Continuing on with our discussion from Monday about planting tomatoes and other warm season vegetables early, I want to take a look at what some of the long-term predictions are for the weather this summer.
Of course, one reason that everyone is thinking about planting early is just because the weather is so nice…like we expect April and May to be. As gardeners, we’re programmed to pay attention to the weather and plant when it seems right, with some guidance from the calendar and common sense. It stands to reason that we would want to plant now!
The other reason that so many gardeners are anxious to get their tomatoes planted early is because they are certain that the hot summer followed by a warm winter means we are guaranteed another scorching summer. We’re all desperate for some good tomatoes, and if planting a month early will do it, then let’s go!
I think it is interesting that the widespread assumption is that the 2012 summer is going to continue the trend of way-above-normal temperatures and continuing to be dry. After the winter of 2010-2011, where we hit low temperatures we hadn’t seen in years, we didn’t all assume that the summer was going to be record lows! If growing up on a farm, working on farms, and now being in Extension has taught me anything, it is that you don’t try to predict the weather, especially based on what you are currently experiencing!
I’d like to share a couple of general long-term weather forecasts from 2 very different sources. Then we can revisit the issue at the end of the summer and see if either (or both) turned out to be right.
The first forecast is from the K-State Climate Prediction Center. I participated in a webinar they hosted back at the beginning of March and found it very interesting. Their long-range models were showing that the trend for summer 2012 has a good chance of being below-average temperatures and above-average rainfall. (I’m liking that!) They did make a point of saying that February models are often inaccurate, and the range of possibilities did stretch from very cool and wet to slightly warmer and still dry. (Although last February the models were predicting very hot and very dry, which was only too correct!)
National Weather Service Jun-Jul-Aug Temperature Outlook
Their most recent long-range forecasts (from March 15th) show an “Even Chance” for above, normal, or below average temperatures and rainfall. The skeptic in me says that means they have no clue which model is going to be right! Still, that doesn’t seem to agree with the assumption that we’re in for another very hot, very dry summer.
The other forecast is from a source that generally makes me rather twitchy as an Extension Agent making research-based recommendations. That source is the Farmers Almanac. I don’t plant by the Farmers Almanac, never have, and probably never will. I don’t recommend other people plant by the Farmers Almanac either. However, I was in a local garden center last week that had copies and thought it would be interesting to check out what it said about the long-range summer forecast, given that I had already seen the K-State early model projections.
The Farmers Almanac has the eastern half of Kansas pegged for cooler than normal and dry weather this summer, and the western half of Kansas expecting cooler than normal and wetter than normal weather this summer. Interesting! The Farmers Almanac and the K-State predictions seem to at least partially dovetail. (In the interest of full disclosure, the Farmers Almanac predicted normal winter temperatures and precipitation for us this winter. Um. Yeah, that was obviously wrong.)
This is the closest I am ever going to come to predicting the weather on this blog. I think it will be very interesting to look back after the summer and see which (if any) of these predictions are correct. I have to be honest that I would be very much in favor of a cooler than normal and wetter than normal summer after last year!
With the unseasonably warm spring, it is even more tempting than usual to plant some of our summer vegetables early. With the memory of last summer still fresh, most tomato gardeners are looking for a way to get their tomatoes going soon so they can get a good crop even if the summer turns hot and nasty again. (More on that later this week!)
How do we decide if we should plant early or wait until the usual planting time? Is it okay to plant some things early, but not others?
I think it is important to remember that however warm it is on a given day or week in the early spring, that doesn’t prevent a cold snap before the beginning of May. Thinking back to 2007, many parts of the country experienced a warm, early spring followed by a swift dip down to well-below-freezing temperatures. We certainly do not want to set our vegetable gardens up for failure by planting too early.
In the Demo Garden, we really are not presented with this question this year, as we will not have all the raised beds and soil in place and ready to go before sometime in May.
My thought on planting early is that in a spring like we have been having so far, it would be crazy not to take a little risk and try planting earlier for some crops. What I plan to do in my community garden plot is to plant my tomatoes around mid-April rather than wait for May 1st. However, I am not just going to blindly go out and plant on April 15th! Conditions have to be right.
First, the long-term forecast for the 2 weeks between April 15th and May 1st should look nice and warm. If there is even a chance that it is going to get below 35-40 degrees one night, I would rather wait to plant. The other key factor is that I want the soil temperature to be nice and warm. As of this writing, the soil temperature was measured at 57-60 degrees on March 20th! However, with cooler temperatures and rain, that can drop. Tomatoes need at least a 55 degree soil temperature to thrive. Right now it is looking good, but I want to make sure it stays that way. The last thing is that I need to be prepared to provide some protection for those tomato plants if temperatures do dip down into the 30s.
How about other vegetables? Theoretically, when the soil temperatures reach 60 degrees peppers, eggplant, squash, melons, okra, and most other warm season vegetables can be planted. These vegetables really love the heat, so I will tend to wait to plant most of them until closer to May 1st. Likely it will not get cold enough to severely damage them, but they will grow better when the weather is consistently warm. Again, you can take a chance and plant earlier, just be prepared to provide some protection and replant if necessary.
I have some thoughts about the summer long-term forecast that I’ll share later this week. Stay tuned!
With all the rain (and corresponding mud!), the construction progressed much slower this week.
During one of the breaks in the rain at the beginning of the week, they removed all the supporting lumber from the main posts. The next step was getting all the posts cut to exactly the right height and fitting them with these metal brackets (braces?) that will hold the main beams on the roof part of the structure.
Another look at the brackets fitted to the posts.
Yep, that’s right. We have a crane!
I don’t know about you, but I think I would have wanted a bigger hard hat! All the same, just imagine how much work it would be to lift those beams in place rather than lower them with a crane.
Having the crane do the heavy lifting makes it easier to get the pieces fitted just right.
In a matter of a few hours, all the main beams were in place! The crew spent the rest of the afternoon getting all the bolts and screws in place so everything was secured rather than just sitting in the brackets. Today they have been putting metal peaks across the beams and started putting some of the slats in between the beams.
This is just one of the reasons that we are renovating our demonstration garden:
The tracks are from several weeks ago, when we were working to remove the remaining concrete from the wheelchair garden area. There had been a little bit of rain a few days before, and the bobcat left these ruts. Ugh. Since then, they haven’t drained. Granted, a lot of this water is from yesterday and today. Still…it isn’t even pretending to drain. It’s just sitting there.
The first part of our garden renovation is going to be putting in drain tiles that will help move water away from the garden, especially through our lovely, sticky clay, compacted construction pad. When our building was originally built, this area was compacted like the foundation area. Then a little topsoil was added and proclaimed “ready to garden.” Yeah, not so much. These conditions are why we have always used raised beds and worked hard to develop a high organic matter loam soil in those beds. Even with the added drainage, these conditions are also why we will always use raised beds in our Demonstration Garden and also why we recommend that almost all home gardeners in this area also use raised beds.
Many parts of Sedgwick County naturally have a very heavy clay soil like is below our demonstration garden. If you can dig a hole in your garden or yard and fill it with water, and it takes more than 24 hours to drain, you absolutely need either a different location or a raised bed or berm to make your garden successful.
Why does it matter? Isn’t it just water that the plants can use? Actually, it matters a lot. Plant roots need oxygen as much as we do, and if the soil is full of water, there is no space for air! Water can smother the roots of the plants and increase the ability of some problematic diseases to move around in the soil and infect plants.
It might seem ironic to be talking about drainage as a problem after such a dry year. But if your soil is compacted and poorly drained, even a dry summer doesn’t protect you from problems. If anything, it makes it worse because your soil is either soggy or rock hard.
Improving soil drainage and structure. The reason we recommend raised beds so often is that they are a relatively quick solution to a problem that might otherwise take many years to fix. The way to actually improve your soil as it is will vary with the exact problems, but it would include a combination of deep tine aeration/ripping, incorporating organic matter by the ton, and probably planting some deep rooted cover crops like winter radishes that can break up the soil over several years (and incorporating them for more organic matter). Even then, you will still have a heavy, clay soil, albeit with better organic matter and drainage. Given all that work, raised beds seem like a good choice, don’t they?
I’m not quite sure what to make of the weather forecast for tonight. The predicted lows are conflicting, ranging from 21 to 24 degrees. I know, that’s not a very big difference. But it is a big difference for some of our cool weather vegetables. 24 degrees or warmer means little to no damage on most things. 21 degrees means more damage.
I would recommend that you be safe rather than sorry and either cover your fall veggies tonight or else pick and preserve most of what is ready to go.
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