The calendar may say autumn, but today did not feel like it. It was warm, bright and sunny—the sort of day that makes you wonder whether summer has quietly decided to stay for another week.

I took my camera out because the signs of the changing season were there if I looked closely. A few leaves had fallen onto the path and some of the greenery was beginning to fade, but the trees still formed a thick green tunnel overhead.

A portrait view along the leafy path with scattered autumn leaves
A few leaves underfoot, but plenty of green still overhead.
A landscape view through the tree-lined path
The path looked as though it was standing between two seasons.

Autumn on the allotment

The allotment told the same story. The sweetcorn plants were drying at the edges and the cobs were ready, yet the warmth and sunlight made it feel more like a late summer harvest than the start of autumn.

Maturing sweetcorn plants in warm September sunshine
The sweetcorn was showing the season more clearly than the weather.
Tall sweetcorn plants with browning leaves and ripe cobs
Green stalks, drying leaves and cobs ready to come home.

A proper late harvest

There was still plenty coming from the plot: potatoes with the soil clinging to them, leeks, green apples and a crate full of chillies. They were not arranged for a supermarket shelf. They looked exactly as home-grown food should look—freshly lifted, useful and real.

Freshly harvested potatoes, leeks and green apples in a blue crate
Potatoes, leeks and apples—food straight from the plot.
Two blue crates containing chillies, leeks, apples and potatoes
The chillies were still producing strongly in the September warmth.
A crate filled with carrots, onions, potatoes, tomatoes and other allotment produce
A colourful box of carrots, onions, potatoes, tomatoes and peppers from an earlier part of the September harvest.

The seasons do not change overnight

Perhaps that was what the photographs captured best. Seasons do not arrive because a date changes on the calendar. They overlap. Summer lingers in the sunshine while autumn appears in fallen leaves, drying plants and crates of food ready to be taken home.

It was autumn on paper, summer in the sunshine—and harvest time on the allotment.