Autumn doesn’t always arrive with falling leaves.
Sometimes, it begins with an apple.
This year, for the first time, our young apple trees gave us fruit. Three different varieties — although one of the trees managed only two apples.
But two still count.
After watching the trees grow, waiting through spring and wondering whether the blossoms would turn into anything at all, seeing the first apples slowly ripen feels like a small milestone.
They’re not perfect. Some are small, some a little uneven, and there certainly aren’t enough to fill baskets.
But they grew here.
And somehow, that makes them more beautiful than anything we could have brought home from a shop.
The mornings are getting colder now. The grass stays wet longer, the light has changed, and the apples are covered in tiny drops of rain.
Our first little harvest.
And perhaps the simplest sign that autumn has arrived.
More from our garden: From summer zucchini and drying mint to the small harvests that slowly mark the changing seasons.