We had such an unusual spring.  It started raining the end of April and didn’t stop until well into June.  Even now, we are getting nearly daily rainfall, although it’s more a pattern of our summer monsoon – dry all day until late afternoon when thunderstorms pop over the mountains, bringing us no more than a sprinkle.  The humidity has been very high, which is unusual for our dry area.  The ground has been soggy and cold.  The sun barely shines.   The shade garden thinks we are in Seattle and is going to town. The veggies are thinking we are stuck in winter.

Until Friday, that is.  We hit 98 degrees Friday under very clear skies, and our humidity plummeted to 12%.  Finally, a normal day.

My perennial flower bed, the one in the sun, completely wilted.  Some of the leaves on my Snow on the Mountain completely dried out/burned up, curling up into brown, crispy death.  I came home from work to find about a third of it destroyed.  I immediately set the end of the hose in the garden and moved it every five minutes to another plant, giving them a deep drink.  The sun was still blazing down, and I couldn’t risk a sprinkler on what was left of the leaves.  At dark, I set out the sprinkler and ran it for almost an hour to get water deep down.  Everything looked better the next morning, but still, those brown leaves are not going to recover. The dianthus are pretty angry at me too.  Like I turned on the sun or something!

Yikes.

The next week is promising temps in the upper 90’s to near 100, and no rain.  We’ve been waiting for this weather to arrive.  But it is such a shock to have 60’s and clouds and rain one day, and two days later 100 degrees.  The plants can’t adapt quickly enough.

The good news is that all this heat will finally help my vegetables.  The tomatoes, eggplant, squash, pumpkins, will all be happy to see it, and maybe finally I’ll get some production.  The heat will also mean that the slugs will leave.  Right now slugs are decimating my beans and lettuces each night.  I’ve had to resort to bait to get rid of them.  This is a hard time of year for gardening.  I may have a lot of plants in the ground, but no production.  Nothing to eat.  Lots of trips to the grocery store.

But we gardeners are an ever-hopeful lot.  We know that our veggies will come.  Today, I will water and water, and hoe at the weeds that seem to be fine with all this rain, and hope to see blooms on the squash and tomatoes.

All in good time, I guess.  All in good time.

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