Whipsaw!!

The weather here is whipsawing quite dramatically due to an earlier polar vortex and many fast moving lows.  Just yesterday (Saturday the 17th) , we had what initially looked like a benign cold front coming through overnight with some frozen precipitation.  Well, it actually was a little more widespread than anticipated and which covered the area with ice on all surfaces.  In fact, we had a very tragic accident on I-95 in the downtown Baltimore region. There was a tanker truck that flipped over a barrier and exploded into flames and then there was a corresponding 67 vehicle pileup.  2 people were killed and over a dozen were injured.  I was just grateful I didn't need to drive yesterday. Our weather today started out much warmer as it was 55 at noon.  So, I took advantage of the weather and went out to check on my plants that I am attempting to grow through the winter.  After uncovering them, I was quite pleased with their progress.  As can be seen, most of the plants are healthy and seemed to have survived yesterdays low temps.

Long term though, I have my doubts about the lettuce but everything else looks healthy enough.  Of course, the goal is not to produce plants in the winter but rather, to produce early mature plants in the Spring.  Again, it's an experiment to see how well what I have set up will work.  We haven't hit the really cold winter weather yet so I am still not making any predictions.  

As I was watering these plants and taking pictures, the horizon suddenly turned an ominous dark grey.  So, I hurried up and covered the plants back up again as I began to feel a light rain hitting me along with a distinguishable drop in temperature with strong winds starting to whip the trees in the neighborhood.  To give you an idea of what happened, here's a picture of a lighted tree we have in our front yard.  I have 3-7 lb stones trying to hold this upright but our winds have been very tenacious to say the least.  

I will have to go out and realign the tree again.  I probably have put it back up 5 times this year. Crazy weather to say the least.  

We have a saying in Maryland that if you don'l like the weather, wait an hour.  We are prone to wide variations in the types of climate activities in this region due to the effects of the Appalacian Mountains just west of Baltimore.  There have been countless times when a system comes out of the west and dissipates completely or weakens considerably before moving into our region.  It can be a double edged sword as it sometimes results in periods of little rain and periods of little snow.  We need the snow to kill bacteria and harmful insects that otherwise will survive the winter.

That's about all the activity there is in the garden at this time.  The experiment is proceeding and the winter rye is still hanging in there at this time.  I hope everyone is having a great Christmas season

Until next time, Happy Gardening!