Will we ever see warm temperatures again?

This is our morning sky today. As you can see, our skies have turned decidedly purple. I am currently listening to Prince on Amazon music. It kind of sets the tone. I went out earlier this morning to tie everything down as the NWS is calling for thunderstorms in the next hour or so. The weather has been rather cool for the past week and that is not good. I seeded in two rows of beans, lettuce seeds and transplanted a pea seedling too Wednesday evening. I used my trusty garden knife for spacing the beans. I crowed them a little bit by spacing them 2" apart. I am hoping they will support each other this way. But, having followed the weather forecasts, I knew I had to devise a way to protect the seeds and the transplant. As seen below, I first planted the two rows of bean seeds, watered them and then covered them with the vented square cloches. I then seeded in the two patches of lettuce and covered them the same method I did with the beans.
 

I placed the lettuce up against the greenhouse in order to prolong the growing season. Being unfamiliar with the new layout I have, I am almost certain that this area will be in the shadows of the greenhouse until probably late June. I am hoping the diffused sun will result in a cooler temperature soil. I'll be keeping an eye out on that. 

Likewise, I planted the one pea plant and covered it with one of my home made cloches given its one plant. As our low Thursday night was very close to freezing, I was grateful I covered them up. I live near a small river so our temps were moderated somewhat by it. Naturally, since we were only 2 degrees away from freezing, we came very close to a frost.

Over the weekend, I went to a local pop up plant, flower and vegetable sale. I found a few tomato plants, and some flowers for our front porch - all at a pretty decent price. The people running and attending the sale all practiced the distancing guidelines. The merchant made sure it wasn't overrun so that was good. The overall message I am hearing from our local greenhouses is that selections will be down as they are just not able to man the greenhouse appropriately. That makes sense as seedling propagation is very labor intensive on the front and back ends of the process. Kind of makes me thankful that I have my greenhouse.

I decided on Sunday to transplant 5 more of my pea plants. So I planted them as the weather was overcast and cooler. The seedlings were getting kind of big and I need the trays for additional seed starting. So, I planted the five and here is the first starts of Peas I have ever done, complete with their cloches. I take the tops off during the day and close them up at night. I have been told peas are almost foolproof. We shall see.

I then planted an additional five plants on the opposite side of the trellis Monday evening in the same manner.

There is a lot going on as I begin to roll out the plants from the greenhouse. Besides erecting my fence, the tomato system and the structure for cucumbers, I have had to contend with the noticeably different weather that we are having. It is not a local thing from everything I am reading. Our farmers are now contending with many more serious issues due to the coronavirus, historically high rain totals and the breakdown of the supply chain in various places. One has to put all this into context though. My response was to up my gardening efforts and to broaden my plantings. I have been a gardener for 5 decades now - yes, I am old(er). And I am not alone in this effort as I believe people are seeing the issues at their grocery stores. It kind of harkens back to what happened in the US and many other countries during WWII. We had the Victory Gardens and Britain had the Wartime Farms. Thanks to a tip from a friend, I watched a very interesting series on YouTube called The Wartime Farms. It's definitely worth a look.

As an example of our weather, as I was writing this, we experienced a horrendous thunderstorm. It's approach was very ominous as seen below.
 
You could hear the thunder and see some lightning. As it approached, there was a very sudden uptake in the winds and rain. The wind was forcing the rain horizontally to the point that both of my rain gauges were dry when I checked after the storm. The storm lasted about 20 minutes and it was pounding everything. Everything, that is, except my plantings. I took some precautions that, if not taken, I would have probably lost the various plants I had. I will outline the precautions I took in my next post. But, my point is this. In the past, I would not have considered taking the unusual efforts I did. But, these storms are getting more ferocious and damaging than in the past. Tonight, there is a large area freeze warning in effect. Again, if my crops weren't covered, many if not all would probably die tonight.
We have to realize that our climate is changing and I, personally, believe it is heading towards cooler, shorter growing seasons. I am convinced of this due to what is happening here and in most countries around the world. Weather is crazy everywhere. And, to wrap this up, the world production of food has fallen precipitously for the last 3 years due to erratic weather. That is why I am gardening not for fun, but for production. I only wish I had 3-4 acres of land to work instead of my backyard. I could do so much more but I will be content to do what I can for my family. And in the final analysis, that's all that matters
So, in my next post, I will go into detail as to my precautions that I had to implement to account for a much cooler than normal spring this year. I will also bring everything up to date as I said earlier, it's been crazy busy. Until next time, stay safe and Happy Gardening everyone!