On Weather and Farming

   

    Gonna give this topic more than a couple of pages of blog space, after all, seasons to a farmer are everything. In a nutshell, there's not much you can do about it save to dance with Mother Nature and hope for the best, but for the precious little time I've been at this thing I have to say no two years have been the same. The individuality of a year's weather patterns are as different as the personality traits of a first born to a middle child to the baby of the family. In the words of Forrest Gump, it's kinda like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.
     This will mark my 4th season to grow a garden. My first year's garden I recall like mother recalls her first born's first everything. I grew broccoli that year, meaning I was so eager to get into the gardening mode that I planted winter crops. Since he wasn't crazy about the stuff himself, Thurman sent me to the co-op to buy my plants (otherwise we do these things together, but he doesn't grow broccoli). Coming back with what I thought would net a decent yield, I was met with "Good Lord child, how much broccoli you gonna eat?" (I had based my calculation on how many impatience plants it takes to cover a flowerbed, meaning I had bought two plats of broccoli. For the record, 2 - 3 plants (not plats) would've kept me more than fed. I wound up giving the bulk of things to neighbors and my UPS man.)
     The good news is, my winter crops fared well that year; my summer stuff got hit by a draught. Personally I thought I was just lousy at farming until Thurman pointed out "Ain't nobody's corn worth a dern this year." The second year made up for that. While I didn't have a winter garden (year before I had plants in the ground in February,  year two it was March owing to the wetness of things.
     Year 3 (last year) was by far my best garden to date. (I dunno. Maybe I'm getting the hang of it; then again, the weather helped; soil testing helped; adding lime and goat poop helped. Adding Pyrenees who bark at deer and rabbits helped. Lots of things helped.) What I do remember is that it was yet another full month out before I got started. Where year one found me turning my soil in November and planting in February, year two found me turning my soil in January and planting in March, year 3 found me turning the soil a few short weeks before I planted which started in April that year. As for this year, I've yet to turn the soil at all for fear of getting the tractor stuck in the mud. The combination of moist and warm are great for gardens provided it's not January when it's happening. (Turning the old soil and letting it decay is kinda key for the sake of your soil. It's driving me nuts that it hasn't happened yet, but that's just more of the patience that Mother Nature lives to teach you.)