Crazy Weather Affecting Plant Growth

It used to be that you could predict the weather by the seasons. Especially here in Georgia. Even though I moved to the northern part of the state, it's still Georgia. Maybe it's the climate change, but the past few years it's been insane. You can't predict nothing.

In the past three years we've had...

• 100+ days of drought.
• A category 1 hurricane hit us in these mountains.
• Torrential downpours, flooding, washed out roads, etc even in these mountains.
• Snow and ice in March and April.
• Unseasonably late cold snaps.
• Unseasonably late or no seasonal changes (a two day spring and fall)

This year alone, it's the normal expected temperature for a few days or maybe a week, and then it's be cold again. Our poor garden doesn't know what's going on either.  It's supposed to be summer. But yet, the weather went from a normal highs in the 80s & 90s to a high of maybe 70 for a week, and then back again.

My heat loving veges like tomatoes, okra, squashes, peppers, eggplant, and melons are happily dancing in the sun producing flowers and fruit one week to having their leaves curl up and dying off the next. We experienced gardeners are left scratching our heads at a loss of what to do, what to plant, and praying that we get a crop this year. Others, who just started gardening this year, are wondering if the "new age of victory gardens" is a cruel joke and are disheartened.

I mean normally by now, I'm in shorts and tank tops, and praying for a cool breeze. I still haven't packed up my flannel shirts in various thicknesses. Every time I wash them all intent on packing them away, the weather turns cooler again and I'm grabbing them again. It's the end of June already!

Does this mean we are facing a later longer fall season? Your guess is as good as mine. There is no second guessing Mother Nature. Of course, with greenhouses you could combat some of this unpredictability. If this month was any indicator, I would have raised or lowered the vent sides four times or replaced the plastic with shade cloth and back again. My corn (and other plants) will be knee high by the 4th of July but will be stunted in growth with this weather.

Bees and other pollinating insects do not like the cooler temperature either. Many a morning (earlier than 9AM), I'm finding bumble bees in my garden on the ground too cold to fly. I'll gently pick them u in my gloved hand to warm them. Once they are warmed, they'll fly away and get busy. If they don't work, we don't eat. Yes, it's taking my life in my hand to do this. I've already stated in here that I'm highly allergic to bees on this blog, but if they get too cold, they'll die and I need them. The sun has been up a few hours already, but they are still too cold to fly. It's summer fer God's sake! Luckily the smaller bees and wasps that frequent our garden are busily working on my green beans, peas, and other vegetables that are flowering. And yes, even though it's almost July, my English peas are still growing and flowering! My lettuces and spinach still haven't bolted yet. I'm still waiting for my potatoes to flower. I should have harvested them by now. At this rate, it will be time to plant my fall rotation of cooler weather  crops again by the time these spring garden plants die off and are fully harvested. Is that insane or what?

I know it's the same all over the country because I read other bloggers. Except for maybe Florida, Texas, or California... farmers are complaining. Meanwhile, my orchard grass needs to be cut, dried, and baled. We don't have rabbits anymore that will need to eat it. Sigh! The only high point in gardening this year is a mute point. Only the

her blog

grass crops are doing well. We really don't eat the grasses, but we may have to learn. As much rain as we've had I should have planted the upland rices like Leigh over at 5 Acres and a Dream did, but I didn't. Isn't hindsight wonderful?! But it all goes back to how unpredictable the weather has been.

 
Well enough complaining and back to work in the garden and the critters. We've had a total of two of Mel's hens get loose and are now part of Big Red's harem. I have no idea where they are laying their eggs and I'm not about to challenge him again to get them back with the rest of the girls. It took me almost three weeks for the puncture wounds to heal from our last battle.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Cockeyed Jo

The Cockeyed Garden Again

Now that I've regained some of my energy from my July fiasco, I noticed some green poking through the landscape barrier cloth in the garden. Maybe, we should have used black plastic here too.

As Two Women and One Hoe points out, weeds continue to grow underneath and on top of it. But I was thinking buried under a foot of wood chips, and then the landscape fabric would work and save energy.  We wouldn't have to aerate the soil or water it.When organically growing a garden, you use what nature gives you. You use the compost, wood chip, hay, and nonsprayed hay to do the work for you. The blackness of the fabric retains heat of the composting material and the sun.  But it also needs moisture to work properly. I should have known better.

The weeds grew through two feet of wood chips and another foot of organic material (composting chicken and rabbit manure) and dying weeds would work. No, but Mel's weeds are super strong. They are even growing THROUGH the gravel in our driveway.  These are almost impossible to pull up without pulling up destroying the driveway. It's 2" of coarse grade rock and 8" of finer compacted gravel. Yes, some are growing on top of all that gravel, but those are shallow rooted and easy to pull.


So this week, I've been pulling and snipping weeds in the garden taking frequent breaks. UGH! Just what I was trying to avoid. But, my incisions have healed nicely and my strength is getting better. The weather is cooler so it's not sweltering outside, but I'm still sweating from the exertion. If I don't get them now, it will undermine all of our garden starting from scratch again efforts.

What's a homesteader to do otherwise? We can't afford a busted garden year next spring. The stores pickings will be almost empty by then. The idea of being like city folks again and buying everything, is an abhorrent thought! Especially when I know, there's at least two feet of rich, organic soil there to plant in. No,no, no, perish the thought! All those chemicals, waxes, and oils, no thank you. I'll go back to planting in pots before I do that.

I'm not opposed to pots, mind you if that's all you can do. But, when you've got almost got a little less than 1/2 an acre of growing space of rich organic soil, why would you? The only thing we plant in pots are the not cold hardy plants like our ginger and turmeric, and citrus trees, or starting seeds. Even then, we are using our own soil and compost to grow them in. Can you imagine how many pots we'd need to grow enough to be self sufficient? Besides the cost of the pots, it's impractical not to mention insane. I'd be watering constantly.

So I'll continue to pull weeds when I see them. They'll eventually go dormant.

Y'all have a blessed day.

Cockeyed Jo

Cockeyed Weather

Now that spring and summer of 2018 are almost fully gone. This one has to be one for the weather record books for this area.

We had a fairly mild winter that stretched into May. Our spring may have lasted a week, and then we got blasted with high summer heat. While this is not unusual for south Georgia, it's almost unheard of here in the high foothills. We had three weeks of rainy weather going into late spring followed by late arctic blasts. Our poor plants transplanted at the end of May didn't know whether to grow or shrivel up. They either got too cold in the low overnight temperatures, wither in the heat blasts of the afternoon (heat indexes reaching 100+ degrees), or struggled to keep their heads up above the onslaught of heavy rains. This trend continued throughout spring.

Summer????

And then came summer, we expected the heat waves to continue as it usually did. We were pleasantly surprised and mistaken. Nighttime highs ranged in the 60s. We ran Mel's little air conditioner exactly two times and that was because of the high humidity from days of constant showers. The daytime highs ranged in the high 70s to mid 80s. Our heat loving plants like melons, okra, and sweet potatoes were hard pressed to find the heat they needed to grow and thrive. Inside our abode, our sweaters still hang within easy reach because the early morning temperatures cause us to put them on, or drape them across our shoulders to ward off the chills. It wasn't until late July or early August that these heat loving plants even flowered. Time is running short them to produce harvestable fruit before the fall's nighttime chilling temperatures arrive in late September.

There's no predicting fall after the last two seasons. While I planted my fall garden seeds last month as usual, the weather is so cockeyed, I expect another heat blast like we had in the spring or early freezing temperatures. Either one will kill off any hopes of expected harvests.  The plants may have to overwinter and get a jump start in the spring. Except for the heat blast this spring and the blizzard of squash beetles, we could have planted cool weather crops all summer long. Go figure!

The only plants that did well this year so far are my green beans and tomatoes. My tomatoes were grown in straw bales, or my raised soil bags so their feet (roots) maintained a good moisture level without drowning. The same went for my bush green beans which I planted in double width, raised rows. My original intention was to conserve watering over the summer. LOL

Try as you might, there's no predicting Mother Nature. She's been the blessing and cursing of gardeners everywhere since man first planted a seed.

Y'all have a blessed day!

In Homesteading, Expect the Unexpected

When homesteading, nothing goes according to plans especially on the Cockeyed Homestead. This past two weeks is a prime example.

We hadn't planned planting fruit trees until next year. I went to Lowe's and found three apple trees on clearance. In fact, they were the only apple trees in the store. I could get all three for the price of one regularly priced tree. How could I pass that bargain up?A quick call to Mel and it was unanimous. Don't worry, I didn't plan on passing up this deal. While I was picking them up, Mel started pick axing holes for them to be planted in. I also picked up some organic soil for the garden.

We were in a rush to plant the garden before the week worth of rain hit. I was planting like a mad woman. But the apple trees needed to be planted in the orchard too. It took better than a day to get them in the ground. I was working around doctor appointments in Atlanta and Gainesville too. I still didn't get it all planted before the rain started falling. So now I'm planting in between rain showers. I might mention I was canning and cooking too.

Several times a day, Mel and I fell exhausted into the porch swing with glasses of iced tea. We'd take a thirty minute break and get back at it. Then the rains started. Thank God! We can relax a bit. Or so we thought.

We heard a dripping sound inside. We were taking some nontech time out on the porch swing. I had broached the subject of a no tech day for us. To wean Mel off her tech, we take several hours each day as no tech time. We heard a crash in the living room and went to investigate. Part of the ceiling had fallen and rain was steadily dripping in. Wet insulation and broken ceiling panels lay in a heap on the carpet with more threatening to fall.

I had been saving my pennies for the driveway along the side of our property to be finished (another $1500  job). Originally, we'd only planned this drive-thru for access to the rabbit and chicken areas, but the additional building project of a new deck and ramps made for easier access into in house as well. We started parking out vehicles there as well. The winter's snow and rain and the additional traffic on this drive-thru sank the #4 gravel into the ground so we had a mucky mess. We needed a proper car park and drive here so I was saving the $1500 it would cost me. It is now all going to repair the roof and interior of the house. The drive will have to wait.

Of the 32 Roma tomato plants I transplanted into the garden,  so far only 14 have survived the bugs, the blast of heat followed by hard rains. But I expected this that's why I planted so many. Remember the old saying, Don't count your chickens before they hatch? I always try to when gardening. Those that survive to bear fruit will be the strongest and provide a better harvest. Natural selection and all that.

The same goes for our fruit trees. The peach trees have done their

Mel's 3 peach trees

fruit drop. Mel was close to tears to see all those little baby peaches on the ground, but there are plenty still left on the trees. Mother Nature knows best. Mel started these three peach trees from saved seeds four years ago. She made the mistake of planting them from their pots into one corner of the garden. She was intending to move them when some space was cleared. That didn't happen until last year. They are too big to moved. Or actually, it will take some heavy duty shovel work to moved these trees to the new orchard. Maybe this late winter, they'll be moved after they go dormant and before they awaken in the spring. We can start prepping the tier they'll go on this fall. Digging holes in the hard packed clay is tons of fun. Yes, I'm joking. But Mel will dig the holes for the expected large root balls. We'll load the holes with chicken and rabbit waste straw and poop, and let them do their thing until we can move the trees down there.

Wild strawberry patch

Last year, I planted  a whole 3x6 raised bed of strawberries. The young chickens ate every one of them. Or worse, they decided to dust and sunbathe in my strawberry patch destroying any plant they hadn't eaten. As a result this year, my whole garden and surrounding areas on the property is covered in wild strawberry patches. None of the berries being produced are bigger than a pencil eraser this year. Mel weed whacked a lot of these patches to the ground. We kept one large patch in the garden area and several others around the property because the rabbits and chickens love them.. None of the berries are very sweet when ripe although they do have an excellent strawberry flavor. The berries are only the size of a pencil eraser. I picked about a quart of these and dehydrated them for muffins later on. I'll give it a try anyhow. Meanwhile, this unexpected bonus will be fertilized with rabbit poo tea and left alone. We'll see if we get better berries next year. From the plants we kept, if I could dig them all up and space them properly would easily full 1/2 an acre and every day I'm finding more. I don't think I'll bother this year. If they come back in the spring next year I'll think about transplanting them in the orchard.

Why use a  shovel to dig the peach trees up instead of a back hoe? First of all, we don't have access to one. When Mel planted these little trees, yearlings where they sit now (see picture above), she put all three gallon pots together in the ground. She had not intended them to stay there very long. But over the three years to date, they have grown that way. We'll have to dig a massive area around all three and separate them. It will be a nightmare of a job that no machine can do without possibly destroying the trees. We want to avoid that if at all possible especially now that they are beginning to bear fruit. But I'm a realist.  The chances of getting tasty fruit from these saved seeds is iffy. Grown fruit seed isn't always as as tasty from a saved seed as the parent. most parent plant have been cultivated. But it could happen. We also may damage these trees ourselves. They may not survive the move. They may be shocked beyond survival once transplanted. I'm well prepared to buy new ones in the spring for the orchard.

I also realize this is more than a one woman job even if Mel thinks it is. I'll try to round up some able-bodied help for her. Time the roots are exposed to air and sunlight needs to be minimized. Air and sun directly on bare roots equal death. Similar to a stroke in the brain in humans. Each second exposure to unnatural substances equal cell death. A root system of a tree is like the human brain to humans. It coordinates everything about a plant living.

So you see in homesteading, as in life in general, you have to roll with the punches. Not much is set in stone. Our forefathers, pioneers, learned this truth while homesteading. Wild fires, unpredictable weather patterns, and just stuff in general that happens when you least expect it causes you to expect the unexpected. You can only prepare so much and you can't prepare for everything. You can hedge your bet in the garden by over planting like I did, but stuff happens. Another 100 days without rain, hail, torrential rains that last weeks, blistering heat and it could all crumble into oblivion. You can only do what you can do and pray. This is homesteading. It's not all bleak. The rewards when it all comes together right, even if it's cockeyed, is priceless.

Life isn't about the final destination. It's the journey that makes it worthwhile. I remember going on a real vacation with our two younger children. Their memories are not just about destination, but traveling to and from the destination also. It created a fully rounded experience of learning, fun, joy, and hardships along the way. Homesteading is about the journey. We learn. We laugh. We get angry. We love. But above all we expect the unexpected and live.

Y'all have a blessed day.