garden Archives - Tena Stetler

Jul 20th Monsoon Rain Quiets the Fire Danger.

Good news! In part due to monsoon season, my garden is doing phenomenal! We are harvesting lettuce, snap peas, kale, loads of tomatoes on the vines, and carrots about ready.

It’s monsoon season in Colorado, massive amounts of rain, thunder, lightning, hail, and more rain. Don’t get me wrong, the rain keeps us from having catastrophic wild fires like we had in 2012 and 2013. But the worry for flash floods is real on the burn scars. After the unbelievable softball hail storm July 27^th 2016, when storm clouds gather now I worry rather than revel in them. Along with most of our community we still haven’t completely recovered, roofs and fences are still being replaced. The upside, lots of work for contractors.

Any way I digress. With the monsoons come the overnight appearance of two to five foot tall weeds in all shapes and sizes. I pull ‘em up one day and the next morning two take their place. How does that happen? On the flip side it gets me out of the house away from my computer as I fight the never ending weed battle. You know what I mean?

My utility bill, grass and flowers are loving the moisture, except for when the hail comes and we haven’t had much of that so far. Fingers and toes crossed. For only the second time since we’ve lived here (going on 23 years) we know the sump pump works cascading water out of our rock retaining wall. Good to know. LOL

However, this year my outside plants are portable, on a little red cart and I haul them into the garage. An all-purpose fabric screen is rolled on the side of my garden waiting to be hauled over the garden for hail protection. All this works IF we are home at the time the storm is predicted or occurring. But it’s all we can do in Colorado, land of the frequent hail and lightning storms. I wouldn’t trade it for the world, Colorado is still a great place to live. How is you summer going? Did you plant a garden? I’d love to hear from you!