harbingers of autumn in the beds

when i opened the strawberry bed this morning i found the plants still gleefully trying to reproduce...i scotched that with my pocket knife and got them turned back to the serious business of berry production...which they are doing...but he end of the season has begun to be signaled by the coloration of the lower leaves of some of the plants...it is past mid-august and things will be slowing down...annual or perennial irregardless...we won't be mowing the everbearing strawberries the way we would june bearing ones...we will leave the leaves intact ( although we may be thinning out some plants ) and simply mulch over the plants with about ten inches of straw...i usually use landscaping fabric when i mulch the asparagus, yams, and teosinte in the pgp...but that is black fabric and tends to collect solar heat even on the coldest days ( good for teosinte...seemingly or asparagus )..so i have ordered some white mulching fabric form my organic supplier in maine so the heat is reflected and the plants do not get a false signal of enough warmth to resume growth...an early exit from dormancy means a long spring of struggling with frost cloth and the accuracy of local weather forecasts...i am not up for that...have my hands full with the teosinte every spring...there will be a strawberry mulching exhibition soon enough...stay tuned for that ( i will be choosing the most windless day possible...remind me to recount some asparagus mulching stories sometime )