Enjoying a Rain

13 years ago

Between nearly breaking a finger nail folding clothes this morning and looking out the window at a steady rain, I read this informative weather article - Everybody Talks Smack About The Weather, Why?

Predicted overnight temperatures in the mid-30's, which would probably have spelled "frost" in my garden, have been missed 3 times here - beginning about a month ago. Well, it actually fell to 38, once. We are having a LATE 1st frost, this year!!

I spent quite a bit of time lamenting (with good cause ;o) the cool, wet, windy late spring here. The tomatoes had a real tuff go of it but I've been picking buckets of tomatoes the last 2 weeks!

Of course, the pepper plants also came out stunted and there is no real chance of the bells and such ever ripening beyond green but, I would be shocked if I ever had a red or yellow bell in the garden, anyway!

I ate half a Sugar Baby watermelon for breakfast! The 38 degrees 3 weeks ago put the plants on a steep down hill path but there was 1 ripe fruit then and the crate of little watermelons sitting on my deck has yielded some nice, tasty fruit ever since. Those other melons that dodged some kind of rind disease have done just fine. Notably, the Passport Galia did the best again this year but I'm down to the final one!

I reserve the right to complain about the weather and expect to, right after I get what should be the last of the zucchini out of the mud this afternoon. I certainly have NOT developed ""an impoverished sense of wonder about nature." Oh how I wish I could have painted that sunset yesterday -- on the way home with my Thai Hot Pepper, radish seed, and millet harvest!

digitSteve

Here is a link that might be useful: Total Growing Degree Days, Mar 1 - Oct 2, 2010

Comments (2)

highalttransplant
13 years ago
According to NOAA, we only got .02" of rain overnight, but lots of strong winds, thunder, and lightening.

It's looking like the end of the road for this year's garden. Predicted low of 33 over the weekend. The melons are pretty much gone now, and I gave up on the cucumbers a while ago, they're now the size of watermelons, and I don't have a clue what to do with them, other than throw them away. I've been gradually harvesting winter squash and pumpkins this week, and picked the last of the zucchini, but there are still quite a few peppers, and tomatillos, and tons of green tomatoes out there. Looks like tomorrow will be busy! Sometime between taking kids to and from school, doing the grocery shopping, and going to my son's soccer game, everything worth salvaging will have to get picked.

Seems only natural for gardeners to lament about the weather, unless they are living in paradise ...

Bonnie
david52 Zone 6
13 years ago
We skipped the usual early Sept frost as well. I'm clearing and hauling tomato plants/fruit in an amazing volume, they must have doubled their mass in this last month, still have half to go. I have one row of chard that is going true gangbusters, and I'll leave that until we get a hard freeze. Surprisingly, my peppers are still producing. We should get a frost in the next 3 - 5 days.

Big project now is to make the Mother Of All Compost Heaps, and hopefully create a large enough mass that it will heat up nicely for a few weeks before it gets really cold. I'm going to try to use it next spring, instead of my usual waiting another season. To do so, I need to build it up big - 8 ft dia, 5 foot high, and fast.

Right now, we have pea sized hail.
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