I got to know Ziggy Blum and Sheila Stockton in the late 90’s when first moving to the area. They were part of the food co-op, and Herb Fair regulars, and I visited them at their beautiful artistic house and amazing gardens. They both were artists and loved all things plants. They later became CSA members when they had to cut back on gardening. When we bought this farm in 2001, every time (and I mean every time) Ziggy saw me he would address me as the Fool on the Hill, referring to the Beatles song. I have to admit I would find it either comically amusing, or a bit annoying, depending on my mood. He would always qualify it by asking how the wind was.

I’ve been thinking about this lately. This spring has been the windiest that I can remember. We are usually breezy here, but this spring there was almost a constant forceful wind, from every direction, often changing direction multiple times through the course of the day. It was a rare day (maybe only three in a month) that was calm. This has had its impact. I’m seeing transplant shock in several crops. When they go from the protection of the greenhouse to the exposed wind it can severely dry out their leaves, which then die off and the plant has to grow new ones. They usually recover from this, it just sets them back. I would often harden the plants off in the more protected space between my greenhouses, but that is exposed to the north wind, which sometimes damaged the seedlings in the flat… So always improvising. The other impact has been some of the crops under row cover. The wind has been so strong and so constant that some crops have suffered, being beaten non-stop by flapping covers. The kale and collards, when I took the cover off to first harvest them last week, had every leaf of significant size broken. I’ve never seen that before. The wind has settled and these crops are recovering nicely. A couple of the early crops will not recover though. The kohlrabi looks good but has more snapped leaves also beaten by the row cover. The scallions are next to these covered crops, and although they aren’t covered, the cover got pulled out of the rocks I had holding it down on a few occasions and slapped the scallions, bending and breaking them. So the scallions for the next couple weeks will look a bit rough, but will taste just as good.

It’s not all doom and gloom. Most crops are looking good as we hopefully settle into summer, but I wanted to share have this spring has affected the garden.

Cory