Complete fall pruning in October’s remaining mild weather
I do not feel like an alien in this universe. The more I examine the universe and study the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming.
— Freeman Dyson
The Moon and the Stars and the Sun
The Travelling Toad and Frog Moon, full on October 20 at 9:57 a.m., wanes throughout the month, reaching apogee, its gentle position farthest from Earth on October 24. It enters its last quarter at 3:05 p.m. on October 28.
When the sky is dark at 8:00 p.m., the Big Dipper lies close to the northern horizon. Hercules goes down in the west, followed by the Summer Triangle. Sagittarius sinks into the southwest, while the Pleiades rise out of the east.
October 23 is Cross Quarter Day, the halfway mark between autumn equinox and winter solstice. The
Sun enters Scorpio at the same time.
Weather Trends
Chances of nightly frost rise to one in three this second week of Middle Fall, and the daily likelihood for precipitation increases up to an average of 35 percent chance. Snow falls once every ten to fifteen years on the 20th and 25th. Average cloud cover increases radically over that of last week, clouds being twice as likely to occur than in the first half of the month.
The fifth cold front of the month, accompanied by precipitation, is expected around the 23rd, and chances of frost will be relatively high after that date. Afternoon temperatures will be mostly in the 50s and 60s, with 70s coming about 30 percent of the time, and cold days only in the 30s or 40s occurring one year in five.
Zeitgebers (Events in Nature that Tell the Time of Year)
From now on, only a few swallowtails and fritillary butterflies visit the garden, and just a few fireflies glow in the grass.
Some ginkgoes are pale golden green, some just a little faded. In the many woodlots, large patches of sky show through the thinning canopy.
As foliage thins, Eastern phoebes, catbirds, and house wren migration seasons deepen.
Cattails start to break apart as asters go to seed and fall raspberry time comes to a close.
At the end of this week, intense decline in peak leaf color begins in the lower Midwest. Leaf-fall occurs throughout the autumn months, but accelerates right after color reaches its apex, leaving most of the trees bare within ten days of that time. Leaves of honeysuckles and forsythia, last up to four weeks longer than the leaves of the high canopy
Mind and Body
As the moon wanes and moves away from Earth, its influence on the ocean tides and human tides wanes, also. The upcoming weekend will, consequently, be relatively calm for public service employees, parents, and partners.
Seasonal stress is only partly related to the moon, however, and the increasing cloud cover, the shortening of the day, and the changeable weather keep gathering momentum, escalating the likelihood that many people will begin to suffer from S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder).
Falling barometric pressure may also affect your outlook this week, especially before a cold front comes through the region on or about October 23. Although the days prior to the arrival of that front may increase your irritability, fish and game should be more active (and children and farm animals more rambunctious) toward the end of the week, especially towards dawn – when the moon is overhead.
In the Field and Garden
As the moon wanes, divide peonies, lilies, and iris, then plant crocus, daffodils, tulips, snowdrops, and aconites before November turns the weather much chillier.
Divide and transplant peonies and iris.
Almost all the corn has been cut for silage. Fifty out of every 100 soybeans have usually been taken from their stalks. Winter wheat is often 70 percent planted by this date. About half of the crop has emerged.
Complete fall pruning in October’s remaining mild weather. Spread manure on the field and garden after testing the soil but wait until all the leaves have fallen to feed trees, perennials, and shrubs. Clean out birdhouses for winter.
As the leaves come down, one of the best ways to fight the end-of-autumn doldrums is to shorten winter. And one of the easiest ways to do that is to plant a pussy willow shrub, which will provide a reliable gauge of spring’s advance as its catkins gradually open with each thaw of January and February.
A red maple tree is a larger investment and takes up more space, but if you have the square footage near your house and need another prophet of things to come, then plant a red maple under the dark moon this year. You can count on its scarlet flowers coming out around the 18th of February, keeping pace with your pussy willows, promising warmth through some the most bitter storms of winter’s end.
As for the flowers of early spring, you can have as many before April as you care to plant in October or November. Early spring bulbs may be relatively small, but they make up in timeliness what they lack in size.
Snowdrops will bring life to the brown earth as early as the first week in February in the warmest years. More often, they start to blossom close to February 20 in Ohio and Indiana. If the spring is precocious, snowdrops can be wilting by the first week of March; most of the time, though, they last until a week after equinox. They actually prefer the cold, and their blossoms live longest when the days are gray and brisk.
Aconites will add bright yellow to your early garden. They emerge with the snowdrops, gangly like birds just out of the egg, looking to the ground. Then as they mature, their flowers face up to the sun. A little more delicate than snowdrops, they are more susceptible to heat.
Snow crocus are the most flamboyant of the late-winter flowers, coming in a week or two before their larger crocus cousins, bringing lavender and yellow and gold to the cloudy afternoons. They too can bloom in the middle of February but are most common at the end of the month. The cooler the weather, the longer they last. In a typical year, their season is over around March 25.
By then there will be the windflowers and blue squills that open in mid to late March, along with the blue and white glory-of-the-snow. Then come early hyacinths and jonquils in the last week of the month. Those later flowers start another season called middle spring, the time of year during which everything blooms at once, and nature doesn’t seem to need your help at all.