Fence and farmer’s field – Valleyview, Alberta – 6 September 2015
Is summer over already? We have heavy frost in low-lying areas here this morning, and we’ve already had snowfall in the city twice since mid-August. I ran out to the community garden last night to cover my zucchini and some of my herbs, so hopefully all made it through the night. I’m not ready to put the garden to bed just yet! But the leaves are changing colour very quickly (accelerated by the drought and heat stress from the summer) and the farmers are scrambling to get their crops off the fields. It was a terrible year for farming in the province, and the frost and late rains are now making things worse.
Environment Canada has stated that we’re going to have a long, hot, dry autumn – guess we’ll see! The birds and the insects and the plants (and the weather!) seem to suggest otherwise….
Flowery Prose 
I’ve given up predicting anything climate-related. All I can say is we keep alternating between October in August weather and August in September weather. Today is one of the hot humid ones, as has been so for the last 3 days. If I get all the tomatoes processed I’ll be happy. Also have a huge quantity of basil waiting to become pesto. Winter squash is almost ready to store and may get some green beans canned although they’ve been sort of a bust this year.
It’s always such a hectic time of year to try to get everything preserved and stored! I hope you are successful with processing your tomatoes…and of course the pesto making and canning! Good harvest!
I hope you get all your final veggies in!
The past couple of days have turned out to be warm, so I’m scrambling! 🙂
The geese were flying over us the last few days reminding us that cold weather is in the near future. I too hope for the long warm fall weather that is predicted but….
My tomatoes are still out but thinking of picking and letting them ripen indoors to avoid the hassle of covering on the cool nights. So far we have not had frost at our house yet this season so here’s hoping for a few more weeks.
I know some of my co-workers were doing that with their tomatoes – just in case. It’s so hard to ripen them on the vine – just not enough time! What types of tomatoes did you grow this year?
86 degrees, high humidity, and dry as a bone here. Leaves are starting to fall.
That’s hot! – and with the added humidity, it must be a tad uncomfortable.
Crumbs! Frost already! Here in the UK the ‘summer’ has been erratic and unpredictable, and now, in early September, it is cold and grey. We really need some sunshine to dry out the soil after all the rain, before the winter arrives.
I hope things are looking a bit more sunny this week – and next! 🙂
Sheryl, I am sorry to read your weather is causing such terrible problems. I followed your link, what a very worrying time for you all over there. I hope there is some light for you all.
It’s been really tough for the farmers – hopefully we’ll get some moisture this winter and the soil will be in better shape next year. We started off dry this spring and things never got better.
Snow?! Jeez–that’s a shock but also the shape of things to come. I love that photo–what a great fence.
I adore that fence – I try to photograph it every time we travel through that area.
We’re so close to the mountains that our weather is a bit hard to take sometimes – we can get snow in any month of the year. Makes gardening extra-exciting! 😉
Fall is definitely in the air, when I went out to the port this morning the swing was damp from the dew…Summer has gone by so fast this year.
It does seem like it simply flew by! It’s sad to have to put the garden to bed already….
I am sorry you have had such a terribly dry summer. The farming community will be suffering great hardship this winter no doubt. Our summer, as others have said, has been mainly cool and gloomy with a few hot spells now and then. I don’t feel ready for autumn yet!
It would be nice to still hang onto a few moments of summer, that’s for sure!
The geese have come back to our area too and we’ve had a blanket of frost. Yuck….its coming…
Shoko
So sad it’s so soon….
Great post aand must work in garden