Asters of Autumn

What’s not to love about fall? The season has arrived and with it, Mother Nature has burst into a beautiful sea of color.

You often hear people talk about the leaves changing, but flowers give off a stunning array of colors this time of year as well. In fact, the beginning of fall for many folks is marked by when the asters bloom. Asters are daisy-like flowers that have grown in the wild for centuries. They come in shades of purple, blue, white, and occasionally pink. The cool tones allow autumnal hues of yellow, orange, and red to show up as the weather begins to change.

These colorful fall flowers start blooming in late August, and peak in September and October. As some of the last wildflowers to bloom each year, they’ll continue blooming and gracing us with their colorful presence until the first frost.

All our Currant Farm honey bees love these Asters of Autumn growing freely in the Honey Bee Wildflower Field… especially because these flowers are one of the last sources of pollen and nectar for honey bees. Before winter comes, the bees must gather a surplus of nectar and pollen. Thankfully asters produce an abundance of both as they bloom in the fall.

If you’d like to help your local honey bees prepare for winter, why not plant some asters? They’re relatively easy to grow and sure look pretty as part of your landscape. A great outing for the whole family is to collect the seed pods of wild asters after the flowers are finished in fields and scatter them on your own property or other abandoned fields to increase the population of this natural, deer proof pollinator forage. Plus, asters are perennials, so they’ll come back year after year to provide late-season pollen and nectar for your local bees.

As we all begin to prepare for winter, it’s a great time to stock up on your Currant products! Currants are packed with vitamin C, potassium, iron, calcium, manganese, and magnesium, to keep you healthy as the weather turns colder. They’ve even been crowned the “Number 1 Super Fruit”! Best of all, the flavor is unique and absolutely delicious

Cheers from the farm,

Greg