Yet more sun.

Ahhhh so. It's now April 19, 2008, and the forecast for today is 74 and sunny. Yesterday it was 80 and sunny. Day before that it was 75 and sunny. Day before THAT it was about 70 and sunny. It's been sunny & dry since the beginning of last week. Which is fine. It's GREAT. BUT (there's always a "but") - I'm a little worried that its too dry. I shouldn't have to be watering seedlings outside this time of year. The garden, instead of being a mushy boggy mess as it usually is this time of year, is actually, well, perfect. Which is wrong. I'm starting to worry about drought. And it's APRIL. We had a ton of snow, and then a ton of rain, and a huge melt. The rivers are still high/normal for this time of year. But still, in the back of my mind, I'm wondering if its a tad too dry & I'm concerned about this weather pattern holding (overall).

It's funny. We had a long warm/hot fall. Then winter came on very suddenly & intensely. And then it started to get warm around the end of February, and I started telling people that "this is it, winter is done." No one believed me. But it makes a little bit of sense, if this is a climate shift. I know, I know - one weird season does not indicate climate shift, much like how one warm year doesn't make global warming. I'm not saying it does. But I am wondering if the warm long falls and springs might become the new "norm" - and if so, is that SO bad, as long as we still get a few months of hard cold & a snowpack? We had record snows last winter, despite the late onset & early retreat of winter. It was plenty cold, and the plants that needed to go dormant, did.

I remember that 10 years ago, it wasn't that unusual to get a major snowstorm (measured in feet, not inches) in late April. I simply don't see that happening now.

My allergies are awful. Absolutely awful. I'm trying to not take anything (medicine) for any reason, and it's getting hard when I can't breathe so well and have headaches for days on end. A little rain might help that - the air is so DRY.

We picked up the Local group's potato order yesterday up in Maine. The potato warehouse was dark (not all dark, but definitely hard to see when coming in from daylight). It was about 55 degrees and humid. And suddenly I could breathe. It was great.

So these are the potato varieties that I'll be growing this year: All Blue & Butte. For the record, seed potatoes appear to be the small potatoes that were too small to be eating. I'm assuming they were treated with some sort of innoculant to have not sprouted by now. So now I have to try and get them to sprout. Judging from the issues I've had with store bought potatoes this spring, it should be fairly easy. We'll see. For now, they just look like potatoes.

200 pounds of potatoes was not all that impressive. I was expecting a giant civic-trunk FULL of potatoes...but no. Not even close. It was a little disappointing, really. Hopefully next year I'll have my own seed potatoes and we wont have to order many at all.

I might start planting other vegetables early this year. It seems to be warming up pretty early - theres no frost expected in the forecast for the next week - highs in the mid-60s and low-to-mid 70s. Lows in the 40s. The sun, I think, is plenty strong enough & the photo period is long enough. If I plant the seeds & then cover them to protect them, we might be OK.