It froze last night. 27 degrees per the outdoor thermometer I installed so I could torture myself with hard, cold facts.
Killed a whole bunch o' my bitsy baby seedlings. Including the Tiny Tim Heirloom Tomatoes, who were shivering under a blanket. And, making short work of my latest endeavor, the Surprise! It's a Big Ass Pumpkin!
Pumpkins, plural, actually. These 300 pound bruisers were destined for great things as summer biking season rolled on.
Thanks to heaps of new home construction, my country cottage now sits on a busy thoroughfare. Cars, cyclists, dogs with and without owners, plus dedicated speed walkers in all shapes and sizes.
To be clear, I have hated this change in venue. I can't ever have a moment to myself in those street gardens. But, I came up with this grand idea to plant a curiosity out there... giant pumpkins. Who, over the course of our summer, would grow to magnificent proportions. When people strolled by, they'd see the progression, from tiny to huge. All summer long, growing bigger and bigger. So big that come Halloween we'd be carving them where they rested ~ because nobody, save for the Incredible Hulk, could hoist them into a wheelbarrow.
Wouldn't that have been the coolest thing?
Ah well, onward and upward. I've no one to blame but myself. We do not appear to be having any type of predictable seasons. Just the uppa downa routine of extreme weather patterns. Two days ago, I was tugging at my weeds and melting from the heat. Now the furnace is blasting away.
I think the hardest part of this new normal is how dramatically the times of our growing season (if you can call it that) have changed. Toasty warm in November. Flowers blooming. Blasts of winter in June. RIP Pumpkins.
Is it just me? Or, is this summer totally messed up?
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12 comments:
no, it isn't just you, my furnace is running too and all my pots are hovering under the patio roof. I've never done pumpkins but a neighbor gave me a plant last week and it's keeping my zucchini company....unless it freezes here as well.
Aww Kate I am sorry to hear about your seedlings. Will you start again. The season is young yet. I want to see how big they get in your garden. Valerie
Ah, what a bummer about the pumpkin. It would have been so cool to see the reactions to the size of them. We seem to always have a cool spring here in the PNW, but at least we haven't had to worry about frost for a while now.
It has been nuts. It was in the 90s down here, what, 2 days ago? When I planted out on Mothers' Day, I remember thinking, "you know, the term is AVERAGE last frost date. I hope that it's an average year." Oh well.
I've been reading your blog for awhile and just realized tonight that I've been near. Here is the link where I write about it. http://waverlytotahoe.blogspot.com/2012/05/olympic-village-and-ancient-lake-bed.html
small world
nellie
This summer is whacky. Its not just you sensing it.
And those are the biggest darn pumpkins I've ever seen! Are those edible by any chance?
-Oscar Valencia
What a shame about the lose of your seedlings. Now I think that would have been such a wonderful sight to see all those giant pumpkins growing. The weather has been so silly all over. We go from one extreme to the other.
We're definitely having the same issues here. +20 celcius a couple weeks ago and this week freezing temps and cold winds. My cucumbers bit the proverbial biscuit but somehow the tomatoes have held on. Now I here the temps are gonna soar again but for how long?
Kate, thanks for stopping by. You have wild horses near Park City? My daughter has the;m close to her apt in Reno. I'll be showing them in a few more posts. Once, driving out of Carson City a heard raced alongside the highway, between roads. Really close. Most of us stopped. So beautiful, but scary for the horses.
nellie
We've had an up and down season, too, but nothing like yours. How sad to lose so many of your seedlings.
There is a gardener in our nearby town who usually grows these giant pumpkins. By fall the best of the bunch is babied with a tent over it to shield it from too much sun. People slow down while driving by just to catch a glimpse of it. I think he uses a crane to get it out of the garden:)
And, to get technical, it's not even officially summer yet. What is up with this? Actually we've had fairly normal weather here in the Pacific Northwest. That is after the very uncharacteristic mid-March whopper snow storm. Weird.
Maybe you can get a tall fence put up to hide from the passersby. Either that or a bunch of fast-growing trees. I'm like you, preferring my privacy while I garden putter. So sorry about the pumpkins.
And, to get technical, it's not even officially summer yet. What is up with this? Actually we've had fairly normal weather here in the Pacific Northwest. That is after the very uncharacteristic mid-March whopper snow storm. Weird.
Maybe you can get a tall fence put up to hide from the passersby. Either that or a bunch of fast-growing trees. I'm like you, preferring my privacy while I garden putter. So sorry about the pumpkins.
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