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🌳Orchard Updates & Fall Colors🍂

🌱 Why do the leaves change color?🍂<!–


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And with a truckload of produce for donation at Joy’s Kitchen, we wrap up the growing season.

In this newsletter, I have a few end of season updates for everyone and some additional information further down about the science behind leaves changing color in autumn. 

If you would like to rent a garden bed at Weaver Creek next year, please fill out our reservation list now before all of the spaces are filled up for 2025! We will email everyone who signs up in the spring to discuss your garden bed and payment:  Reservation Form: https://forms.gle/NaKUps71RuCwTuvU7
 
This year the Jovial team delivered thousands of pounds of produce to local food pantries from our Jovial Gardens! It’s been quite a year as we balanced working between building school gardens and holding youth workshops; hosting weekly Saturday garden workshops; managing the orchard space and repairing leaks and handling pests; and maintaining backyard gardens. Phew! And now it’s the time of the year when Jovial switches into our planning and prep season.
 
We will be active at the orchard each Saturday in November and cleaning up our backyard sheds and greenhouse and getting ready to start seeds in the spring! After that, we will be in planning mode and making preparations behind the scenes for next year.
 
These newsletters will slow down throughout this season, but rest assured we will be back up and posting more in late winter/early spring next year!

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Cranberry Apple Cider!

Something warm to sip while welcoming the winter weather.

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Beautiful Fall Colors…But why?

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Technically Speaking..
Tree leaves change color in Autumn due to signaling hormones which are produced by trees in response to fluctuations in temperature and sunlight.

So What?
Some of these hormones lead to something called leaf senescence which is a complex process that allows the tree to halt sugar production and results in leaves falling from trees. It allows the leaves to detach cleanly from the tree.

What about the colors?
The orange and yellow colors we see due to carotenoids that are present in the leaf through the year. Carotenoids are also what give many brightly colored vegetables their coloration (like carrots, sweet potatoes and tomatoes).

During most of the year, the green chlorophyll in the leaves, busy taking in sunlight and producing sugars and storing energy for the tree, cover up this already present coloration. But as the plant winds down for winter, the process of leaf senescence takes hold, the chlorophyll fades, and we can see leaves true underlying coloration! Oak leaves turn Brown in the fall due to brown tannins and pigments which are similarly present throughout the year but also covered up by the active green chlorophyll during summer.

What about Reds and Deep Purples?
While oranges and yellows from carotenoids are present in the leaves throughout the year, the deep reds and purples we see in the leaves can actually vary in a tree from year to year. 

Anthocyanins are responsible for the red coloration, and not all trees produce this. For those trees which do, as the tree gets ready to drop leaves (via leaf senesence), the leaves will still be producing sugars but the tree will not be able to absorb all of this energy. This leads to the production of anthocyanins as sugars accumulate in the leaves.

The more anthocyanins present in a leaf, the deeper red it may become, and also, the more frost tolerant, as anthocyanins promote frost tolerance. It is a highly variable process that the trees enter into, but at the end of the season the flow of the weather and our trees working as natural clocks is what is responsible for the beautiful tapestry that we find on our lawns, sidewalks, and streets.

But don’t just take my word for it!  Below are a few additional links to reputable university based articles on this topic.

https://ipm.missouri.edu/MEG/2022/10/fallColor-DT/
 
https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/leaves/process
 
https://planttalk.colostate.edu/topics/trees-shrubs-vines/1728-leaves-change-color-fall/
 
https://www.canr.msu.edu/resources/purple-leaves#:~:text=The%20purple%20color%20in%20leaves,a%20reddish%20color%20in%20autumn.

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