July 18, 2000
A Slooowwwww Season So Far

Before I begin I’d like to apologize for the two “typos” in last week’s column.  I was in a bit of a hurry since I was running up against my deadline.  I made the mistake of trusting my computer’s spell checker and I proofread my column myself.  As anyone who has anything to do with writing knows, the person who did the writing will be the worst proofreader.  I hope I can do better this week.

                I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately about cucumbers failing to produce fruit and blueberries not ripening and “My tomatoes have flowers but no tomatoes.”.  I find all this a bit amusing and a real indication of the way those deeply involved with the plant world (farmers and experienced gardeners) understand their environment versus the way everyone else does.  Everyone else has just about forgotten that we’ve been enduring the dampest, coolest, spring and summer season that anyone can remember.  In May, we were patient and waited.  “Surely June will be warm and drier!”, we thought.  It wasn’t.  While June didn’t get the honor of being the wettest June on record, it was the wettest I can remember.  It’s bad when May is wet and cold but, when June follows suit, it can be disastrous.  During May and June, I watched two successive plantings of beans and tomatoes rot in the soil.  My third plantings finally took but I don’t expect much from the potatoes since so much of the growing season was lost.  The beans should be O.K. since they are quick to mature.  In early June at the garden at Channel 6, I got to witness a violent thunderstorm that produced high wind and hail as well as torrential rain on top of an already soggy garden.  Two of the four tomato plants were broken in half by the wind-blown hail and I would have lost all the peppers and eggplants had they not been covered with plastic hotcaps.  The hail also shredded the leaves of all the hosta and daylilies.  That damage is still apparent on those plants and, whenever I look at them, I’m reminded of that storm.

 While I lament the damage the storm did to the garden, I must say that I had fun watching the weathercenter 6 guys during that event.  Steve, Neal, and Will were all on deck as the heavy weather bore down on our location in Niskayuna.  Let me tell you, theses guys are really into it.  They were like Ping-Pong balls.  Updating radar views, checking winds at different altitudes, watching for “bow echoes”, and rushing outside for a look at the approaching front.  Around and around.  There was little patience for anyone who got in the way (including your humble gardener).  They had work to do!  They needed to get the word out and did they ever!  I was quite impressed with their performance. 

                Anyway, back to the season.  As I was saying, gardeners and farmers are well aware just how atypical this season is.  Much of the confusion folks are having about the lack of performance of their garden plants can be traced to the late start we got due to the wet and cool May and June weather.  Our perception is also skewed by the fact that May and June of ‘98 and ’99 were warmer and drier than this year.  Unless you garden or farm, it is hard to remember back further that a couple of years.  You remember having ripe tomatoes by the end of June last year.  What you don’t remember is that you were able to get out there and plant them over a month earlier than you were this year. 

                I guess this points out one of the things I enjoy about gardening.  As you get more involved and experienced, you can’t help developing a heightened sense of your environment.  When you know that you normally plant your tomatoes by Memorial Day and it’s been so wet that you haven’t even been able to prepare the soil because it’s too wet, you know something is amiss.  On the other hand, when you’re tempted to put your tomatoes in in early May (as we were able to in ’99) you realize that you’re being blessed.  Gardeners have seen their daffodil flowers last for three weeks some years and, in an early heat wave, they can “go by” in only a week.  I could go on and on about this but, I think you get the idea. 

Every year is different and those that really have a feel for “how” different they really are are the farmers and gardeners.  We measure our seasons by our plants and the sun.  We measure our success by sunlight, rain and the wind.  I think that, as folks insulate themselves from the world outside, they cheat themselves of the appreciation of how much we depend (like it or not) on our planet for all that we need to live well.  The danger is that, once you develop this sensitivity, you might find yourself in the position of becoming one of those dreaded “tree hugging environmentalists”.  Perhaps it would be safer to stay in your car and not stray too far from the computer and TV.   By the way, did you know that, so far, this is THE coldest July so far since they started keeping records of such things over 100 years ago?  Not something you’d tend to notice; the weather has been quite enjoyable actually (not for my tomatoes).  I bet if this were the coldest January on record, we’d ALL have been well aware of that little statistic.  Thanks for the read.