Our Christmas Present this Year was more Cold and Wet

Christmas Morning Spray to Spinach-
the only forecasted dry morning to work!

It is now two days after Christmas and we are behind in many ways... plantings have been delayed by the regular rainfalls since Mid November.... about the time it gets close to being dry enough for real tractor work, we get another storm.

The crops we do have in the ground are SLOW!  At this point we are about 42 days behind our long term average for GDU's (Growing Degree Units) on the 50-86 scale... that is a bunch... most of them lost since mid September... our fall crops are way behind... so the double whammy... not getting much accomplished, and what we have gotten done is lamenting cold weather and not growing.  The bug pressure has been slow as well.  But we are anticipating lots of Mildew in the lettuce and spinach at this point.

In the summer, when we hit 115, we rationalize that it is a dry heat.... at the moment, we would love to be DRY, and everything around us would appreciate some HEAT... you never met a bigger bunch of whiners than desert people having to wait for things to dry out... A VP at one of the bigger lettuce companies I know was REALLY unhappy that one of their
growers missed 4 planting dates after Thanksgiving. Missing planting dates is a real sin in the produce game... Walmart et al want their 10,000 boxes a day whether you have weather problems or not... 

So here is hoping the New Year brings lots of GREAT weather, Productive Projects, and Fruitful Crops!