(Via Country Gardener)

Posted by admin to Winter, drought, precipitation, snow, snow pack, storms on 2008-03-08, 13:28:00

Today's snowdrift in front of our hoophouse
We tend to get our hopes up for an early spring when the calendar hits March, and the past few winters have lulled us into thinking that the "real" winters of yesteryear were no more.

No so this year: we're getting record amounts of snow. Today's headline in the Toronto Globe and Mail says it all: "Old Man Winter pumps up the volume." We've had snowstorm after snowstorm, and the current one is about the biggest of the season. Some are calling it "the winter from hell."

It certainly is that for snow removal budgets, and there is now so much snow that a quick thaw could bring serious flooding to parts of Ontario.

(Via Country Gardener)

Posted by admin to drought, hot, humidity on 2007-09-26, 04:44:00

It was bloody hot yesterday, about as hot as it gets here on the worst days in mid-summer, about 90 degrees F. But with the humidity, it felt a lot hotter: just what our trees needed in the face of the long drought of 2007, which still ongoing.

We have many patches of dead lawn now, and we can only guess how much permanent damage there will be to our trees. One bright spot: a thunderstorm last night brought 4/10ths of an inch of rain, and the cold front promises to cool things down a bit beginning today and tomorrow.

Temperatures for the next week will still be above seasonal norms. I long for sweater weather.

(Via Country Gardener)

Posted by admin to drought, hot, map, record dry on 2007-09-06, 03:53:00

It may be September, but the hot, record dry summer continues. It's going to be around 31 degrees C today and tomorrow (that's almost 88 degrees F). We had only one good rain in August (it was the one good rain of the ENTIRE summer). And fall forecasts predict continued dryness.

According to the Toronto Star, Environment Canada's senior climatologist David Phillips is predicting a less than colorful fall leaf display because lack of rain has put many trees in distress. This means that many leaves just turn brown and fall earlier. Those that turn will offer a less than spectacular display of seasonal color.

Rats: fall is my favorite season, and it now looks like the gardening summer from hell just won't let go. The Agriculture Canada drought map above tells the continuing story.

(Via Country Gardener)

Posted by admin to September, drought, fading flowers, rain, renovation on 2007-09-04, 19:04:00

As September arrives and the gardening season begins to wind down, there's beauty in the fading away, such as these prairie coneflowers from our meadow. I belong to a camera club and a few of us got together on Sunday morning to try to photograph monarch butterflies at the meadow. Alas, the butterflies eluded us, but the fading flowers were lovely. This was my favorite picture from that morning.

I haven't posted much lately, as we have started a major house renovation. We are getting a new kitchen (very exciting, as I've never had a great kitchen ever).

The complication is that we are moving the kitchen space to another part of the house and what was the kitchen until now will become a bedroom.

For various reasons - the kitchen move, repairs, updates, space for the fridge - five rooms are involved. We have done a lot of moving in the past few days, and the only livable space right now is the study, where we are sleeping and the living room. I have converted the main floor laundry room into a provisional kitchen, with microwave, kettle and coffee maker.

The old range is going down to the furnace room tomorrow, so I will be able to do more than microwave dinners. There are some nice garden fresh tomatoes begging to be made into sauce.

Wish us luck: by my birthday in mid-October, we should be ready to move into the new kitchen and updated bedroom.

PS: As for rain, we are still in drought mode. There hasn't been a drop since the wonderful rain on Aug. 25. The extended forecast shows dry, dry, dry to past mid-September.

(Via Country Gardener)

Posted by admin to drought, lack of acknowledgement on 2007-08-17, 19:43:00

Precipitation Compared to Historical Distribution (Ontario Region)
Map: Agriculture Canada (See key below)
Featured comment: T Gordon said...

Finally! The drought has made the evening news. Only because it is the worst drought since 1959, so worth reporting. I feel some validation. All summer I have been frustrated by the lack of acknowledgement of the drought. Several times I have mentioned the drought only to have people say, "Oh really?" If it were not for your blog, I might have thought I was imagining it. It helped greatly to have it. Thanks!

I wrote about this very thing in an earlier post: I guess it's just a reflection of how uninvolved most people are with growing things.

Partial Key to Drought Map
Red = Record Dry
Brown = Extremely Low
Orange = Very Low
Yellow = Low

(Via Country Gardener)

Posted by admin to blooming, color, drought, dry, watering on 2007-08-16, 06:32:00

It's record dry, but the beds look as colorful as ever. The picture here is of a bed we call the "well bed" (because that's where the house well sits, not far from the blue spruce at the left). Now, I've been watering this bed every week or two. It's the bed that gets watered from the pond with the firehose.

Past the well bed, there's a dip in the land in which lies the pond. The pond is now quite low, maybe down five feet (1.5 meters), but because it's 12 feet deep (3.65 meters) it still has a lot of water in it.

Beyond that in the distance is a bed that I've given up maintaining. It's full of grasses and native perennials like Rudbeckia subtomentosa, a nice tall black-eyed Susan. This bed now has many weeds creeping in, but all we do is mow around it. (Our ambitions proved unsustainable.)

Amazingly, this bed is full of life and color, record drought not withstanding. Meanwhile, in our two acres of meadow, the plants are quite stunted, about half their usual height due to the extreme dryness. However, they are still blooming, but not staying in bloom as long as usual.

Below is Agriculture Canada's drought map to Aug. 14. As you can see, the red area marking record dry conditions keeps expanding.

Precipitation Compared to Historical Distribution (Ontario)

(Via Country Gardener)

Posted by admin to Ontario, drought, extreme dryness, rain, record dry on 2007-08-08, 08:21:00

Yesterday's rainfall amounted to 4/10ths of an inch in total, but it stayed cloudy, cooler and dampish all day, which was a blessed relief.

Here's the Agriculture Canada drought map for southern Ontario again, now updated to Aug. 6. Red means record dry, and brown extremely dry. (We are in the record dry patch under where it says "Toronto" - close to the tip of Lake Ontario.)

We're now in the middle of a heat and humidity wave that looks like it won't break for another five days. After that, the 14-day forecast shows warm and dry to August 22.

I hate to go on and on about drought, but unfortunately this summer it is the issue that dominates my life. I haven't given up fighting back with the hoses. Sure, my garden beds are filled with mostly drought-tolerant perennials and ornamental grasses, but even those plants can't keep going (let alone look good) when it doesn't rain for months. But what's really heartbreaking is what this extreme dryness is doing to all the trees and shrubs that I just can't water.

The bottom line: I can't wait for winter and a good, long break from all this. What a cruel summer for plants and gardeners! Of course, the farmers have it much worse. At least we gardeners don't depend on rain for a living.