Hello all,

Is the 2013 season almost over? Wow. Time has flown...again! This year has, to put it mildly, been a little challenging.  Between the 2012 drought and severe weather events and this year's imitation of Forks, Washington (temperate rainforest) we have now grown in the opposite ends of the weather extremes. At least there are no vampires, although plenty of broodiness.

This year we have received 21.24 inches of rain since May 1^st. This is almost 6 inches above normal.  Courtesy of The Weather Underground, here are the figures for the first two weeks in July, normally hot and dry:

2013	Temp. (°F)	Humidity (%)			Precip. (in)	Events
Jul	high	high	avg	low	sum
1	82	100	84	67	0.18	Rain
2	78	100	88	76	0.14	Rain
3	85	100	83	65	1.05	Rain , Thunderstorm
4	87	94	74	53	0.16	Rain
5	87	93	74	55	0.07	Rain
6	88	100	76	51	0	Rain
7	88	93	75	57	0.03	Rain , Thunderstorm
8	85	100	76	51	0.37	Rain , Thunderstorm
9	85	100	81	61	0.01	Rain
10	89	100	81	61	0.28	Rain
11	84	100	83	65	0.48	Rain , Thunderstorm
12	72	93	89	84	0.57	Rain
13	83	100	84	67	0.07	Fog , Rain
14	87	100	78	55	T	Fog , Rain
15	91	100	75	49	0

August was no better-raining 16 out of 31 days and only making it above 90°F on one day for the entire month. This meant that many of our growing techniques and crop selections, meant for low rainfall and high heat conditions, were not really of any use this season. As an example, we normally plant in wide rows with the plants very close together.

 

 

In theory,  during a high heat/low rainfall summer (you know, our normal weather) the plants will grow together and shade the soil, keeping it cool, conserving moisture by limiting evaporation, and reducing weeds by blocking the light. It usually works pretty much as planned. This year, everything being so close together only promoted fuzzy plants.  We even had mold growing on the beets!

That beet should be red!

And as for weed prevention? Well, let's just say that the weeds had a banner year, as for many days we couldn't even get to the garden due to all the standing water. We're not even going to mention what cool days/high rainfall does to tomatoes. We might start crying.

The high waters also played havoc with our crop rotations. In our detailed, some might even say obsessive, plans for what goes where after each succession planting, we allocated the garden areas where we had the most water retention for our fall crops, reasoning that the seedlings would need as much moisture as possible. Well, we couldn't even walk in that area until last week without sinking up to our ankles in mud. So fall greens will be slightly delayed in your baskets.



Walkways still wet

Finally all planted

Fortunately, we are adaptable. We spaced our later plantings farther apart. We made multiple sowings in case rain washed out the seedlings. We made lemonade out of lemons and used the time we would have spent training tomatoes to laboriously hand pick the bean beetles off the bean plants. By the way, bean beetles thrive in cool, damp weather. Ask us how we know that. Normally we put new seedlings in a little depression in the soil to catch any available moisture. This year we raised them on hills. We learned to like cucumbers. A lot.

 

One morning’s picking!

 We enjoyed the cucumbers in many different ways, including this great recipe for sweet pickles passed on to us from C in Charlottesville (they were really good!):

 

What this all means is that we understand that we do not control Mother Nature; we are just along for the ride. There are some cultural practices we can modify to reflect this season's reality, but by committing to local, seasonal eating we get whatever likes this season's conditions. The key is to have a diversified garden. The growing conditions that allow one type of plant to thrive inevitably stack the deck against another. If it is a good cucumber/bean year, then we eat a lot of cucumbers and beans. We'll fondly remember last year's tomatoes, be happy with what we did get this year, rejoice in the unexpected bonus raspberries (courtesy of all that rain), and look forward to next year's challenges!

Yours in gardening,

Jeff and Sandra