MAYDAY, MAYDAY!

"Tra-la, It's May....the Lusty Month of May!" This song, from "Camelot" always dances around in my head as May begins, reminding me of the promise of another gorgeous NCW spring.  The last few days of April were marked by chilling weather and nasty aggressive winds in excess of 60 mph..not good at all for the babies I tucked into the ground last week! Yesterday I kept hearing and reading that it was going to get into the high 20s overnight.....what's going on here, anyway????

On Monday, April 29, I planted 24 dahlia plants. I'd made sure that the starts and small plants had been snugly secured to the stakes I'd pounded into my well-prepared soil, so that these "little kids" wouldn't get blown down and broken in the wind. But now, the idea that cruel overnight temps would turn the green shoots into dead, black remnants caused me to consider all my options. I didn't really have a lot of choices, but knew I needed to protect them against the one thing I couldn't control - the weather. I finally settled on the idea of covering the plants with empty flowerpots, the size to be determined by the height of the plant. Then, since there was also wind, I placed the heaviest wooden stakes I had across the tops of the pots in each row. Now, give it your best shot, Old Man Winter - we're ready for you!

The term "blog" comes from a contraction of the two words "web" and "log......." You take the "b" from "web" and add it on to the front of "log" and you get "Blog...." Most of us know that the purpose of a Log is to record some kind of activity - we probably all remember Captain Kirk of Star Trek, regularly speaking into a small microphone, giving the "star date," and then describing, for posterity, what the Starship Enterprise and her crew were up to on that date....This process results in a historical record that can be archived for posterity, and referenced when developing future plans or exploits.

When I started writing this blog over two years ago, I didn't realize how important that aspect of blogging would become for me. In the past couple years, as I've noticed methods that other growers have used to record their dahlia activities, I realize how important that is, and how bad I am at it! My dad was a GREAT record keeper, highly organized, and as a result, a great resource for others seeking advice on planting and growing dahlias. He never wore any shirt that didn't have a pocket, just over his heart on the left side. In the bad old days, that was where he always kept his Lucky Strike or Tareyton cigarettes. However, after he finally kicked the habit that eventually took his life, Dad always kept a pen and his "calendar" and weather records there - 8 1/2 "x11" sheets of white paper, folded into little booklets that he would regularly pull out for reference or to add a new piece of information. He always knew what the weather would be or what is was in past days. Now we have Weather Underground and the National Weather Service, which have become very accurate at predicting, recording and analyzing weather and patterns of atmospheric action.

Bottom line is this: I need to start keeping track of the weather better, in order to be prepared for the flukes that influence the growth and development of our plants. When I woke up this morning, I didn't see frost on the grass or roofs....but that didn't really mean it hadn't frozen, as I found out when I padded out to the garden in my slipper-clad feet. On top of many of the black plastic pots, I found little frozen pools of condensation, showing that the temperatures had indeed, dropped below freezing overnight. Sooooo happy that I had taken the time to cover my little family last night, in spite of the biting winds! I will try to be more vigilant and diligent about recording relevant weather facts as I write this blog. As a developing grower and hybridizer, referencing my archive can help to provide me with a much needed context that I will need for planning.