You can see fall coming. The tomatoes that once stood tall and proud are now leaning in every direction, looking like they’ve had a long week. The pepper plants are still producing, apparently unaware that frost is just around the corner. And the zucchini? Well, the zucchini has decided that if it’s going down, it’s taking the whole neighborhood with it.
Here in South Dakota, autumn doesn’t always ease into the garden. Sometimes it walks in quietly with a cool morning, and other times it arrives with a 40-mile-per-hour wind and a temperature drop that makes you wonder if winter accidentally got the wrong calendar.
Now that the garden is winding down, the tomatoes have apparently decided to teach me a lesson. The last ones are green and will probably remain that way until Christmas.
The peppers are another story. They seem to have a completely different understanding of the calendar. While everything else is preparing for winter, the peppers are standing there saying, “We’ve got plenty of time.” The peppers have obviously never experienced a South Dakota frost.
By September, everything starts looking a little tired. The flowers aren’t quite as enthusiastic, even the weeds have slowed down, and even the gardener is beginning to think that a cup of coffee sounds better than pulling one more weed.
Because in South Dakota, you can have a beautiful 75-degree afternoon in September and convince yourself there is still plenty of growing season left. Then the weather forecast mentions frost. Suddenly, everyone becomes a professional weather watcher.
You check the forecast. Check it again. Check three different weather apps. You stand outside and look at the sky as if the clouds are going to give you an answer. Then you start covering plants with sheets, buckets, and whatever else you can find.
Eventually, a frost makes the decision for you. One morning you walk outside and discover that your beautiful garden has suddenly turned into a botanical crime scene. The tomatoes are black. The squash leaves are hanging limp. The flowers look like they were caught in the middle of a very bad surprise.
And somewhere out on the prairie, the wind is blowing hard enough to remind you that winter isn’t really that far away. You stand there looking at it and think, “Well… I guess that’s that.” But autumn isn’t really the end of the garden. It’s just the garden changing jobs.
The harvest comes into the house. The seeds are collected. The leaves begin piling up. The birds discover the sunflower heads, and suddenly you have a whole new group of garden visitors who don’t believe in asking permission. And then there’s the South Dakota wind.
You can carefully rake a nice pile of leaves, turn around for five minutes, and come back to discover that your neatly organized pile has moved three counties east.
You start with a simple plan: “I’ll just clean up this one little area.” Three hours later, you’re holding a rusty tomato cage, a broken garden tool, a plastic plant tag from 2019, and something you have absolutely no idea how you ever acquired. You stare at it for a moment and think: “I might need that.” So you put it back.
That’s autumn in a South Dakota garden.
The days get shorter, the harvest gets smaller, the wind gets stronger, and the gardener gets a little more tired.
But there is something satisfying about putting the garden to bed, knowing that beneath the fallen leaves, prairie dust and frozen soil, next year’s garden is already waiting. And, if we’re lucky, maybe next year the zucchini will show a little restraint. But probably not.
