Is spring weather always so unpredictable? Since we began seriously gardening 22 years ago, we are maybe more keenly aware of seasonal temperatures and precipitation than most folks. While everyone appreciates a sunny spring day and puts up with the April showers in hopes of May flowers, the many thousands of plants that we tend each year are directly affected by the vicissitudes of weather.

People often ask us if we are noticing the effects of climate change out here on the farm. We know to discount temperature and precipitation spikes as mere idiosyncrasies of life in the ‘interior’ of the continent, but we have noted distinct changes in each season. Not every year, but generally, 1) Winters are milder, 2) Spring is cooler and wetter, 3) Summer is wetter and often cooler, and 4) Fall stays mild longer than 40 years ago. The other well-documented trend is that a weather system sticks around longer than it used to: when it rains in June, it just keeps on raining, day after day; when we get into a sunny spell in July, there can be weeks with no clouds; when things get gray in February, it can be a long time before we see the sun.

Of course, if we assume that every fall is going to be mild and we can extend vegetable harvests into December, then we get walloped with an early killing frost that knocks us on our heels (2019, for example!). But that’s part of the ‘fun’ of growing plants, right?

Growing garlic is a good measure of spring temperatures. We plant between 10,000 and 17,000 heads each fall, and it’s one of the first crops to emerge in the spring. With a heavy straw mulch, the ground stays a bit warmer over the winter and a bit cooler in the spring and summer. Once it reaches a certain temperature, the garlic cloves break their dormancy and push down their roots and push up a dark green spike. Once the coldest nighttime temps are past, we make sure they have made it through the straw and give them a little boost of organic fertilizer. In 2012, it was so warm in March that they emerged too quickly and were attacked by a disease-carrying migratory insect that had nothing else green to feed on. In other years, early emergence is met by a hard frost that kills the early leaves and slows down growth (the plants survive).

This year, it seems that spring weather is in a ‘slow and steady’ mode, which I thoroughly enjoy. There were pockets of snow still hiding behind rocks and logs into mid-April; the bloodroot doesn’t bloom and fade in only a few days, there is more time to clean up the yard and the neighborhood garlic mustard patches before hot weather and the asparagus isn’t falsely enticed to come up too soon, only to be frozen back to the ground by a turn in the weather. The garlic has made steady progress this month, being small and protected enough to withstand the 20-degree nights last week and now doubling in size in just a few warm days. Smart plants.

Besides tending to the garlic patch, we spent this mild week planting 800# of seed potatoes (a bit more than ½ an acre), the first outdoor round of lettuces, kohlrabi and beets, and the hoop house-protected cherry tomato plants. We also harvested the first radishes (delivered to the Oneota Food Coop) and observed the first asparagus shoot. This coming week will see us focusing on onion transplants and more early, hardy greens. We are hopeful for a continuation of this slow spring warm-up, without a surprise return to winter!