A few weeks ago the smartest dude I know got a bit maudlin about how warming waters over the Arctic and methane burping forth from the melting permafrost is likely to increase the speed and effects of climate change. (Read more here and here.) This, in combination with the polar vortex in the midwest and the…
Weather
The Propaganda of the Four Season Chart
You know how those elementary-school season charts always show the four seasons divided into nice equal pie-slices? Usually the season-slices are accompanied by a seasonally appropriate deciduous tree: leaves turning color in fall, bare and snow-studded in winter, leaf budding and flowering in spring and in full green verdancy in summer. The important part is that each season…
The Sky Cloche, Or Why Snow Probably Shouldn't Scare You
In Seattle there is less than an inch of snow on the ground. At my house, further North, we got a dusting. Local media outlets call events like this “BLIZZARD WATCH 2012” and “SNOWMAGEDDON.” People who went to college in Minnesota or grew up in Maine get their chance to drone on and on about how…
Roadtrip! Peppers, Sun, And Locavorism
Because summer refused to come to me this year, I went to summer. Yesterday I drove to Eastern Washington, a region as dissimilar from Western Washington from a gardening perspective as Iowa. I was visiting a friend and, for the first time, stomping around her garden. Eastern Washington is hot, dry and seasonally distinct. If you…
What We Look Forward To
Well, last week didn’t really feel like it in the Pacific Northwest, what with the intermittent hail and occasional snow flurry, but spring is fighting the good fight. President’s Day weekend was the traditional time to put your peas in the ground, though in my area the soil was still a bit cold. Did you sow peas outside? Did…
Heat Lovers in A Cool Clime: Tomato Dreams and Tomato Delusions
Forget sugarplums – at this time of year it’s visions of big, juicy, vine-ripe tomatoes that dance in the gardener’s head. Tomatoes are the quintessential garden edible. The tomato is so culturally ubiquitous – so representative of summer itself – that people not in possession of gardening gloves, a shovel, or the slightest desire to…
Lessons From A Year Without Summer
Last year (2010) we had a cool spring and a cool, short summer. No one had a ripe tomato until damn near September. The heat loving tomatoes, squash, corn, etc. didn’t thrive, and so a lot of gardeners said it was a terrible, terrible year. I disagree! I had the best year ever for cabbage,…