You Can't Count On A Garden

[Northmountain]

24 May 2010. I just put away my chainsaw from cutting up downed fruit and shade trees from our yard on the Monday before Memorial Day.

Our carefully pruned fruit trees are a mess. All but one of the twenty+ tomatoes we grew from special order seeds are broken off along with the peppers and other plants that enjoyed an apparently brief infancy under grow lamps in our home.

We received between 4" and 6" of heavy snow this morning in the space of a couple of hours. Trees in full leaf can't support that kind of added 'white' weight.

We'll start again but may have lost the window of growth needed by the tomato and pepper plants to produce a crop this year. It will freeze hard tonight and the ground is still covered with several inches of snow. We may also loose additional fruit and other crops that were well on their way to a bountiful harvest.

Fortunately, our fruit room is still well stocked and although we will probably miss the fresh tomatoes that we love so much, we have plenty of spaghetti sauce, tomato juice, etc., on the shelves from last years crop.

Stuff happens in life. Events like this are just good examples of why we all need to plan for future and put away the fruits of our labor while the sun shines.

I'll miss the special varieties of tomatoes that I've read and dreamed about for almost a year but that's all that will happen. We will still be ok. The food distribution pipelines haven't dried up. Other folks around the state, country and world are still growing crops. It's only a micro-tragedy that will affect my wife and I and our kids and their families who enjoy sharing in our normal annual harvest bounty.

Isn't it great that a real disaster hasn't occurred in general around the world? I worry about the articles and comments that I daily read in the news about folks who are almost proud of not having 'succumbed' to the midset of those 'preparedness nuts'. Has society become so soft and forgetful that they don't remember the tough times of the past let alone know that tough times will come in the future? I guess so.

The white reminder this morning of our total dependence on 'Mother Nature' and He who controls all has been duly noted and acknowledged at our home. We hope all of you are planning for a little snow or rain in your lives as well and are preparing for it as best you can. It isn't a question of 'IF' but rather of 'WHEN' it will arrive...

[Angela]

Very good advice. I'm just now putting stuff in the garden--about two weeks later than usual--hoping the freezing temps are past, but keeping an eye on the weather report. This spring has been strange and cold. Hoping for a late frost in the fall to make up for it!

[ssprepper]

I keep saying that I hope it's warm into November since we've missed out on warm weather this spring.