It’s always a little bittersweet for me when the gardening season comes to an end as it did so abruptly two days ago when the frost claimed anything that wasn’t cocooned in bed sheets and blankets.

My tomatoes, hunkered down under cover, may or may not turn red during these last few warm days of summer. About this time, though, I get tired of covering and uncovering and covering and uncovering the plants, so I’ll probably pick them all and let them ripen in the house like I do every fall.

It pains me to pull produce off plants prematurely, because there could be a couple of more weeks of warm, sunny weather. Just last year the Flathead had a record high of 90 degrees on Sept. 12, the same day we had a record low this year.

These frigid fall mornings are a rude reminder that the growing season here is a fleeting thing, bright and productive for such a very short time. Now it’s all over for another year, but so is the watering, weeding and harvesting. It’s a relief, really, because who wants to pull weeds for more than three or four months out of the year?

There’s still plenty to do.

The plums aren’t quite ripe yet and the apples are calling, begging to be made into pie or sauce. Most of my carrots are still in the ground.

It’s the prospect of that long, gray winter ahead, though, that puts many gardeners, myself included, into a post-garden funk.

Curious about what the winter will bring weather-wise, I picked up “The Old Farmer’s Almanac” that has been gathering dust here at the Inter Lake office. They always send us a complimentary copy, hoping we’ll write about it.

Here’s what the almanac predicts is in store for us this winter: Our winter temperatures will be above normal. It’s tough to say whether it will be dry or wet. The almanac’s map shows a tiny corner of Northwest Montana as “wet” next winter, and areas in Western Montana as “dry.” It looks like the Flathead Valley is right on the dividing line for weather patterns.

The coldest and snowiest periods will be late December and mid- to late February. Next summer, expect it to be hot and wet, the time-honored publication advises.

I don’t put much faith in weather predictors, even a journal such as “The Old Farmer’s Almanac” that’s been around since 1792. But it’s a fun read. Beyond the weather predictions, it has all sorts of interesting tidbits.

A short article titled “Solar strokes: Yet another reason to worry,” notes that after reviewing more than 11,000 people who suffered a stroke between 1981 and 2004, researchers found that strokes are 19 percent more likely to occur on days with a geomagnetic storm. The good news, it said, is that solar activity is generally the lowest it has been in more than a century.

With pages of trivia and oddities to pore over, and articles such as “24 strange things about the universe,” perhaps this almanac will be the salve that soothes my summer soul and puts me in a frame of mind to embrace winter.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.