North Vs. South

No not the civil war! but the SFG forum and time spent in the garden, I have made a point to watch the number of posts from different people in different parts of the country. Over all winter is much more active on the forum.

I have also noted that many of the northern folks seem to be drooling over the spring and fall activities of the southern gardeners, wishing they too could be in the garden in January etc. I say count your blessings up north you can grow really good cool weather veggies.

Now if you have read carolyns tomatoe greenhouse posts and now mine as well. Since the weather is a bit more friendly for us we have the oppurtunity for large scale year round gardening,,, but do I miss the relaxing in the winter months waiting for the warmer days ??? duh!

Point to the story:
if you are destined to live in the cooler regions , enjoy your down time as well as your cooler summers, 108 deg in aug does no good for the garden
If you live in the warmer climates dont sweat the occasional cold fronts if you dont like the weather in tthe south just wait 5 minutes it will change.

I think I have been rambling :scratch: ,, cant wait for 5:00 so I can go check on the mater seedlings

This is the first year in a long time that I have looked forward to the end of gardening season. We had a rough summer with the weather. Once fall arrived it has lasted much longer than normal and now we are much colder, much earlier in the season. Some years you cannot win for trying. Usually we get a few days of frost, then it warms up nicely so you can clean out the garden. Not this year, I currently have dead frozen plants in my garden. (After the first frost my 4 year old said "Oh, dear Mom you need to water the flowers, they do not look very good.") I am eagerly looking forward to finishing up the fall chores, as you cannot plant pansies when your dirt is frozen in the pot. I also have a stack of somewhat green tomatoes which need to ripen and get made into sauce. This is down from of huge pile on my counter top. You are right that this is the time to daydream about garden catalogs. (In our house that is referred to as vegetable porn, everything looks soooo good.) I am enjoying my break until I start to winter sow and start seeds.

Patty in cold Yorktown

true, so true.

same can be said in ohio - wait five minutes and the weather will change. or so all the locals have been telling me for the last 10 years. . . (i'm a transplant. still haven't decided on my final resting spot, *grin*)

Right bout now I think I have to wait about 3 months for the weather to change.

Patty from Yorktown wrote:You are right that this is the time to daydream about garden catalogs. (In our house that is referred to as vegetable porn, everything looks soooo good.)

I might steal that! Vegetable porn!!

Blackrose wrote:

Patty from Yorktown wrote:You are right that this is the time to daydream about garden catalogs. (In our house that is referred to as vegetable porn, everything looks soooo good.)

I might steal that! Vegetable porn!!

Patty, I'm right there with you about the weird weather this year. This probably wasn't the best year to begin SFG, but even with getting our first MM all wrong, dealing with the strangest weather in a long time, and having more bugs and critters invade our garden than I've seen in all my years, we still managed to do well with many crops. We had a few failures, but I'm very thankful for all the veggies that managed to persevere in spite of the hardships they lived with.

Here is my unproven theory about this past summers weather. It was an el'nino year (sure I spelled that wrong, sorry) The smaller system of weather patterns that comes from Mexico. In past years we have had droughts, about once every 4 years. That is the same pattern as that weather system. I will test my theory for the next few years. If I can predict that every 4 years are going to be low rain, I will size my garden to accommodate that. This year tomatoes were lousy, cucumbers were great, bush beans were awful, pole beans not as bad, butternut squash at the neighbors garden was great. You get the picture. I do not know if I am becoming a better gardener to notice these things or that SQFT gardening has leveled the playing field enough that I can notice variations. In any event tomorrow we will be sledding or inside, as they have already canceled school. Glad everybody has enjoyed the vegetable porn remark. I am eagerly awaiting my catalogs.

Patty in soon to be snowy Yorktown

It was in the 70's here in east texas yesterday and humid, had to turn the heat off in the potting shed, but this morning it was back in the 40's we expect to have a mild weekend mid 60's and sunny,

Patty, the National Weather Service has already done this on a nationwide basis.

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/climaterisks/

There is also a similar model on the site for La Nina (a cooling of Pacific water temps).

According to this, El Nino (a warming of Pacific water temps) could be responsible for the extreme heat my area experienced this year, but not the drought.

I'll be interested to see what your personal records show over a long period for your particular microclimate.