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| A Peasant Woman Digging in Front of Her Cottage Vincent van Gogh 1880 |
We've been having rain.
Frequent rain. Possibly daily rain.
But in a rather peculiar way.
It won't be raining. Then it will be raining, sometimes quite hard.
Then - and by "then" I mean 5 to 15 minutes after a person senses rain coming and rushes around getting all the on-deck hay and lawn chaises under cover - the rain stops. Sometimes the sun comes out. Sometimes it never went away, and there's been a 5-minute sunshower downpour.
We are at the point of General Vegetative Abundance where even five minutes of rain means that being outdoors afterward means wading through soaking wet undergrowth. Exposed soil in a garden bed might be bone-dry a centimeter beneath the surface, but by gosh, the surrounding vegetation is dripping.
I'm beginning to think I need more than one pair of work trousers.
I'm trying not to panic about the vegetable garden which barely exists. First, the usual planting was delayed by the seasonal oddness - and considering how many on-time plantings in my neck of the woods were hit hard by the 26F night in late May, I feel I made the right choice there. But in June, when I fully expected to plant the entire garden in the first week, I've been stymied by a combination of intermittent rain and necessary hours of goat-combing. Also by time spent driving - and then recovering from driving - to various appointments. Does it sound like I'm making excuses? Maybe I am, but it feels more like I'm...trying.
How are your gardens coming along? Has unusual weather this year had an impact on your gardening plans or your plants?
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