Undependable weather
The only thing
dependable about the weather this week has been its sheer
undependability. Yes, that's sleet in my hair on a morning that
was supposed to be warm and sunny according to Monday's forecast.
I rushed to seed carrots, parsley, lettuce (third planting), and
tomatoes (under a quick hoop) before the sleet turned into cold,
drenching rains.
Unfortunately, our
animals are more dependable than the spring weather. Lucy hasn't
seemed as interested in sitting on our newly seeded beds as she has in
past years, but the cats have been busy using the soft ground as a
toilet and the chickens have been breaking in to scratch new seedlings
out of the soil. I'm trying an ultra-simple scratch
deterrent this year
--- just a plastic trellis on each newly-seeded bed until the
plants are up enough to be mulched. Within a month, our animals
will have gotten sick of raising my blood pressure, and I won't have to
protect the new beds any longer.
What didn't happen this
week was onions, broccoli, and cabbage sets going out into the
ground. I really, really want these seedlings out of the house
--- they're already weeks late --- but the forecast low for tonight is
36, which could mean 26 on our north-facing slope, so we'll wait a few
more days. I would like to say next week will be warm and sunny
and perfect for transplanting, but those 10-day forecasts are
notoriously undependable.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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I commiserate... We have been having the same kind of cold spring... And I had to order row cover material for the new quick hoops, and it isnt even here yet.... Really wanted to be getting that soil warmed up! The kitchen table is full of seedlings that wont fit in the cold frames, and i did make use of the top of the crate where the new chicks are living- their heat lamp with its rising warmth works like a heating mat for the things that really like warm soil temps. We are still below freezing at night, but just barely, so theres hope of warmer days!