Gardening is getting to be a big challenge. This isn’t due to age or time constraints. It has to do with crazy weather.
Midwest weather is changeable. Every season argues with the next one resisting its ouster. But this crazy weather has gone beyond that.
Rain and Drought
Floods came in May. A six-inch rain fell overnight or over a day and the creek rose. The next day the waters settled lower.
Now floods come any month of the year. They don’t take a six-inch rain as even a couple of inches pouring down in an hour or two brings the creek up.
These sudden floods tear out the creek banks. They undermine big trees. Most of the water runs off down to the river.
These rainy times give way to dry weeks to months. Often the dry spells take plants to the edge of survival before another rainy time moves in. This too will be followed by a dry time.
The Ozarks traditionally does have hot, dry summers. However, the new wet dry cycles may or may not fall into the old patterns.
Cold, Wet Springs
I love growing potatoes. It’s not that I can’t buy potatoes in the market or that I prefer some exotic variety. It’s that I love growing potatoes.
Spuds do like cool weather, but not cold weather. They need to get planted in March to beat the summer heat.
Now cold March weather keep them from growing. Frosts keep nipping any brave sprouts off. By the time the plants can finally grow, it’s late April and summer hits.
I no longer grow potatoes.
Summer Crops
Every plant takes a certain amount of time to grow and bear fruit or reach harvesting size. That’s why gardeners in northern states grow different crops and varieties than those in southern states.
Tomatoes take sixty to ninety days. Peppers are much the same. Okra takes seventy-five days.
Killing fall frost arrives around October first. When summer crops can’t be planted due to cold and frost until late May, that puts summer harvest into late August.
As one who loves to garden, I’m trying to adjust to the new crazy weather patterns.