Happy Fall Equinox!

Today we celebrate a day of balance, when the hours of dark and light are equal. It's a still-point of new beginnings and the completion of a cycle that began the previous fall. It's Nature's New Year and "the orchestra" is playing loudly on the Earth and in our garden. It's harvest time with most of the fruit on the trees having been picked and processed except for the grapes and plums, while the tomatoes, peppers, squash, basil and chard are happily abundant and we're celebrating their deliciousness! So grateful. The Runner Bean vines are a mass of brightly colored flowers and the first pods are beginning to form. We'll be harvesting them around Thanksgiving after the garden has gone to sleep and the beans have dried on the vine. The bean flowers are a hummingbird favorite and it's so fun to watch them chase each other through the "bean forest!" We had at least forty hummingbirds here this season and between them and the honeybees, our five sugar feeders were drained often,sometimes twice a day! Usually August and September are the busiest months for pollinators in the garden, as the hummers are fattening up for their travels and the bees are busy creating their honey stores for the winter. And many Monarch and Painted Lady butterflies are traveling through for their final migration, often landing and feeding on the bright orange Mexican Sunflowers we plant for them.
 It's a beautiful time in the garden as the summer heat has finally let loose and the Salvias are bursting with bloom. Splashes of purple, pink, red, white and magenta are everywhere and the hummies and bees are loving all the abundance! And so are we...