The Season of Abundance

Yesterday I went to two farm markets. The first, where I go for lettuce and chard, among other vegetables, was also offering kale, beets, zucchini, fennel, green beans, radishes and salad turnips, all grown on a large plot of land behind a school. It was not offering tomatoes yet but when I asked about buying a couple of green ones to ripen on my window sill (or fry green) I was directed to a greenhouse filled with rows of green tomatoes of different sizes, all of which will eventually become red and luscious. In another greenhouse were peppers, now green but soon to ripen into various colors. 

Apple sauce, 2021 (Margo D. Beller)

The second farm market is where I go to buy peaches and corn, both offered as "our own." I like knowing where the stuff I buy is grown. 

This is July and here in New Jersey the fruits and vegetables are growing fast and furious. My four pepper plants are filled with growing fruits that are still green. The basil is growing like a weed - I've already harvested enough for two batches of pesto and some basil-cheddar biscuits. I have plenty of daisies, coneflowers and others to pick for the table.

There has been an abundance of many things this year.

There has been an abundance of rain following a winter when over two feet of snow buried my yard. There has been an abundance of heat waves, the first in early June and then at least two more into mid-July. The humidity has been abundant, too, making even "cooler" days in the mid-80s feel oppressive. It seems to me this heat and humidity started earlier this year and when the rain falls the scene looks disturbingly tropical for an area considered a temperate zone.

The Stargazer lilies did extremely
well thanks to the rain. (Margo D. Beller)

All that moisture that started in the spring and now the heat have not only led to a bumper crop of my peppers and flowers but also apples. I picked many and then cut off the parts I could use. I had enough apple pieces to fill a large freezer bag. I finally cooked them yesterday after returning from the farm markets. I had four nicely packed pints of apple sauce and there might be more coming because the tree is still not finished (and there seem to be fewer squirrels in the tree, too).

The moisture has brought an abundance of weeds, especially my old nemesis the ground ivy. A couple of Sundays ago I awoke to a cool, dry morning - a rarity this season - and finally tackled some of the mess in the various garden plots including removing spent daffodil foliage, cutting back assorted branches and pulling out the many, many weeds including what seemed like miles of ground ivy. After many hours of labor I'd say I made a dent, but only a dent.

The ground ivy, as usual, was everywhere I didn't want it.
(Margo D. Beller)

There has been abundance in the bird world, too. After a quiet period when many birds were sitting on or guarding nests, there is now birdsong again - robins, cardinals, chipping sparrows, Carolina wren. The catbirds and jays are more actively flying around, using apple and dogwood branches to look for a meal crawling in the grass below. Raucous families of titmice and grackles fly through the trees or search in the grass for a meal.

And there are now two singing house wrens I can hear from my yard - the one using the nest box I put out and one I can hear from a few yards away. 

When the house wren in my yard hears the other one he flies around agitated and sings all the louder. But lately his song has been a little softer, a little shorter in duration. I've been watching the nest box from my perch on the back porch when I can and I've seen a second wren going in and not coming out while the male sings from a nearby branch. A female sitting on eggs. 

This year's house wren doesn't look that different 
from this one from 2016. (Margo D. Beller)

Until today. Today I've seen a lot more activity, birds going into the box and then coming out, so the eggs must've hatched and now there are tiny baby wrens. Feeding, protecting and cleaning up after them are now the parental pair's priorities. In a week or so, the babies should get big enough that the parents will have to feed them from outside the box. In another few weeks, they'll all be gone. This brood is later than in past years and I'm relieved there was one at all after seeing little activity as recently as a month ago.

When it comes to rain, heat and snow, too much of a good thing is too much. But for vegetables, fruit and birdsong, I wish they would continue beyond the summer.