My sense of season is very temperature-dependent. I know temperatures can vary widely within a given season (ever more widely as the years go on, it seems), but temperatures in the range I expect (or at least hope for) are my primary yardstick for determining "seasonable" weather. I'll admit, though, that they are only one.
My tomatoes are more convinced about autumn's arrival. They haven't yet fallen to frost, and may not for some weeks. They're still putting off blossoms, and some of those swell into fruits. But the tomatoes that form and remain now ripen only glacially. Most of the fruits that are green now will never ripen. At this point in the season, pathos is my garden's dominant crop.
Temperatures are still comfortable for my plants, and with a garden hose I assure they're getting plenty of moisture. But I can't control the sunlight. They don't get that much in my tree lined yard to begin with, but now I expect they never get more than three or four hours a day. And the light they get now is not nearly as intense as it was six weeks ago.
Summer's light is failing, even if its heat isn't. Light is probably a more consistent and objective measure of the seasons than temperature. Ancient peoples who built elaborate ritual sites oriented around the solar year knew it. Even my tomatoes know it. As a modern guy in the developed world whose conscious connection to nature is primarily recreational and aesthetic, I'm free to disregard that seasonal criterion if I choose. Whether this is anything to be proud of, I don't know.
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