It's not our imagination

Plum blossoms and a cold sky...
where are the bees?

The smart bees are still asleep. Our Northwest weather guru Cliff Mass wrote a post on his blog titled Are Northwest Springs Getting Worse? Here's an excerpt:

So it is not your imagination that this was an absolutely abysmal spring...one of the worst ever. Now part of the blame can probably be pinned on the strong La Nina of this winter, but not all, since this year is so extreme. Eventually, global warming will change the trends upwards, but the coastal Northwest is one of last places on the planet that will experience warming because of our proximity to the slow-to-warm eastern Pacific.

The forecast for this weekend? Just showers, but considerably cooler than normal with temperatures dropping into the 30s on Sunday morning. Don't even think about putting any tomato plants out until June.

Well, being the "last on the planet to experience global warming" feels like not getting invited to a hot party. On the other hand, we watched a PBS Nature program last night about the bush fires and scorching temperatures in Australia. So having a cold ocean in the backyard might not be such a bad thing these days.

I ignored Cliff's advice and planted tomatoes this weekend, but they're in dark pots against our south wall. The warmest spot on our postage stamp mini-climate. One Roma plant (for John) and a Sweet 100 Cherry (for me.) I was looking back on the blog and last October 12 we had so many Roma tomatoes I roasted them in the oven. And that was a chilly summer. Come to think of it, we've had about a year of cool weather! Time will tell.