October 1 2025

This is when it truly feels like the back end, as my old Yorkshire-man Dad would say. He had all kinds of funny sayings like that, and I honour him by using them all the time! Things like 'mackerel sky, mackerel sky, never long wet, never long dry'. What that means is when the clouds have that appearance of mackerel (fish) scales, the weather will be changeable.

If you have a favorite relative that makes up silly sayings, they can be fun to put on a t-shirt, like some of these t-shirt slogans . If you have some to add, send me a note and I'll start a list.

For the garden at this time of year, it's a good idea to use mulch to protect the soil from those fall rains that often make a deluge. Flooding is all very well to recharge the aquifer, but if it takes all the soil with it, not so good. Soil with a cover of plants or mulch of some kind will be much better protected from erosion. I use various cover-crops after adding sea weed and compost to the beds, to keep the soil in place. Either one, mulch or cover crops, have different advantages.

At this time of year, you can still plant red-clover and it will get established in time for the freeze, if you're in zone 5 or 6. Our falls are often good weather for growing, if the plants are perennial in the area. Even if they don't survive the winter what growth they do have will soften the blow of rainfall, up until the snow flies.

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