Blog Update!
For those of you not following me on Facebook, as of the Summer of 2019 I've moved to Central WA, to a tiny mountain town of less than 1,000 people.

I will be covering my exploits here in the Cascades, as I try to further reduce my impact on the environment. With the same attitude, just at a higher altitude!

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Getting over a dry patch

Whew! Well, we finally got some rain up here in Seattle. Now, I know many people think that Seattle is the land of rain, but we actually get less total rainfall per year than New York City (37 inches versus 50 inches in NY). And, this year we certainly are a heck of a lot drier.

We've only had .24 inch of rain here since May 20th. It's been the longest dry spell on record. Of course, the lack of rain coupled with 103 degree temperatures (another record) has done a number on some of my plants.

Unfortunately, a couple of my hanging plants didn't survive while I was on vacation and I must have been somewhat deluded to think that my garden was going to get watered while I was gone. I'm afraid that my columnar apple trees will also join the list of fatalities.

I can't say we've been getting those garden saturating downpours like we experienced in New York. These were the same storms that caused our plane to get rerouted to Connecticut and grounded for hours for repair since it was hit by lightening.

And, while you can't look at specific instances of "weather" and claim any great trend regarding global climate change, the weather we've been having over the last several years around here has been uncharacteristically weird. Floods anyone?

8 comments:

Sandy said...

Extremely wet this year in PA. My tomatoes are rotting on the vine. Some of my kale rotted at the stem after gaining maturity as well. The goats were suffering from moisture-thriving parasites from the grass earlier this spring as well. They say it's an El Nino year; could that be the problem?

Green Bean said...

No floods but I will say this. It has rained (not sprinkled, rained!) at least once a month every month this summer here in Northern California. I have lived in California ALL of my life and I do not remember it ever raining in the summer time. Definitely not each month of summer. Strange.

Robj98168 said...

It rained 1/2 inch at the community garden last night. I know because I put a Rain Gage in the garden! How much did you get in Ballard?

Crunchy Chicken said...

Rob - I don't know, I didn't have out no fancy rain gauge. Just a sandbox lid, which isn't very accurate.

Elizabeth B said...

Green Bean, I live in Pacifica, and we haven't gotten rain so much, but boy we've gotten fog. My zinnias just rotted at the stem like Sandy's kale. Bah.

Farmer's Daughter said...

It's been very wet here in Connecticut (like NY). I find myself wishing for rain the last few days because it's been so hot and I've gotten spoiled. I've only watered my hydrangeas twice this summer (one was yesterday) and they're very water hungry. I only watered my veggie garden once, when I planted the seeds. My tomatoes are doing poorly, too, and it looks like I won't be doing any canning this year. :(

Anonymous said...

Nooo! Not the columnar apple trees! They looked so cool... man, I'm jealous of your dry spell. At least if it's dry you can just water your plants; when it's pouring for days on end with no sun, I don't have many options. Grr.

Sharlene said...

It rained on me while visiting Seattle this past July. I think the differnce between NYC and Seattle is not how much rain but how many days of rain. It rained in Socal in June this year. Very strange. And for it rain every month in Norcal is equally weird. The times, they are a changing.