This was our weekend: the picture on the left was taken from my front stoop on Saturday morning. The picture on the right was taken from the same spot on Sunday morning. In between it snowed most of Saturday. That's on April 27th. I realize that for readers in Florida, or Alaska, accumulating snow in late April may not make much of an impression, but take it from me: in the southern Great Lakes region of the snow belt, it's not the norm. I grocery shopped on Saturday morning in a futile attempt to beat the snow. The grocery store scene was roughly what I'm given to understand grocery shopping is in Myrtle Beach on the eve of a hurricane landfall. On Sunday morning at church, I wished I had a nickel for every parishioner who slapped me on the shoulder, grinned and said some variation of, "Merry Christmas!" Good old climate change. But at least we're not doing anything about it.
Jim,
ReplyDeleteWe here in the Northeast Ohio Snow belt were very fortunate to escape the snow. It went either out over the Lake or through Canada. There were a brief hour or two of snowflakes predicted as it passed to the North. When I got up there was no trace of snow just the wetness of the rain.
My tomato plants are all waiting in the garage, adapting to the indirect sunlight after being raised in the basement. I will put them into the ground in the next couple of weeks.
Our historical average last day of frost is May 10th. However in recent years it is usually in April. The last two days it has just grazed 32 degrees. The last days below 32 were in the first week of April. My snow peas are doing very well in the cool and wet spring.
It is interesting that I could have had tomatoes in the ground for a whole month if I had been willing to risk the frost. In other words two whole months before Memorial Day which is the traditional day you put your tomatoes in if you want to avoid a frost risk.
The weather channel used to have extensive growing degrees data for local areas. The climate change reality is that the data for the last ten years looks completely different from the thirty year normal. Much warmer, except that every once in a while you get a month or two that reverts completely back to the 30 year average. So that you can look at events like this and question whether climate change is real. But if you look at the last ten years, at least for my area, it is very real. I like the warmer March's April's Octobers and Novembers it can lengthen the growing season if you are willing to take chances.
Jack, I'm impressed that you grow tomatoes from seedlings. We (and when I say "we", I mean "my wife") go to a gardening center and get young plants each spring, and then transplant them into a plot on the south side of our house. But as you note, it's too early now. I don't actually love tomatoes - don't really mind them, but every summer, we're perplexed by the "what are we going to do with all these tomatoes?" problem. This year, she announced that we're going to grow jalapenos as well. That sounds promising.
DeleteI think you make an important point that there could be "winners" as well as losers from climate change - e.g. growing seasons can be extended for agriculture in more northern climes. But my post may be an example that this is difficult to predict: I assume that we got snow a few days ago because a Canadian weather pattern dipped down into Illinois. Warmer climates globally and over the long run can also mean colder extremes in certain locales in the short run.
Extra Tomatoes: Make chutney...especially with the green ones that will never ripen. October?
DeleteI raise a huge amount of tomatoes. I am on a low sodium diet. So I turn them into quarts (20-40) of tomato juice. The top clear liquid is a very sweet flavoring to all sorts of soups and dishes. The bottom sediment can be made into sauce, paste etc however much you want to boil it down. Some of them are turned into pints of stewed tomatoes.
DeleteUnfortunately the extended growing season is asymmetric. After the spring solstice there is as much sun as before the fall solstice. October and November brings only as much sun as February and January. It may be warm in fall for landscaping etc. but there is less daylight and sun for plants.
DeleteThe whole thing is complicated by Lake Erie. We get some bright sunny days in April and May with a very strong cold breeze off the Lake.
The breeze off the Lake can also turn into Lake effect clouds and then rain in both spring and fall, but we get a great amount of sun in June-August.
Green tomatoes; my grandma used to make green tomato mincemeat. No actual meat in it; it made delicious pies.
DeleteMy alderman of Brookfield, WI son complained that it's the season when he has to move the lawn mower to get to the snow blower. But the snow didn't last. My granddaughter talked to us on the phone from the front porch in her bare feet by late afternoon Sunday. It was in the 50s then, still a temperature when we wear socks with our sandals, but Midwesterners are a hardier breed. I know. I used to be one. If I tried to be one again, I'd need CPR.
ReplyDeleteI assume that Midwest weather is keeping me alive. Despite the asthma, chemo, glitchy heart valve, and scoliosis, I can still shovel my own porch and walk in winter, wash screens and Windows in spring, dig up the #$&! elkhorn plantain in the yard in summer, and prune my own trees in fall. If I moved to a trailer in Florida where the HOA did yard and tree maintenance, I would just get a LaZBoy and fade away listening to audio books and streaming Netflix.
Delete...And be first in line for the Sunset Special at restaurants. To move to Florida is never to cook again.
DeleteYes, I've seen that 4:30 p.m. early bird rush at the local diner here. Lots of elders up here seem to have given up on cooking their main meal. Bad food, but I presume they need company.
DeleteWe got no snow other than our usual Annual Early April Dump. Last April, we were trying to schedule my mom's memorial service around late snow dumps here in Michigan and severe weather my brother was having to drive thru to get here from Oklahoma.
ReplyDeleteIt has been a very cold spring despite lack of snow. No warm days in March, and few days above 50 in April. Haven't even started zinnia and nasturtium seeds.
Hot peppers grow really well in my porch pots, and they are very pretty and hardy. They produce until frost kills them in October/November.
I miss emailing our late friend Ann Olivier about our gardens. Not long before she died, she was planning a row of sweet corn along her driveway because she thought it would be pretty.
Here in the mid-Atlantic our normal "last frost" date is mid-April. But we don't risk it because too often the "last frost" comes well after that. However, the deck on the back of our house faces SSW, and gets a lot of sun. I have just put out pots of herbs. I grow cherry and grape tomatoes in pots on the deck also, full-sized tomatoes in a side yard that only gets half-day of sun. Generally not worth it as the diseases hit. My mother-in-law had a bit of the south in her (her mother was from NC) and so I learned to make fried green tomatoes (which I had never heard of growing up in California) in the fall.
ReplyDeleteOur local farmers' market opens next weekend. But, it's too early for tomatoes there also. We are still dependent on exports from California, Florida and, of course, Mexico for our winter-spring produce.
Critters in the backyard go for the tomatoes, too, especially those that end up growing at ground level. I don't begrudge them a meal; as I say, I'm not a great tomato eater at any rate.
DeleteWhat is frost?
DeleteMore on gardening: my wife and one of my daughters have reserved a communal gardening plot at one of our neighborhood parks. They have ambitious plans. If it results in my eating more nutritiously, I'm all for it. I think they'd like to provide butterfly-friendly flora as well.
ReplyDeleteWe did that a couple of years when we lived in Lansing. An elderly Vietnamese man had the plot next to mine, and we showed up about the same time every day. He would water his plants by dipping a bowl into a bucket of water. When the bucket was empty, he turned it over, sat on it, and drank a 6 ounce bottle of beer. He spoke no English but talked to me the whole time. I would respond with whatever seemed appropriate. When my first zucchini came in, he stood and applauded. When raccoons decimated the corn, he patted my arm in sympathy. Sometimes I like to think he was some type of benevolent spirit. I grew very fond of him.
DeleteWhere I live we NEVER and I mean NEVER have some. And I do not miss it. NEVER.
ReplyDeleteJim, that's surprising - but checking latitudes, I guess maybe I shouldn't be that surprised. If I'm not mistaken, San Fran is south of St. Louis and Louisville.
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