Good morning, and does the lion sleep? Welcome to Saturday Morning Garden Blogging.
It's been a weird weather week here in Denver. Last Sunday we had a meat space meet up scheduled — except we were in the midst of an upslope snowstorm with blizzard warning. Upslope storms are extremely unpredictable and can result in massive amounts of snow — or massive amounts of snow in one location with only a few flakes a couple of miles away. In any event, the wise do not venture out in such storms if it can be helped. Out at the airport over 9" of snow fell; here in the city an inch or two less. And it got cold, with the low dipping to 7°.
On Tuesday and slopping over a bit into Wednesday, we got a little more snow, only an inch or so but… that blast of cold and moisture at the end of the month put us over the normal February moisture totals, and under the normal February temperatures. Then again, February is generally quite a dry month.
We head into the weekend with warmth in the forecast — depending on the forecast you look at, we could be above 60° and perhaps by Sunday the snow will have cleared from the front yard….
….and I'll be able to see more of the blooming crocus.
Then again, March weather in Denver is extremely unpredictable. Ten years ago St. Patrick's Day brought a massive storm with over two feet of snow in Denver. Planting the peas was very, very late that year — the veggie patch wasn't clear of snow and dry enough to work until well into April.
For now, I'll be happy with a couple of 60° days so I can use a new toy to clear the front beds and expose the emerging spring bulbs: for Christmas the Mister bought me a garden vacuum — well, technically it's also a leaf blower, but I don't want it for that purpose. No, the vacuum will make short work of cleaning the leaves and other debris from the flower beds and the crushed stone which surrounds the redstone planters in the parking strip. I've despaired of getting the crap out from crushed stone until we tried out a neighbor's garden vacuum; it has enough suction to get out the debris, but not so much as to suck up the rocks.
I'm also going to get the carmello tomatoes started, and some cruciferous veggies — who could resist growing Kossack Kohlrabi?
So we're all ready here for another year of gardening — in the ground, in the basement, and online.
That's what's happening here. What's going on in your gardens?