The Vegetable Garden, Part 4: Sudden Change in the Weather

My grandson Reed and I harvest a radish on Christmas eve.
Photo credit: Emily Johnson.

We've neglected the vegetable garden for the last two weeks. Holiday guests and a sudden change in the weather kept us either busy or inside. We'd had a couple of weeks of warm sunny weather and we were hoping the dry season had arrived at last. The fair weather had enticed flocks of parrots to venture up to our neighborhood from lower elevations each morning. They departed on Christmas eve and have not been seen since. The weather is nicer now, but the continued absence of the parrots is a sign that we may be in for some more bad weather before the dry season sets in.

It was on Christmas day that the weather turned nasty  -- high winds and horizontal rain. This continued for almost four days. It wasn't until Tuesday, January 4,  that I was finally able to get back in the garden to appraise the damage. Some things thrived on the wet, windy weather -- carrots, onions, lettuce, mustard, and radishes. Corn, sunflowers, tomatoes, and peppers were flattened, broken off, or beaten to shreds. I'm making a mental note of the survivors and casualties for planting this time next year. The first version of a windbreak proved to be inadequate, and will be replaced with an improved version soon. In the coffee grove next door, most of the plantain trees were felled by the wind and most of the leaves on our cecropia tree were left in tatters. I had one tomato plant sitting on the edge of the upstairs balcony. The wind blew it off and it tumbled down the roof and stuck in the gutter, resting sideways. I had to wait three days until the wind died down to venture out on the roof and retrieve it. In it's three-day sojourn it had produced a small tomato.

The winds calmed down to almost nothing last night and the thermometer dropped to 55, the first calm weather since mid-December. Maybe we'll see some parrots this morning.

Happy gardening!