Autumn Equinox in a Pollinator Garden

Happy Autumn Equinox! These fall traditions are celebrated around the world: Koreans observe the Chuseok harvest festival; the West Asian Zoroastrian tradition celebrates sharing. Dozynki is the Slavic harvest tradition; and at the Woodhenge in the Cahokia archaeological site near St. Louis, Missouri, sunrise celebrations dating back to the ancient Mississippian culture honor the equinox.

The sun continues on its apparent journey southward as it seemingly crosses the equator, from that point rising directly in the east and setting directly in the west. Its path travels markedly lower across the sky as the earth turns on its axis and continues in its orbit around our system’s central star. Already, plant photosynthesis diminishes due to nature’s signal: dwindling daylight. Red anthocyanin and orange and yellow carotenoid pigments in leaves emerge as their chlorophyll green recedes into the past with summer’s warmth.

In the garden we encourage grasses and sedges, and violets and native clovers and yarrow to establish in the grass. This spreads and increases habitat and critical food of pollinators like bees, butterflies, moths, bats, and birds, which can lead to more insect species and greater bird diversity. When we do not mow immediately in spring, and later mow at a height of 3 or more inches (and decrease lawn and pesticide/herbicide/fungicide use; even natural products can kill beneficial flora and fauna!) – the natives come in and flourish. Bumblebees swarm on asters and blue cardinal flower; our resident northern harrier hawk hunts in the backyard as fritillary and mourning cloak butterflies join in the feeding frenzy.

Over 350 wild bee species are found in Connecticut (California has over 1600!). These essential pollinators of 80 percent of the world’s native flora are vital to biodiversity and maintaining healthy plant populations. The larvae (caterpillars) of native bugs like butterflies and moths are the primary food of many wildlife species, including nearly all of the birds who live on land. These larvae coevolved with particular food plants like milkweed and goldenrod, and a third of the 4,000 native North American bee species eat pollen from a narrow range of plants. By nurturing native plants, we can help both specialist species – and generalists who eat anything – thrive in an increasingly hostile and vanishing world.

Lughnasa: August Stars in the Vegetable Garden

Lughnasa brings with it summer’s full heat and humidity, and a burst of crops. The ancient pagan celebration of the harvest falls halfway between the Summer Solstice and Fall Equinox. Feasting on plump berries, juicy corn sweeter than candy, and fresh-baked bread, we honor the agricultural holiday, in gratitude for such bounty, and await the return of the year’s dark half. At night, cricket song in the forest. A glowing August moon slowly rises behind the pines. Soon, just below the constellation Cassiopoeia, Perseid meteor showers.

At this time of abundance, I also consider hunger. We often think of food scarcity in winter, with so little growing and in season, and less available at the store. But summer can be hard too, with its crushing heat, and not everyone is able to get around to buy food. Times are increasingly desperate: human-caused climate change is heating our planet and altering the environment faster than anyone could predict, and funding is cut for food and housing aid. It’s easy to feel frustrated and hopeless.

But this is no time to give up: We’re all needed and can help in our own ways. Garden farmers like us can save and share seeds, and plant extra rows for family, friends, and neighbors; and donate extra produce to our community fridge (if not available where you are, you can start one!). Local farmers, food co-ops, soup kitchens and food pantries can and do partner to feed the hungry (and need volunteers and donations). Organizations like CT FoodShare and local colleges and universities can help find resources and also often have their own food programs to help students and community members in need.

I walk in our garden, raising the perfume of crushed thyme.

Blueberries reveal themselves one by one as they ripen.

Red cabbage heads form – soon to be both sustenance and natural dye.

Bountiful greens, beans, herbs, root vegetables, and peppers.

Bees frantic on yellow St. John’s wort.

Purple echinacea, also a great source for pollinators.

Hummingbird clearwing moth pollinates pale bee balm flowers.

All living things need nourishment; we must help each other!

June Solstice: Some Kind of Enchantment

Happy Summer Solstice (Winter, in the Southern Hemisphere)! The longest day and shortest night; from now on as the earth continues its solar orbit, the days begin to shorten.

Our seeds are planted in the soil in the vegetable garden, growing sprouts leafing out in the hot sun. In the grass nearby, a large mother nursery spider protects her young in its egg sac.

The woods are filled with flourishing ferns, an explosion of greenery after an exceptionally long, cold winter. Ladyslipper orchids pop up among these ancient vascular plants, existing on earth for hundreds of millions of years. Ferns reproduce by spores, or asexually by spreading rhizomes.

Cinnamon fern

Maidenhair fern

Royal fern

And the Mountain Laurel! These delicate blossoms of pink and white bloom like never before; the dell is alight and filled with the buzz of industrious bees homing in on petals that look painted as if to direct them, miniature pathways to their pollen prizes.

Dragonflies, darners! And fireflies are everywhere! Those magical beings light up the edge of the wood in the evenings, approaching perhaps out of curiosity, little ghosts. Males flash in species-specific patterns, and if females find an appealing mate, they flash back in response.

The longest day, shortest night: There’s seems a sameness to my posts, but I always feel the pull, and then great satisfaction writing in tune with the seasons. After all, I change as I grow older, am not the same from moment to moment. The cycle continues around the wheel of the year, yet with climate change the planet gets hotter, more unpredictable. I notice in particular, after such a severe winter, the strange, dry summer: we swim in a dwindling Mt. Hope River, flowing behind our yard and forest, down to a trickle.

The longest day, shortest night: one does not exist without its opposite, like life and death: never one without the other. Now, striking reminders of mortality – a beaver carcass by the river (mostly eaten, the sizeable rodent must’ve been killed by a large predator: coyote or bobcat?), and a dead beaver on the road – a rare sight, tragically growing more common; a small green frog floating in a vernal pool that largely dried up and may have heated beyond the ability to support aquatic life. No more frogs in that former pond this season. I took for granted that frogs thrived here. It’s Froglandia, I thought, it’ll always be this way! Not true: Change is a constant. We grow older, seasons change, and with them, the earth we are living on.

Wood frog in leaf litter

My mother would’ve turned 99 this June; she died 14 years ago, yet she’s with me always: my days fill with thoughts of her: happy memories, funny things she said, her warmth and affection. Other thoughts creep in too: her volatility, the moods and the illness she struggled with for most of her life, feelings of guilt and remorse over how much more I could’ve helped her, how I could’ve been a better, more caring daughter. Yet these thoughts eventually pass, like weather, and as a dear friend said years ago, I can now deeply appreciate all her wonderful qualities: her strength and kindness, her love of nature, the good times we shared as she raised me with such love. Our bond never dies.

Eastern newt eft

Elsewhere in the woods we still see a wood frog here, green frogs there – their rubber band-y call music to my ears. Tiny baby newts (efts) make their awkward way across the trail. The littlest pair of turtles (pond sliders?) bask on a log, even in the murky side channel by the river. For these, for the love of friends and family, I’m eternally grateful, and for the twinkling forest on warm summer nights.

May Day and Food for All

Happy May Day and International Workers’ Day! Maybe it should be “Mayday,” as so many are in need of help at this disturbing, chaotic time: workers, the indigent, the ill, the aged, and all the big and little creatures interwoven throughout our lives. May Day, or Beltane, is also the time of the Flower Moon. I watch it rise behind silhouetted trees, flooding the forest with pale light. Time to dance around the Maypole – and after this long, cold, snowy winter – to fall in love anew with the fecundity of the earth.

All blooms have their own special beauty. The food plants we grow have lovely flowers, and help feed us and others, thanks to programs like food banks, community fridges, and other ways to raise awareness about food scarcity around our communities.

Rhubarb

Pear blossoms

Native plants perform a vital function, supporting native pollinators throughout the food web. These pollen-bearing plants provide desperately needed nutrition, helping the ecosystem thrive. Insects (which are 90% of all animal species) and birds are in stunning decline due to human impacts: biodiversity and habitat loss from development, pesticides in the environment, and climate change. Entomologists like E.O. Wilson and other scientists report the stark numbers in the documentary The Little Things that Run the World. Not just catastrophic for the insects and the larger animals who depend on them (including humans, as we rely on fruit, nuts, honey, and other foods pollinated and produced by insects), these declines affect the pollen plants that evolved with their dependent species, and our entire ecosystem.

Skunk cabbage, sculptural leaves and early pollen

Trout lily, foliage and bee

Fiddleheads unfurl and delight

Bashful merrybells

Shy canada mayflower

Becoming aware, we can help nurture our native cohabitants and help our outside spaces recover, grateful for the nourishment, the sweet air, and the beauty of nature. I watch squirrels balance in the swaying branches atop maple trees to eat the sweet blossoms; and songbirds dart after bugs as the setting sun slowly gilds the distant hills. Even now at its blooming peak, the bright pink crabapple tree loses petals in every breeze. Standing under this umbrella of flowers, I’m enveloped by the buzzing of innumerable bees: as poet W.B. Yeats wrote, the sound of a healthy “bee-loud glade.”

Crabapple

Andromeda with bumblebee

Spring Forward, Vernal Equinox

Happy Spring! On the Northern Hemisphere’s Vernal Equinox, due to Earth’s rotation the Sun hovers above the Equator before its rays move north, for the summer. (In the Southern Hemisphere, the season now turns to autumn.) Harvest and fertility festivals around the world celebrate the coming of the planting and growing season, and the return of the sun after winter’s darkness. At historic sites such as Stonehenge and Angkor Wat, the equinox coincides with a solar phenomenon aligning with these ancient structures. Nowruz is observed as the New Year by Persians and many other peoples in West and Central Asia and beyond.

Everywhere, new life! I open the door to step outside: Bugs! Tiny snow fleas flit inside foot tracks; the first flies buzz and spiders weave webs in anticipation. Birds are never far behind: black phoebes call from the fence as they hunt insects; the robins’ song a sure sign of spring. Bluejays squawk at each other and at songbirds; our resident northern harrier screeches as it soars high above; a bald eagle’s wings startle as it takes off just overhead; chickadees cheep and titmice twitter. Cardinal, juncos, sparrows, Carolina wren, blackbirds, maybe soon even the Eastern bluebird.

Melting snow reveals soggy mounds of earth, voles tunneling under the surface. Everywhere I now see the brown of sun-starved soil, the green shoots of spring bulbs, the minute wonders that are snowdrops!

While I love the stark beauty of winter snow and ice, and feel invigorated by the frigid air when snowshoeing, sledding, and cross-country skiing, this winter was the coldest, with the heaviest snowfall in years since we moved here. It challenged both my physical ability with constant snow removal and getting out even in subfreezing cold, and my mental and emotional fortitude in not giving in to the depression and inertia that often accompany dark days.

A revelation, discovered when we first moved here: the underappreciated (and a bit stinky) skunk cabbage, growing near or in water, is one of the first to emerge from the snow, often lasting through the winter. Through the process of thermogenesis, this amazing plant generates its own heat, and also offers early pollen, welcoming starved pollinators like flies and bees to its oddly endearing shelter. Still here, late icicles hang like bells over the river raging from snowmelt.

Early spring in the Quiet Corner, nighttime temperatures still drop below freezing but days grow warmer, causing the sap to run in birch and maple trees. Northeastern Indigenous communities have been making maple sugar for centuries, and so begins maple syrup season. The sap, just 2–4% sugar, requires boiling roughly 40 gallons for a single gallon of syrup. Maple Weekend in Connecticut, sugar houses everywhere (some run by the same families for years) open with fresh syrup, tastings, and demonstrations. Visitors can watch syrup making through March, and purchase maple syrup, candy, and cream, even local honey. Watching this steam rise from a sugar house brings deep comfort: spring is almost here.