Fall is coming to a close. Cold mornings really arrived, the days are cool and clear. Easy.
I had been away from the Marana Community Garden for a month. Swept up in projects at my school garden job, making time for projects at home, observing the change in seasons with family via Thanksgiving (check!) and Christmas (coming!), even choosing rest on some Sunday afternoons. I missed my Marana garden plots and looked forward to a morning dedicated to both teaching and care-taking on a mid-December Saturday.
The following is a colorful photo collections of what I found on December 15, 2024. Browns and greens dominated the scene. To me this is the harmony of fall in Southern Arizona. Death makes way for new life among the vegetables. Summer flowers mingled with winter flowers, like laughter lacing the mild morning. Some produce remained to be picked for people, some went to the birds, some piled up in compost to sustain soil in future seasons.
Welcome!
What a gorgeous greeting I received in the sunflower field opposite the Marana Community Garden! This branching sunflower plant was still in full yellow bloom.
Plot 40, out with the old.
When I arrived at Plot 40, I found firewheel wildflowers in full red-and-yellow bloom, brown compost dry and crispy but ringed by fresh green volunteers of both firewheels and lettuce, old brown sunflower stalks still standing, and – scroll on to see better – cucumber vines finally finished.The patch of Armenian cucumber vines was all brown, along with the vines of horned melon that had volunteered among them. This I expected, hoped for. There had been a freeze warning earlier in the week, and here was evidence that the temperature really had dipped to or near 32 degrees. The green spots are young firewheel plants plus horned melon fruits.The dead malabar spinach elicited sadness from my student. We had marveled at its cheerful pink berries and playful climbing curlicues in November. I reiterated it was a warm season plant that had finished its season. In contrast, a sow thistle cool season weed is in full green force. We pulled both plants out.A remaining, pale green Armenian cucumber clinging to a brown vine. Most fruits were squishy or being eaten by bugs, and therefore went in compost. This is one that I brought home, hopefully edible. The other green things are a partially frozen huckleberry bush and unphased young firewheels.Close-up of another huckleberry bush. I snacked on some black berries, tart but edible. The leaves showed stress from the cold, but the plant may persist a bit longer. Will the green berries ripen?All-Ages Gardening student Beverly was my cheerful co-gardener. We removed the dead vines as well as living firewheels from the back half of Plot 40, leaving the huge mound of firewheels in the front half to keep growing and putting out more seeds. What will go in the space we exposed??Close-up of a bright green volunteer lettuce plant emerging from the dull yellow compost pile. There were half a dozen healthy plants – results of last year’s plant that had gone to seed and then went in compost – that we dug out and transplanted to rows of on-purpose vegetables in Plot 39.
Plot 39, green that gets to keep growing
This is a row of amended soil in Plot 39 that students planted with seeds and starts in September and October. Clockwise from left: green leaves of broccoli, carrots (We pulled one out that was already orange and fat!), oats or wheat (We’ll find out when they make seeds!), lettuce.A bolting head of broccoli towering above a hardy broccoli plant that was planted last winter and persevered all summer, protected at the time by dense and even taller sunflowers. Behind the broccoli is wheat, 1 1/2 feet or so high.Edible flowers are flourishing. Snapdragons are in full bloom to be played with or eaten, or left to enjoy this bunch’s yellows and pinks. Marigolds we planted from seed in September are not blooming yet. They are a shoulder season plant, so their continued green growth indicates we haven’t had a hard freeze yet. Beyond are more shades of snapdragons, and broccoli producing its nutritious green buds. Shadow on left is from the mostly-frozen tomato bush, in the title image.Eggplant fruits still bold and purple, now much easier to find under crunchy, tan stems and leaves. The green canopy is a new sunflower plant, thriving broccoli leaves, and new wheat.The lemon basil is completely brown and dry, having started going to seed several months ago. It still smells amazing when I brush up against it! Dark green broccoli plants that survived the summer in their protected microclimate are now thriving.The chocolate mint and green onions are perennial, can grow year-round. Summer and winter extremes can temporarily stress the mint, and the green onions die after a couple years but make babies first, so like the firewheels in the other bed this patch has become perpetual and is robust in the fall.
Critter company
A ladybug?! These red garden carnivores I expect to find in the spring, so I was pleasantly surprised. I did find aphids for food on old cucumbers, and there had been plenty of shade before we yanked out old plants from this spot. Do ladybugs specifically use this invasive moneywort for habitat? I don’t know. I moved the ladybug to a more sheltered spot, dug out this patch of weeds, but also know that more moneywort remains.Hello, vermillion flycatcher! There was actually a pair, flitting out to catch bugs then back to perch and watch. This is the male, with more red plumage.Black birds – likely either crows or red-winged blackbirds, both common company at the Marana Community Garden – flocked in and out of the sunflower field. The bountiful perches, seeds, and insects create a healthy habitat long after October’s Marana Fall Festival for which the sunflowers were planted.
As I post these pictures, it is now the last day of Fall 2024. I wish you all a peaceful transition into winter and joyful discoveries in the seasons ahead.
