Right now I am smack-dab in the middle of this town’s rainiest two months. The PNW doesn’t actually get that much rain, objectively speaking; Houston, for example, is graced by 18 inches more rainfall per annum than the temperate climes of the Willamette Valley, and New York finds itself beating this fair city by 10 inches.
On average, the temperature this time of year ranges from highs in the mid to low 40s, and lows in the mid to low 30s.
December and January are also the cloudiest months of the year, a ceiling of clouds hovering for 50 of the 62 days in these months.
Which is to say, I’m spending a lot of time indoors, and a lot of time honing my planting calendar. I have two calendars. One focuses on the plants themselves, and the other is organized by task (indoor starts, outdoor starts, transplanting, bed preparation, hardening off, fertilizing, etc).
I’m also playing with cloche and cold frame designs. Most of the ones I’ve seen so far cost far more than is really worthwhile, so I think I’ll poke through the scrap lumbar and plastic in the barn and build things that will work.
Right now I’m also practicing with database software, so I’m thinking of experimenting with organizing a planting in that way. We’ll see, I guess.
