Design

A rainy weekend in March is always welcome.  We rely on spring rains (of whatever sort) to get us through droughty periods in early and mid-summer.  Thankfully, this rain comes after a much warmer than normal spell, and helps rehydrate soils. Clemson is the red dot! This front was wide and brought rain almost all day, close to an inch, I think, judging by the pot saucer near the mudroom door.  And more rain is expected overnight and tomorrow. We're still facing abnormally dry conditions, moving towards drought.  The arrow marks roughly where we are in the Piedmont of South Carolina.

Happily, the suggested rains did appear, and we'd received over an inch by 3 pm this afternoon.  It's a good thing, as it's been dry, dry, dry over the last month or so. And more rain is predicted for tomorrow, so that's good, too.  I can already see plants in our garden perking up!

Woo, hoo! After record-breaking heat (yuck, over 90°F in the mountains), a thunderstorm dropped 3/4 of an inch of rain in a late afternoon downburst. I've been watering my raised beds full of vegetables, but a good soaking is always welcome. I planted more winter and tromboncino squash seeds this afternoon. My idea is that the vines can ramble down the slope towards the ravine, and maybe, if the woodchucks are focused elsewhere (I haven't seen any sign of them so far), I might have some nice winter squashes, as well as fresh tromboncinos. A delicious young basil pesto accompanied the fresh vegetables from the garden with orecchiette pasta in this evening's dinner. Yum. I'll be 'heading down the hill' on Friday to spend a couple of days in the Piedmont (mainly to attend a work function, but also to check on the garden). I'm hoping that there's been a thunderstorm or two there, too. There isn't much that needs watering frequently (I did away with ...

It was a perfect winter gardening week: a week of sunny days, including a weekend, followed by an overnight rain. My pea, spinach, arugula, and lettuce seeds should have nicely settled in, along with the onion and leek transplants.

It poured yesterday. Lots of rain. Our small bog will be happy, as will the sedum garden. It looked like a tropical rain forest.

It rained hard for about 20 minutes this evening, not exactly impressive, but worth a quarter of an inch in the rain gauge. It might have been more, as it came in at a slant for some of that time. Cool(ish) air is colliding with warm moist air as a front moves in. It will bring temperatures in the low 80°(F)s for a few days. Fabulous for mid-July in the Southeastern U.S. Up in the mountains, temperatures will be in the upper 70°s. Some experts think that we're missing the regular afternoon thunderstorms that used to punctuate summer afternoons in the South and Mid-Atlantic states because of climate change. Old-timers around here like to blame the lakes created in the 60's for power generation for changing the trajectory of rainstorms. A young horticulture expert suggested to me that all the storms are moving through the mountains, and not passing through here. Well, that's true, to be sure, but is historically true as well. The Blue Ridge Escarpment, the Blue Ridge mo...

Gardeners and naturalists are almost as keen as farmers following the weather. Where I live, garden, and pay attention to the natural world, we're in the center of quite a severe drought. We normally get fairly even rain throughout the year, but not for the past ten years or so, except for one year (the year the front meadow looked especially fabulous, with moisture-loving Joe-Pye weed and huge Blazing Stars ( Liatris spp.) And the last two summers have been truly exceptional (note the current rating for the dark red area- ugh). I've marked where I live with the arrow! But Tropical Storm Fay is bringing some decent rain, even to us in Upstate South Carolina. I'm sorry for the flooding in Florida, but we'll be thankful for the downpours that are predicted for the next few days.

It's hard to overstate our drought here. We haven't had more than a small amount of rain since mid-May (1/2 inch, tops, in our garden), and normal rainfall is about ~4 inches a month. We're 10 inches behind for this calendar year, and over 20 inches behind, for the last year & a half or so. So, it's cause for excitement when a potential thunderstorm actually materializes (this is a normal occurrence in 'regular' years). Summer thunderstorms are very spotty in their distribution and rainfall amount. We just had over 1/2 inch in about 20 minutes. What a relief to have something. And the clouds are dark with lots of thunderstorm possibilities predicted for tonight and the rest of the week. Any bit helps plants, animals, and insects parched from lack of rain. I've just see the male hummingbird check out the vines (for insects?) near the window twice on his 'trapline' around the feeders, even in the rain.

The humid spring air early this morning felt fresh and mild. It rained yesterday and last night, leaving small leafy branches scattered about. It must have rained hard; the Spanish lavender and parsley looked pummeled, but everything else seemed to have grown overnight, soaking up moisture. The early morning light was soft, with the pink humid edges we see in tropical areas, and with no hint of the hot hazy humidity to come. Today is the first day of summer break, bringing with it a delightful sense of anticipation, and days of poking around in the garden and in the field ahead. I love what I do, and actually in summer, I don't really do much differently, but am grateful for being able to reorient my time to focus on the natural world without the schedule of work and programs. The garden is waiting outside my study window.

I still haven't replaced the rain gauge by the main vegetable garden, but the birdbaths serve as crude measures of how much rain we've had. They're full right now, hooray! It's been dry the last couple of weeks, and the afternoon warmth has pulled additional moisture out of plants and soil. But this morning, a big front is pushing through with lots of thunderstorm activity, and is periodically pelting down raindrops, alternating with light drizzle. I just looked at the U.S. drought monitor yesterday -- it's predicting continuing drought with improvement (compared to last year, anything is improvement). But I don't think non-outdoors-oriented people are paying attention to how the prolonged drought is affecting plants, not only in our gardens, but in natural plant communities. My gardening companion, on a botanizing trip yesterday to get photos, reported that Steven's Creek and Savannah River Bluffs (two SC Heritage Reserve sites) were wonderful, with lot...

I talked to a fellow this week who grew up in West Texas, where he said the topic of discussion has always been rain. Ranchers there (of which his father was one) talked about needing rain, is rain coming, how much did we get, etc. -- it was critical to the dryland forage that the cattle depended on, and meant big expenses to bring in extra hay for feed. So the continuing drought in the Southeast (where he had lived for 15 years, compared with the deluges that came last summer in Texas and mid-west, where he lives now) posed an odd puzzle for him to contemplate. Thinking about the drought here, and the weather extremes that seem to be becoming greater, with the contrast of floods in the Central U.S. last summer, and record snowpacks in the Rockies and Sierra, with concerns of spring flooding this year are something to consider. But it's raining here now, and perhaps we'll get a couple of inches. Our rain gauge split over winter break, an unfortunate casualty of being not put...

Just after musing about planting fall vegetables yesterday, the sky darkened and the wind starting building up. We'd been away for an outing in the mountains, and my gardening partner headed off to get ready for class today. About 4 o'clock, it started pouring, the wind was howling, and whipping trees around, and for a minute, Mocha and I felt like we were in the Wizard of Oz . The power flickered and then went out. Not surprising, given the amount of wind. After things let up, but it was still drizzling, I ventured forth to see what had happened. My bean trellises in the vegetable garden had been flattened, amazingly, almost all the tomato supports had tilted over, and the basils were all askew. When I went down the road to check on what had knocked out the power, it was obvious we were lucky. Trees had fallen, bringing down the telephone lines, including some really large trees. This was no ordinary storm, but probably some kind of microburst that was localized in our n...

It's been really dry here in the Southeast this spring and summer. We've had just enough intermittent thunderstorms to keep things from being totally crispy. Native wildflowers and shrubs are still doing fine, except for the ones that live naturally in damp places (Joe-Pye Weed, for example). My vegetable garden, filled with domesticated plants from all sorts of places, isn't so conservative. The deep-rooted tomatoes and tough-leaved kales have been troopers; in fact this looks like it will be a great tomato year. The peppers, however, are just sulking in the hot dry weather and the last of the early summer lettuce is wilting, then bolting. I've just amended (with compost) and sown seeds of chard, beets, and more lettuce in a couple of areas. We enjoyed the harvest of yellow fingerling potatoes this weekend -- absolutely delicious. They were grown in the "Satellite" garden (under the powerline and behind the winter honeysuckle).