True Confessions

– Posted in: Weather
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I am a gardening wuss. I don’t like to garden when it’s hot, especially if it’s hot and humid. I also don’t like to garden when it’s too wet out (as in a heavy dew), or when it’s raining, or when it’s too windy, or too cold. Oh, and I don’t like to garden when the soil is dry, either. And usually if the soil is dry, I can’t water because our well is low. When I take a look at this list of “don’ts”, it’s no wonder I don’t get very much gardening done. There’s probably 5 good days in the spring and another 5 in the fall that meet my qualifications!

It’s kind of embarassing to admit this. I like to think of myself as a Dedicated Gardener, though not quite “a loving slave to the goddess Flora,” which is how Ann Lovejoy describes Kevin Nicolay when she dedicates Further Along the Garden Path to his memory. Well, it is a hobby, after all, and how many people pursue a hobby when it doesn’t give them pleasure on some level?

Lately it’s been incredibly humid. In the morning there is a thick blanket of fog over everything, and a dew so heavy I have the kids wear boots to walk in the grass. (I instituted this rule after discovering they were wearing wet sneakers all day long and had prune feet at the end of the day.) When the sun burns the fog away, the temperature rapidly climbs to the high 80s and low 90s. I hate the sensation of wet clothes clinging to my skin, and whether it is from dew or sweat doesn’t make much difference.

So I haven’t been gardening much lately. I’m waiting for the humidity to break. For some reason Weather.com doesn’t mention the humidity in its forecasts, just the expected temperature highs and lows, and the probability of precipitation, which means I have no idea when the weather will start suiting me again.

About the Author

Kathy Purdy is a colchicum evangelist, converting unsuspecting gardeners into colchicophiles. She gardens in rural upstate NY, which used to be USDA Hardiness Zone 4 but is now Zone 5. Kathy’s been writing since 4th grade, gardening since high school, and blogging since 2002. Find her on Instagram as kopurdy.

What differentiates a bulb from a perennial plant is that the nourishment for the flower is stored within the bulb itself.…There is something miraculous about the way that a little grenade of dried up tissue can explode into a complete flower.

~Monty Don in The Complete Gardener pp. 142

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