Mother's Day Snow Storm

Wind swept deck chairs + snow

As I have said a lot of times before - the single biggest challenge to providing food for yourself and others is dealing with the variability Mother Nature throws your way.  So it seems fitting that on Mother's Day we reflect on Mother Natures latest mid-May equation : High Winds + SNOW = BLIZZARD?! (well - for May, sure)

Now - it's a fact here in Upstate NY we are not frost safe until the end of the month of May - so don't think I don't get that.  And I was talking with a farmer just yesterday who keeps better records than me and he rattled off the last frost day for the last 3 years and all of them were mid-teen's of May.  I get that we aren't there yet...  that's why none of the tender vegetation is in the ground.

Well - yesterday brought a series of events that certainly set us up for some challenges this year.  Starting with the 60+ MPG gusts we had - the hoop house was rendered, shall we say, useless...  The good news on that front is we had proactively moved the plants awaiting the green light for garden planting out of the hoops to the barn or lean-to mainly because we had never experienced winds of that magnitude with the low tunnel.

I did use the high winds throughout the day as an opportunity to keep "fixing" the tunnel to see if there was in fact a way to keep it together - mainly for future reference and the plan of winter gardening we also have (great book - get it).  Well - I was and I wasn't successful.  Basically - I determined some good techniques for holding things down, proved another equation : that M1V1 does in fact = M2V2, and after the 10th repair learned that if Mother (expletive) Nature wants something...  she gets it...  and she really didn't want that tunnel up yesterday and last night.

For the CSA - we shall see how well the ground planted crops that were under the hoop fair with a layer of snow on them this morning.  They are all hardy - but not fans of snow on their leaves.  This could mean smaller shares in the beginning of the deliveries.

Merry Chri, err, Mother's Day?!

The next calamity offered up by the mid May snows pertains the the cold frame.  We left several flats of small onions and herb seedlings in the cold frame as well as ALL the peppers.  The forecast didn't have a freeze warning last night - only high winds...  which brings me to my own instinctual dilemma last night.  With the winds still slamming at at 45MPH at bed time - there was really no way to keep the insulation sheets on top of the cold frame - but I was afraid of how low the temps already were.  I also knew it was plant-a-scide to try and get the peppers from the cold frame to the barn in those whipping winds...  some would be lost for sure...  So - I just made sure the cold frame was as secured as it could be, had the straw bales around it, and fell asleep full of wonder.

This morning - there was a less than inspiring 1/4" of snow on top of the cold frame.

So amongst the chores of firing up the propane heater in the barn and getting the hoop back over the beets, carrots, radishes, lettuce, spinach, chards and other guys that were now covered in snow - I scraped the snow off the cold frame and got the insulation on...  at least until a little later this morning - then we will let the sun do it's thing.

For the CSA - hopefully the peppers are ok.  Hopefully they remained above freezing in there and this is more of a "few days stunting" and NOT a "no pepper" moment.  I'm 80% sure they will be fine...  I told them this morning - challenges like this build pepper character...  it was only their silence in reply that makes me nervous.

So, as the storm passes and we have now 2 nights ahead with frost / freeze warnings - the barn looks like a dark green house.  Today we will be scrambling to find some lighting options out there.  And for the next few days we will shuttle the plants OUT in the morning and back in at night because the temps being forecast are not in the "safe" range for our low tunnel row cover.

So with that - Happy Mother's Day...  I'm just not happy with Mother Nature today.

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