Storms, Seeds & the Rhythm of a New Season
September has arrived with its golden light and the first subtle hints that fall is just around the corner. Though the season has held tightly to summer temperatures and brought along a tropical storm that still has us cleaning up and considering all that is to come, we have learned life on a farm requires us to sometimes quickly change tempo and, many times, plans. This year instead of moving neatly into our fall projects, we found ourselves hurrying to prepare for a storm headed directly toward Beaumont.
Perhaps that is why, as September begins, we have been thinking so much about rhythms. Farm life, gardens, and the raising of children all have them, and, of course, the year itself carries us through its familiar cycles. We can already feel the shift these first weeks of September when the beat begins to change. The days are still unmistakably warm here in Southeast Texas, but the light has shifted just enough and the telltale signs of a new beginning has already begun: birds are starting to move through, seeds are being sorted and started, gardens are being cleared and prepared, and our thoughts have begun drifting toward the months of gathering and celebration ahead. It is a season that somehow asks us to work hard and savor deeply at the very same time.
Building the Italian Garden
We left summer with several of our garden projects in full bloom, including the completion of the new fence that will define the border of our newest addition to the farm: what we are calling the Italian Garden. This full-sun space will eventually become a garden that nods to my Sicilian roots and gives a
permanent home to some of the plants and flavors that feel connected to that heritage. Our heirloom grapevines will grow here alongside figs, lemons, oranges and plums, with Mediterranean herbs such as lavender and rosemary tucked throughout wherever our Southeast Texas climate will allow.
We imagine a meandering path through it all—a place for afternoon harvests, certainly, but also for the simple pleasure of a garden stroll. We can already picture lingering there among the sensory delights of citrus blossoms, warm herbs and hints of lavender hanging in the air. There is quite a bit of work between here and there, but after years of imagining this corner of the farm, seeing its outline finally appear feels significant.
Preparing the Ground
Our raised-bed rebuild is also well underway. We used the intense heat of July and August to our advantage, solarizing the beds to help manage the weeds that took hold after our spring deluge disrupted the soil. We recently completed the next step, adding some of our favorite soil amendments and because the beds were already barren, we lightly worked the uppermost layer to incorporate them into the earth. Then came the part no gardener can manufacture: a good, soaking rain. We certainly got it.
Tropical Storm Edouard arrived with more wind than we anticipated, but we were incredibly fortunate here at Caralavi. Our sturdy 131-year-old farmhouse was completely unfazed and around the property, we were left with downed limbs, scattered debris and broken stems in the flower gardens, but nothing that could not be cleaned up and tended. We are grateful to have been spared from more damage. Storms are part of the rhythm of life along the Gulf Coast, though knowing that never makes watching one approach feel entirely ordinary. Afterward comes another familiar rhythm: walking the property, picking up what has fallen, tending what was damaged, and beginning again.
Miraculously the rain brought exactly what our newly prepared garden soil needed. It soaked deeply without washing away the work we had already done and now we can move on to finishing the garden frames and preparing for another season of planting.
Living One Season While Dreaming of Another
Seeds are beginning to fill our thoughts again as we organize what will be planted this fall—and what needs to be started for spring. This is the funny thing about gardening: you are almost always living in more than one season at once. Here at Caralavi, that feeling extends beyond the garden. For the past six years, we have been building the dream of a working farm while simultaneously renovating and tending our old farmhouse and the surrounding acres. One project leads naturally into another, and sometimes a space serves one purpose for a while before becoming what we ultimately envisioned. Our newly rebuilt beds are a perfect example.
For the next year or so, our new beds will hold many of our flowers. Eventually, they will transition into our potager garden, where we will grow vegetables, herbs and food for our family, while the flower production moves to another part of the property with even better sunlight and room to become part of the larger landscape. There are still quite a few steps between where we are and the vision we hold for this place, but lately, something has shifted. As fences are completed, beds are rebuilt and long-imagined garden spaces begin taking physical form, we can finally see the larger vision for Caralavi emerging from all those individual projects.
A Ninth Birthday & a Little Wonder
Of course, not all of our recent days have been spent working. Between projects, we celebrated Avie’s ninth birthday with a sweet family trip to Waco. She has wanted to visit the Waco Mammoth National Monument for quite some time, and for a child fascinated by paleontology, it was everything we hoped it would be.
The site is built around the place where the mammoth remains were actually discovered, allowing visitors to look down into the protected dig area and see the fossils much as a paleontologist would encounter them in the field. Watching her take it all in was one of those reminders of another rhythm we are particularly aware of these days: childhood.
Somehow the years that once seemed to stretch endlessly now seem to move much faster than they used to. Experiences like this have made us increasingly mindful of making room within all the work of building Caralavi for curiosity, adventures and the things that fascinate Avie right now. As we well know, gardens will wait, but childhood does not, and as older parents, we have learned to stop and savor when the moment arises.
Flowers for Gathering
Flowers, meanwhile, have continued to weave their way through our season. In July, we curated florals for a Positano-inspired gathering, filling the celebration with a bounty of blooms in lemon yellow, cream and denim blue. We rounded out summer with another joyful collection in sunset tones—mocha roses, cheerful sunflowers, dusty blue eryngium and flowering cinnamon basil from our own garden—for a family celebration that felt like the perfect farewell to the season. Now our eyes are turning fully toward fall.
I think autumn is our favorite season for flowers and gathering. When tables become a little warmer, candlelight returns earlier in the evening, and the colors of the garden so warmly invite us to linger longer together, we can't help get giddy with anticipation for a fresh, new season. We are working on a couple of exciting projects for the months ahead and cannot wait to share more as the details come together.
In the meantime, we are especially delighted to bring our posies back to K2 Café and Carryout and For Heaven’s Sake. We have missed seeing familiar faces, visiting with fellow flower lovers and watching our little garden-grown arrangements make their way out into the community and onto your tables. After our late-summer respite, returning feels a little like another seasonal homecoming.
Finding the Rhythm
For now, September finds us somewhere between cleaning up and beginning again. We are picking up storm debris while planting seeds, finishing summer projects while imagining spring gardens, celebrating a growing child while tending a very old house, and designing flowers for gatherings while dreaming about the spaces where our own family will gather in the months ahead. Perhaps that is the rhythm of this season after all...not a perfectly ordered march from one thing to the next, but an overlapping of what was, what is, and what is still to come.
As our corner of Southeast Texas continues tidying up after the storm, we are sending our neighbors our love and solidarity. As the familiar rhythms of autumn slowly return, we hope there is room in your September for both the work and the wonder of the season: planning gardens and setting seasonal tables; watching the light change as the sun sets a little earlier; and gathering with the people you love; and, every now and then, for setting the work aside long enough to simply savor these beautiful rhythms.
Until next time, with love,
Carol & the Caralavi family
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