Weather, that fickle friend

The winter of 2022/23 in Europe was notoriously warm. For those working the land, it was worryingly warm.

A warm winter is not good for perennials because it makes them come out earlier than normal and puts them at the risk of freezing.

Irina: But of course it doesn’t do anything to weeds. They just grow, freeze if there’s a cold spell, and then grow again. Talk about survival.

Cris: Ticks as well.

Besides warm and good for weeds and ticks, last winter was also quite dry, causing anxiety at Camp Slav because we had big gardening plans for the year. Beds were dug, tilled, shaped, and evened… only to be re-tilled and then re-tilled again because there was nothing to put in them… because early spring, unlike winter, was not warm.

It didn’t get as bad as snow but the weather was as inconstant as a politician’s views. Which meant that we could not plant even veggies that had come out in the seedling cups. Because every plant requires certain minimum temperatures to ensure survival.

This is how the improvised nursery in the kitchen looked in March. The tiny little things to the left of the tomatoes are peppers.

Cris: Those peppers are taking a while.

Irina: I know. I’m planting them in mid-May and I no longer care if any survive.

Then, in April, it started raining. It rained almost every single day for two weeks, which created a very English feel to the place complete with tonnes of mud and delayed planting plans further because what’s one more delay between friends?

Which turned out to be a good thing because then it hailed.

The village of Dalboki sits over the Thracian Plain, which, as the name suggests, is quite flat. Besides literal tonnes of ancient history in the form of tombs and artefacts, the plain is also a major agricultural region. And prone to hail, especially in spring.

Guess when it hailed: a few days after we planted the courgette seedlings and just as the radishes were putting out their first true leaves. By some miracle, there were no casualties.

The weather then took a break, giving us some sun and then the rain returns as the radishes were putting on weight. Guess what’s not very good for radishes in this period? Rain. Because they soak up the excess water and as we discovered first-hand, they literally burst. Not all of them, fortunately.

One good thing the rains did was keeping the soil moist enough for the beans to sprout just when we were beginning to give up hope. They also saved a couple of waterings for the tomatoes, and a watering saved is a watering earned in these parts.

Weeds, of course, flourished. Is there anything better than freshly turned soil generously fertilised and moistened copiously by the rain? Apparently, the only thing better than this is growing right next to onion stalks instead of using all the space between them.

Cat: They’re like parasites. Like ticks but with plants.

Indeed, weeds do sometimes act like parasites for some reasons only they are aware of. Below is a veggie bed that looked clean and brown just weeks ago. Now, it had turned into a mess.

But not for long.

In all fairness, the art of weeding deserves a whole separate post…

Irina: Rant. The word is rant.

… a whole separate rant. As for the weather, by early May the rain had become less frequent and the only problem remaining was that it was still colder than this time last year. And windy, for that extra bit of annoyance from the impossibility to plant things and even to weather them lest they got blown away.

The worst bit? We could have captured a lot of that rainwater if we’d had a bigger reservoir. Which we are getting promptly. We have made a bet this would bring an instant end to the rain that will continue for the observable future because there’s nothing more useful than a tonne’s worth of water storage capacity in dry weather.