Our summer that isn't

After our scorching temperatures in May, the weather patterns have conspired to give us week after week of cloudy and cool days. Even in mid June, I had morning temps around 40, very cold even for Southcentral. About every ten days or so, we get a day, day and a half of mostly sunny skies and that's all we get.

Because of this, many hay farmers-especially to the west at Pt MacKenzie, have been unable to successfully put up horse quality hay. Farmers around Palmer have been more fortunate due to those reliable Valley winds and a bit of good luck due to geography and a little something called "weather shadow". That's a weather phenomenon where moisture from arriving lows get held on one side of a mountain range or another. In any case, those very few Palmer farms that got their hay up, have probably already sold out. I prefer to purchase hay from a particular farm up north, and while the cooler cloudy days have produced an incredible crop, the weather just has not cooperated to get it harvested. I got a round bale to tide me over and my two are happily enjoying nonstop nibbling for the time being.

All the clouds and rain have had mixed effects on the garden too, of course. I have lots of lettuce and other greens for example, but the green beans (loaded with buds too)and zucchini are very slow-not enough heat and sun for them. In fact, most veggies are running a couple weeks behind normal. In the greenhouse, I have plenty of green tomatoes, but nothing ripe as yet. We've been eating cucumbers for a while now, but even they need more heat and sun to really produce. The corn is showing silks on some stalks but there too, not as many as in other years-the shoots are there, just not up and full yet.

Last night I noticed that I have one baby pumpkin forming (yay!!) but the other winter squashes are just basically sitting there, not growing. From here on out, I will be planting all winter type squash under row cover, no exceptions. It's all a learning curve and I must remember that. Like the old saying goes: There are lean years, and there are bean years ;) Hopefully this will turn out to be a bean year!