These winter squash are looking a little pale and thin, with those deprived-looking almost lime green leaves. No wonder, to go along with all the rain, most of the last few days have been cloudy. The garden veg really aren’t demanding. All they want is decently fertile soil—composted cow manure and a handful of alfalfa pellets will handle that—ample water, warm but not searing temperatures, and sun. Also, not being devoured by animals, insects or disease, or smashed to tatters by golf ball-sized hail, of course. This season so far, all conditions met. Except for the sun. The forecast continues cloudy with chance of rain for the next week. If that holds up, no rich, deep green leaves and satisfyingly sudden growth spurts for a while.
Weather
Quick storms and rainbows
Seems to be a little weather pattern repeating over the last few weeks: ominous darkness rolls in with gusting wind, a short, sharp storm with lighting but usually no thunder, half an inch to an inch of rain drops in just a few minutes, then the sun suddenly pops up and…a rainbow. Quite the little show. There’ve been several storms like that recently, and although this is only the second rainbow I’ve seen, I wouldn’t rule out others I missed. This one was a full arc, treeline to treeline. Didn’t have a wide enough lens or enough backing up room to get it all on digital film. Overall, the rain is welcome, even if not the slow and soaking in kind, and the pretty massive rainbow was cool, good for letting your sci-fi imagination wander for a few minutes!
Mud on the leaves
[From yesterday] Unless someone went wild with a hose, mud on the leaves is a sure sign of heavy, pelting rain. It came down this afternoon while I was on a supply run to town, hidden away in a giant box store, completely disconnected from big weather events (that is, until the power went out, which was its own little adventure in a dimly lit cavern). Back in the field, taking stock, the veggie plot was nicely watered in, the rain gauge read a decent half inch (1.25 cm), and no plant problems, just mud-splatter.
These potato plants do a good job of illustrating the ability of pounding rain to throw up a startling amount of dirt. Still, it’s really only of particular veg garden interest if you have to harvest in quantity. Grabbing some salad greens for dinner, a quick mud rinse and into the salad spinner, no problem. On the other hand, harvesting quantities of lettuce, baby salad greens, beets, radish, and carrots with tops, anything with leaves low to the ground right after a deluge becomes instant extra rinsing work. Which adds up! Of course, rain is manna from heaven for growing stuff. We can’t ever wish rain away, at least not around here (well, not most years). Harvest mud is just one of those things to take in stride…
Morning dew
It’s around 6 a.m. and I’m out in the field, in a grassy meadow that hasn’t been cut in years. At this hour on a sunny June morning, it’s wet out here! The sun is low but fully risen, backlighting the dew. The light is intensely glittering but without glare, like millions of tiny droplet-sized lightbulbs, each nearly as bright as the sun. To get to the tool shed, I’m walking a well-trodden single-file path through the unchecked grass. Weighed down blades lean in and soak a line in my jeans as I brush by. Rubber boots for sure. It’s almost mind-blowing when you think about how much water is gathered out there, all in single drops. Then the sun burns it off in an hour or two, and it’s back to the regular day.
Wind and more wind
At this point, end of month, I’d have to say WIND has been the weather theme of this May. Practically every day. Gusty enough to sometimes threaten the more delicate seedlings, and to put off ladder work on the big greenhouse. Here, the wind has blown off the garlic’s row cover. Not a problem as far as protection from the nocturnal leek moth horde that may be lurking, but more work to put back. Complicating this little matter, the garlic is growing up and straining at the cover, gradually pulling it out from being fully weighted by the rocks. Since the cover should stay on through June, that will have to be solved. Stay tuned!
The tree at the end of the field
The sun’s almost set but the howling wind and bursts of heavy rain aren’t slowing down. It’s pretty wild out there, with ankle-deep marshy wet patches hidden in the grass. Stepped out for a last look around, and the tree at the end of the field caught my eye as it usually does. It stands in the middle of a large pasture, far from the woods, at the point where the main veggie beds end. It seems quite independent, holding back on the leaves when the other trees are already green, exactly the same shape year round, with leaves or without. Lots of big trees, sheltered in the surrounding forest, were snapped like twigs in the big wind and ice storms of the last four-five years, but this guy remains unbothered. I’m glad because it’s a central part of the tiny farming scenery here these last many years. Would be sad to see it snapped!
The water is high
If you live in a big North American city—the kind of cities I’m familiar with—the average ground is asphalt and concrete, and water table is not a household term. If on the other hand you rely on a well, or a smaller town water processing plant, or you grow things at some scale, water table is a big deal. You know the term whether or not you understand it beyond the basic idea of either abundant water or water shortage, and drought.
The puddle zone in the photo, in a particularly low-lying area of the field that my path to the veg garden cuts through, is my own local water table indicator. Earlier in spring, with snow melt-off and the ground still frozen quite far down, it starts out as a shallow pond, to be sloshed through in rubber boots. As the ground unfreezes and the water seeps off, down goes the puddle pond, until it disappears leaving dry ground. This is the water table level, like an underground lake or ocean that’s everywhere, except unlike when it breaks out in an open lake, here the water is running through soil. The lower the table gets, the drier the ground and the less water there is around. When you see a river dramatically drop in a droughty summer, that’s the water table, going down!
This year, the puddle has been dry for a couple of weeks, but after nearly two inches (5 cm) of recent rain, it’s back! Nearly a whole day later, it’s still pretty big, which means, lots of water right at the surface. At this point in the year, its main meaning to me is that lower spots in the field will still get a little flooded, so don’t plant there for a bit! Later on, since there’s no open water near the garden field, if we haven’t had rain for a long while, I’ll start checking the level in the dug well—lower down the string!