Most people in the northeastern United States look to deciduous woodlands to admire and be inspired by the beauty of colorful leaves in October. But there also is much vegetative beauty in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania farmland in October as well.
Some crops are pretty to see in the fields during that autumn month. Dead, but still-standing corn stalks, and corn shocks, have beige leaves. The shocks resemble the tepees of American Indian towns. Fields of soybean leaves become yellow in fall. And there are fields bright with orange pumpkins and red tomatoes, and orchards of lovely, red apples that beautify cropland before they are harvested.
Corn, pumpkins and tomatoes were first domesticated and cultivated many hundreds of years ago by Native Americans in Mexico and Central America. Today those crops are big business, providing lots of different kinds of foods, and pleasing to see on beautiful October days.
Tall, bushy stalks of lamb's quarters, redroot pigweed and pokeweed have red leaves and stems in pumpkin and soybean fields in October, beautifying them. Eliminating "weeds" is not possibole in pumpkin fields with all the runners across the ground or densely packed soybean plants. So those "undesirable" plants grow in abundance in those fields, making them strikingly beautiful in October, especially when they are seen with low-slanting sunlight behind them.
The beige or yellow foxtail, redtop and broom grass leaves in fields and along rural roads are particularly pretty when seen with sunshine behind them. Redtop grass also has red or purple seed heads that are lovely in the sunlight.
There are many beautifully colored leaves along rural roads and streams and in hedgerows between fields. We see yellow foliage on black walnut and shag-bark hickory trees along streams and creeks. And there green-husked nuts cover the ground beneath them and becomne food for squirrels and mice. We see the red foliage of staghorn sumac trees, and Virginia creeper vines that grew up the trees. The fuzzy, red berries of sumac add color, and feed a variety of mice and berry-eating, small birds. And poison ivy, that also crawls up trees, have red, yellow and orange leaves in October.
But there is still much lush-green in Lancaster County farmland in October, including alfalfa and winter rye in fields and green grass in pastures. All those still-living, green plants help hold down the soil. Alfalfa and rye take nitrogen from the air and put it in the soil, which helps the growth of future plants in those fields. The green of those plants balances the brighter colors of croplands in fall. And that vegetation provides food for wood chucks, cottontail rabbits, white-tailed deer and Canada geese in autumn and winter, whenever snow isn't burying it.
Many kinds of flowering plants are still beautifully in bloom in October. The most notable ones include goldenrods and butter-and-eggs with yellow blossoms, red clover, smartweed and knapweed that have pink flowers, chicory with blue blooms and alfalfa that has lavender ones.
Most of these lovely flowers are left over from summer, but the beautiful aster, and wild morning glory blooms that have several bright colors, only started blooming in September. Two abundant types of asters have white flowers on one species and pale-lavender ones on a different species. White aster blossoms are so abundant in certain fields that it looks like snow fell only on those croplands. The striking New England asters that have deep-purple petals and yellow centers escaped cultivation and grow wild and abundantly in some local fields.
Bees and butterflies of various kinds, especially the small and beautiful orange and brown pearl crescent butterflies, visit aster flowers to sip nectar. In October, asters provide about the last chance insects have to ingest flower liquid in abundance.
Red clovers, white asters and chicory appear to be patriotic with their pink, white and blue blooms, respectively. And they are so abundant and omnipresent that patriotism seems to be everywhere.
Dead seed heads on a few kinds of plants still standing add more color and beauty to Lancaster County fields and country roadsides late in October, and into November. The abundant goldenrod seed heads are pretty when back-lighted by the sun low in the sky. Dried seed heads of Queen-Anne's-lace resemble small birds' nests. And the gray pods of common milkweed plants split open in fall, allowing their many brown seeds, each one with a fluffy, white parachute, to fall out and blow away on the wind. Seeds from these plants feed mice and small birds in fall and winter.
Obviously, there is an abundance of lovely, striking colors in Lancaster County farmland in autumn, particularly October, in spite of intensive agricultural practices for the benefit of people. Those colors make life more enjoyable. As the saying goes, "beauty is where you find it".
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