It's official -- I'm insane

[Deleted]

I just got in from planting sprouted seeds in a downpour of rain at 37 degrees. My fingers aren't quite working yet...



I was going to wait until after tomorrow's predicted snowstorm (4" - 8" expected), but the chard seeds I had soaking in a damp paper towel all started sprouting last night when I wasn't looking. Today it's been raining heavily since about 7:00 am, and the garden is a horrible sloppy mess right now, but I put on my knee-high rubber boots, my old holey jeans, a jacket and a rain jacket with hood over all that and out I went. It wasn't actually that bad, except for sliding in the soft mud when I moved too fast, and there's a really cold wind which made the wet parts of me (my legs between the boots and the rain slicker, and my hands) bitterly cold. But I slopped the mud aside, dropped the little sprouts in and slopped mud loosely back over them. The rain will take care of settling everything.

Now I'm back in the house for the rest of the day (except for gathering eggs and feeding animals) with a nice toasty fire going in the woodstove.

After tomorrow we're due for nice weather for the forseeable future, sunshine and only scattered showeres here and there with "normal" temps for this time of year (40s at night, 60s to 70s during the day), so maybe by next week I can finish my planting. Please, please, PLEASE let tomorrow be the last frost!



~Lannie

[momo]

What's your frost date up there?

Ours is April 15th. We had a close call this year. It got down to 35 on the 14th. Fortunately, nothing was damaged.

[Kathy]

Lannie, you're a real trouper! I can just see you out there in the mud. Get warm and just enjoy a quiet evening inside.

Those late spring frosts are the worst, you can lose so much if it hits after the tender shoots are up.

So far this year, nothing got hit by frost and all of my fruit trees have tiny little fruit.

[Deleted]

Our last frost date is approximately May 15th, but the last few years it's been earlier. Last year it was April 16th, and the year before it was May 3. I think it's going to be around May 3 this year, too. But winter is going out with a bang. It's 32 right now and snowing hard. I hope it doesn't get too much colder because the lilac flower buds are just starting to peek open. They're not all the way open, but I think they're far enough that we could lose all the blossoms if they freeze hard. The plums have little round green balls for blossom buds, so they should be OK. After tomorrow, it should warm up, like I said, and be "normal" spring weather, but today is miserable and tomorrow it's supposed to snow all day. Today it was just supposed to be rain. Right now, there are snowflakes falling, but thick slush on the ground, covering standing water everywhere. Way too much water too quickly! You should see the corral!

I've got some tough stuff growing out in my herb garden, Kathy! I have motherwort, mugwort, chives, catnip and catmint all growing like crazy out there - they started up about a month ago, and they've survived 2 or 3 snowstorms with weeks of 80s in between! But I guess they're tough because those are all technically "weeds," and therefore practically indestructible. Oh, and the dandelions are growing, too. Rich picked me a pretty yellow flower yesterday.

One more trip outside tonight to let critters out of stalls, and lock up the chicken coop (can you believe some of those dumb birds are still wandering around outside in this?), then I'm in for the night. Tomorrow it will be snow, and I'd rather deal with snow any day than this much rain. YUK! I HATE MUD! One nice thing about this area though is that the soil is sandy loam, and it drains pretty quickly, even after a deluge like we had today. If we don't have any more rain, and the snow melts on Saturday, it should be dry again, at least on the surface, by Sunday.

~Lannie