair of chicks grow into gangly young birds with real feathers on wings that could actually carry them up into the trees at night for safety. And Up they went! Up and up – maybe 50-75 feet?! True! Mama Peahen was very good at teaching them how to forage and how to survive. I think they can make it.
- Hooray! The Peafowl family has flown! What to do?
No time to lose! Now is the time to plant a fall garden!
I quickly ordered some seeds (a fall salad garden and some cover crop seeds) from one of my very favorite small business seed companies: Quail Seeds, located in northern California. The owner, Jamie Chevalier, and her family have decades of experience growing produce in remote areas of SE Alaska and on down the west coast. They have a great newsletter with loads of gardening tips, and their seeds have always done well for me. Check them out!
Clear a space, toss the seeds, water, and then – with no big birds to peck them out at the first sign of a cotyledon leaf – stand back and watch the miracle!
Is there anything more wondrous than seeing this little spark of life burst out of the cold soil, and knowing how it has the potential to nourish all the living things around it, from the tiniest microbes to the towering trees nearby, which can then capture the morning dew and create their own nutritious rain to drop on the tiny seedlings – and around and around they go. I just have to sit down sometimes because I get dizzy with the thought.
Meanwhile, fall fruits are SO abundant!
(and they are falling on the ground! Yikes! It all happens so quickly!)
A banner year for spring pollinators! So many fall fruits – from bundles of autumn olives to clusters of apples!
(Note to self: next year, try to make time to thin the apples! I mean – good grief – I’ve never seen anything like it.)
The Cornelian cherries (Cornus mas), both red and yellow varieties, are now fully ripe and dropping from the branches (before that, they are extremely astringent). They make a wonderful jam, can be used in cookies and in lieu of frosting on birthday cakes, and also make a nice sparkling cider – but the seeds are admittedly, a bit fiddly to remove.
Fall is a time for preserving and making the house smell warm and wonderful…
I love how the house smells with apples drying in the dehydrator and apple butter simmering in the crockpot. Something about stacking colorful jars of plums, jams, and preserves in the pantry makes me happy. Such a nice thing to give away, too. (Although my children all say, “Please, no more weird jam!” Ha! As if that’s a thing.)
September is a time for treasure hunts …
(…Because sometimes under all those weeds, you might just find something that survived! or maybe even stumble on something that tells you all your mulching efforts are starting to pay off: mushrooms!)
And treasures to be found…
For in the month of September and in the month to come…
Mushrooms are blooming everywhere!
The weather and light are shifting. We, too, can feel the changes.
What is it about the September light that is so magical? At times it makes things seem like they are floating! Seedheads in the field reach for those last rays of sunshine and also to catch the wind.
The plants seem to lean into the winds that will disperse their seeds. Hurry, before they are gone! There are still wishes to made! (Thistle wishes? Well, sure–why not?).
The salmon already know the time has come…
The river is just over the hill. I can easily walk there and find a quiet spot to sit and watch without another soul in site (except for the eagles and ravens on the sidelines). My eyes adjust to the water and soon I can pick out the shadows of the fish. There are lots. Some are dying; others are still on their journey. This is an odd-numbered year, and so it is a year for the pink salmon. To be able to watch these beautiful creatures almost right outside my door in the drama of one of life’s many miracles is something very precious to me. One swims to the small pool before me. Its speckled tail weaves back and forth, making small steering adjustments with the changing water flow. But it is weak. It rests to conserve energy, floating sideways and being pulled back, and then it summons the strength to move forward again. Repeat. It is a slow process to get to a point where it can spawn and die. The raptors wait patiently for that moment. They seem to respect that it is important to allow the fish to finish in its own time.
Fall is when the portals start to reveal themselves
Everything is just so – well, DENSE.
And then there is THIS…
Sometimes you just have to stand back in awe of the biomass potential in a small plot of ground.
Where the Wild Things Are….
Until next month!
Thanks for tuning in.
~ Blythe
~ * ~
To-Do List for October:
- Transplant! Fall is the best time – and I have several aronia and juniper bushes that would love to spread their roots.
- Make room in the greenhouse and bring in the wasabi, oca and ulluco roots, and any potted plants that need protection
- Plant more salad greens in the greenhouse. There is still enough light.
- Take cuttings — perhaps increase blueberries, elderberries, rosemary, groundcovers of all kinds, and anything native.
- Evaluate places where there might be room to tuck in a plant – or maybe plant a whole hedgerow of native shrubs along with wildflowers along the edges!
- Try to reel in great ideas with a reality check.
- Harvest seeds – the promise of tomorrow!
- Harvest dye plants – such as the coreopsis and weld – to bring color to winter craft projects
- Harvest & dehydrate herbs for winter
- Harvest Cornelian cherries for jam and wine
- More applesauce, apple butter, apple chips! Yes, please!
- Mulch! Tuck things in for winter. Leave debris piles, plant stems, and leaves for creatures. (Do a lot by doing nothing.)
- Weeding! Because if I can set that bindweed back even just a little, my life will be easier next year.
- Think about what I might want to do differently next year. Hmmm.
- Go for a walk (to think)… and to gasp at all the fall colors, watch the King Tides roll in, harvest more mushrooms!
- Paint, play music, make stuff, play with grandchildren
- Buckle down before the winds come!
Such a detailed and poetic account! I wonder that you have time for anything else after all that writing. Great job! Thanks!!
Thank you, Mark. I am glad you liked it. It does take time, for sure. I am finding that trying to write these every month was an ambitious goal. I don’t know how others do it! But it will be nice to look back on.
Our cats never “liked” their catio. But they would did prefer it to being inside 100% of the time.
I think she is warming up to the idea that there is a lot going on out there. Getting used to all the traffic, barking dogs, and other noises is a huge hurdle. But recently she has been sneaking out at night. ;-).
Just swell!
Thank you, Greg!