Webbed feet and feathers..

Category: gardening | Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 4:42 pm

For the last several years this area has suffered extreme drought conditions, for the last several days its been weather for the DUCKS: rain, rain and MORE rain with cool temps (in the 40's) to boot! Rivers are swollen too capacity with snow runoff and with what's fallen the last week, ground is saturated to a depth of four inches then peters out below that where it turns into the local "concrete". Had hooked up the 100 foot hose over a week ago to begin watering outside plants, and its been patiently sitting ever since, wondering exactly WHAT its purpose in life is. The front "hayfields", mowed a short eight days ago, will need a John Deere with a rotary scythe to do it the next time around, and the weeds are big and rampart!
However, cool weather plants (cabbages, kales, Swiss chards, spinach and herbs) already out have simply flourished! The Red Russian kales, that were sitting and pouting for over a month, are just about three feet high and ready for its first picking, the window box of spinach is literally "overflowing its banks" with lush, dark green foilage also begging to be harvested and enjoyed. Cabbages are beginning to head, and the chards are looking better all the time. As for the herbs (chives, green onions, garlic, garden sage, etc.)..anyone want some? The few flowers I've chanced on putting out early don't seem any the worse for wear, just a bit water-logged is all.
Tomato containers are all prepped and awaiting their summer wards that'll go in them as soon as this weather breaks; squashes and cukes, planted in peat pots, are screaming to get their roots in soil, am wondering where to put them all for best growing conditions. Have heirloom "Lakota" winter squashes, whose vines will run 10 feet, will definately have to put their container somewhere my delicate little Saint Bernards' feet won't trample them into oblivion, rest of things I'm not too worried about as they'll be in raised beds or easily moved containers that can be put anywhere with plenty of sun. I just want to get everything OUT and going now that the light at the end of the tunnel can be seen!
Our Wyoming winter has been a rough one with never-ending high winds since last October, snows more than we've seen last several years, now we're into a veritable monsoon season..which we drastically NEED! Everything that grows has seemed to be late this year til the rains, now appear to be making up for lost time with rapid growth and blooming periods. The Oriental poppies are lush bushes; the comfreys are taller than they have been; other things, that have laid dormant, are popping up everywhere you look..is NICE! We'll get the "dry period", for sure, later on when the hose will be put to GOOD use daily, and our "wet spring" will just become a memory as the webbed feet go back to normal, and we molt the feathers!

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Droopy wrote on Tue May 27, 2008 4:56 pm:

Sounds like you're having what we had last July! *lol* Isn't it fun when things grow so hard that you can nearly hear them? I hope your flowers will perform for you once the weather is warming up. In the meantime, enjoy your veggies.

Frank wrote on Tue May 27, 2008 7:07 pm:

Isn't it always the way, you wish for something for so long and then an abundance of it comes along at once :) Good for you Weeds.

glendann wrote on Mon Jun 02, 2008 5:15 am:

Thats very unusual for Wyoming.My daughter lives in Billings Montana.They hardly get any rain.When it starts raining in Texas it doesn't know when to stop.When it does stop it stops completely.