Foiled by the Weather

Gardeners talk a lot about the weather.  It's just a natural thing to do.  Well, I can tell you one thing, the weather has been very peculiar here and if this is what global warming is about, I don't like it one bit!  Our winter was almost non-existent with very little snowfall.  Then in March, our traditional transition month, we had two weeks of very unseasonable warm weather to the point folks were walking around in shorts and we had the furnace off.  Trees began blossoming and it looked very much as if the warm temperatures would continue.  Then they suddenly plummeted, waking every morning to heavy frost and blustery weather.  Our ADLF was April 15 so I held off cutting the grass to as close to that date as possible.  The weather has not warmed to any real degree since the warm spell in early March.  We've experienced horrific, damaging winds that have downed power lines and made driving hazardous.  Driving rain and hail has accompanied some of the winds, but other days it has remained dry yet quite windy.  Here it is almost the end of April with temperatures still dipping below freezing at night.

Things have been slow and frustrating on the gardening front.  There are several plants coming up that need identification and just a lot of gardening work in general to have to do.  Where I want the main growing area for the raised beds is pretty much a disaster.  At one end near the peach trees it looks like onions or garlic coming up and there is a lot of it!  We pulled out an arbor loaded with trumpet vine but didn't get the stumps out before the weather turned.  I started redoing one small garden bed between the walk and garage figuring I could move the plants there but the weather turned so it is at a stand still.  I did buy four new cedar trellises but haven't installed them yet.  Three are for the garage and one for either the back or side of the house (haven't decided yet).  I ordered two 15 - inch high, 4' x 4' raised PVC beds.  I think they will be nicer than my traditional raised wood beds and there won't be the issue of carpenter ants.  They are on sale right now but weren't in stock so are on order with a rain cheque.  I think I will get two more to fill in the one stretch for the main raised garden sections.  I also bought a nice rain barrel on sale but haven't installed it yet.  I have three downspouts in the backyard area that could all have rain barrels or a line of three along the fence with one downspout feeding into one and each one feeding into the next is likely what I will do.  I know I want them raised to use as a gravity fed watering system.

I have herbs in self watering planters ready to go outdoors as well as my hibiscus and several geraniums.  I also have a nice flat of tomato plants ready.  Just this past week I started battling and insect infestation indoors, mainly spider mites but I did spot a couple of aphids.  I'm not sure how the infestation began as no new plants have been introduced in the past three weeks but at any rate they are being treated aggressively with Safer's Soap.  I'm not impressed but should be able to save the plants with a bit of TLC.  And so the 2012 garden season begins...

Happy Gardening!

Garden Gnome
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