Good morning, and it's just WRONG. Welcome to Saturday Morning Garden Blogging.
You see that picture? I took that picture in my front yard... on Tuesday. We are not supposed to have crocus blooming on February 3rd!
Last Saturday I was out in the front yard in a t-shirt planting bulbs. And getting overheated. On the last day of January.
The remainder of the week was just as unseasonably warm — on Thursday the official high was 68°, meaning it was in the 70s in Denver proper. It's just all ass-backward; we're supposed to have weeks of normal highs in the 40s, with the occasional foray into really cold for a few days, and occasional short spurts of spring-like warmth — not day after day in the 50s and 60s and occasional bouts of the 40s.
Ah well, we take what we get — and the forecast for next week is for more normal February weather, not too hot and not too cold. We may even get a bit of much needed moisture.
As noted, I did get some bulbs planted last weekend, stuff I bought last Fall but didn't get into the ground. The bulbs have been in our cold-storage space and most have over-wintered quite nicely — except for a minor glitch, that could have been much worse.
When I went into the back area of the cold storage space (the area where it's coldest) I discovered a small flood. The cock which shuts off the feed to the swamp cooler had loosened and had been dripping for gawd knows how long — I hadn't been back in that area since early December. It wasn't horrible, an inch or so of water across the back section, but it was enough to have wet the bottom of the box where some of the bulbs were. I lost a few to mold, but that's the extent of the damage. After tightening the cock as far as possible, I put one of my huge garden trugs under it to catch any subsequent drips, and now know that I need to check it weekly and, if necessary, empty it out. That's a real switch — usually I'm hauling water down there for seedlings under the metal halide light!
I'm going to try and plant more bulbs today, but it may be too windy. I want to get the bulbs planted ASAP, as it's been so warm so early. If I'm not working outside, I can still putter inside: it's not too early to start the begonia tubers I saved from last year. The other reason to finish with the bulbs is that I'll need the metal halide light soon and at that point the cold storage space is no longer the cold storage space, but the warm plant space.
That's what's happening here. What's going in your gardens?