saturday afternoon delight: weeding!

Wow, it’s been close to three months that I’ve neglected this blog. And, truth to tell, my vegetable garden as well.

I’ve a great excuse: there’s been lots of rain—blessed rain!—in the Sunshine State.

precipitation in Florida for the last 3 months

And of course, I’ve been, er, slacking off, heh. (What else is new?)

The thing is, my garden has gone to weed! Weeds everywhere—in the beds, along the aisles, and even in between the beer bottles that served as bed borders!

I couldn’t attack them before because of the dry thunderstorms and the rains that peppered our Central Florida weeks. I had visions of getting drenched in a sudden downpour or being struck by lightning so I avoided the garden as much as possible. Plus, the mosquitoes!

Today though, despite the threatening gray clouds, I couldn’t stand the sight of those darned weeds any longer so I decided to annihilate them once and for all. The rains have let up and there were no thunderstorm forecasts so...To the garden it is!

precipitation in the Sunshine State for the last 7 days

Well, it helps that it’s time to prepare for the fall planting, heh.

I forgot to take a Before picture, so I’ll only show you the After:

the itsy bitsy farm, circa august 2012

That clean look was achieved after two and a half hours of duking it out with them weeds. Those two buckets are actually packed tightly with these garden monsters.

buckets of torture

Finally, my beds are ready for September. I’ll be planting the usual suspects: okra, yardlong beans, green beans, bitter gourd, zucchini, eggplants and tomatoes. No more cherry tomatoes though. We've had too much of them last time.

Speaking of rains and thunderstorms...

From May to August, Central Florida—and the whole state, for that matter—has had a generous drenching as you can see in the maps from the National Climatic Data Center.

Beginning last June, Central Florida had been extremely moist—in the real world that's like pounding rains every afternoon and sometimes well into the night (and early morning, for that matter).

Here's how it was, rain-wise in Florida for the last 90 days:

observed precipitation in Florida for the last 90 days

It's a relief that there was no drought in Central Florida the past three months, too. The heat outside was simply unbearable even in the late afternoon. I couldn't imagine myself watering and cleaning the garden in the sweltering, nosebleed-inducing summer heat. Thank God for these mercies!

Here's the monthly precipitation mapping since I've been to my vegetable garden in May:

observed precipitation in Florida, June 2012

observed precipitation in Florida, July 2012

observed precipitation in Florida, August 2012

extreme drought in volusia

So, a couple of days ago, I was griping about how our weather  has been unseasonably warm this year.

It appears our part of the country had it particularly bad compared to the rest. Florida had been running the whole gamut, from "Abnormally Dry" to "Exceptional Drought":

Volusia County, where Orange City is situated, is in Extreme Drought.

The drought outlook for the next three months predict some improvements--there's still drought, but not so much as now. (What, rain teasers but no downpours? We get cloudy days but whatever precipitation these overcast skies deliver doesn't even touch the ground.)

screencap from National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center

Not something our firefighters in Florida would love to know, eh?

Time to do the rain dance?

Nah. I'll stick to the Rosary--I'll ask Mama Mary to get us some much-needed rain...without the floods. Just enough so it'll be Mother Nature watering the gardens daily (or even every other day), instead of me, heh.