One of many dry sunny days this month.
Our weather has been blissful day in and out. Mild, crisp and so dry that there is no dew on the grass in the morning. It seems like every day, the sun is shining brightly in a mostly cloudless sky. A slight breeze keeps it all from becoming too hot.
Most people are happy about the nice weather that hasn’t inconvenienced their commute to work and has enabled them to enjoy great sun filled weekends. I wonder how many have stopped to notice this simple fact that this weather is down right WEIRD! And it has been for many months now.
Global weirding is here. This is the term I like to use to describe global warming. I’ve written about this wacky weather in 2010 and in 2011. Climate change doesn’t always look like 90 tornadoes in one day or a freak tropical storm flooding out much of Vermont. Climate change can look like this: no real winter followed by a sunny, warm and dry spring.
As someone who grows food, I’m very connected to the weather and what’s happening on the ground. Plants that wouldn’t normally show up until late April or May are already here. I know because I’ve been weeding! The soil is powdery and dry.
I don’t know what the months ahead will bring, but I’m hoping they bring rain, these endless sunny days are creeping me out!
But in case the rains don’t show up, it would be really smart to start preparing for possible drought sooner rather than later.
The first place to start is your lawn. Don’t plant thirsty grass. Crazy as it may sound, lawns are our biggest irrigated crop in the US. This is both wasteful and foolish. Now is the time to kill your lawn or switch to an herbal lawn, or what my hubby calls letting the weeds take over!
Getting started with an herbal lawn thus may be as simple as changing your definitions and attitudes. Instead of targeting them as lawn weeds, try thinking of clover, yarrow, and potentilla as unacknowledged, unappreciated herbs. Read more about herbal lawns here.
Hugelkulture diagram
Dig the well before you are thirsty- Chinese proverb
