Dear weather,
I am using you as an excuse in not keeping up with planting stuff. To be honest, I've been working lots, and spending all my money on my pets and cars for upkeep and maintenance. When I am home, I'm hoping work hasn't ruined my ability to walk properly (standing on concrete for 7 hours a day sucks, and don't you deny it).
You've done your best to decimate my plans, but I've taken advantage of you, nonetheless. Where the tomatoes and such died out (I got one squash this year. One. That's unheard of.) I planted a few perennials. I need to dig up unwanted plants (azaleas are not the only shrub on the planet, thanks) but my flowers attracted bees. These bees moved in and made my yard more productive than I could have hoped for. So, yeah, no veggies for me, but since I don't spray or use anything other than compost (twice a year I use MiracleGro's granules, but I want to get away from it) the bees are happy to stay here. I intend to expand upon this with an expansive raised bed, incorporating wildflowers as well as veggies and herbs. Bees love herbs, actually - and there's a breed of bee that lives only to pollinate squashes, so those will be back again next year.
You think you beat us, weather? Think again. The darkened skies were great for not burning out my new flowers, or killing my pansies (until this month's heat finally took them out. Yes, I had pansies until July. Be jealous). My new orange osmanthus is looking happy, and my butterfly bush has bounced back from being twice mowed down. Also, my trees, which aren't exactly happy - they're old, and were mistreated in the past and seriously need to be removed - needed all this water and they needed it super badly.
The mulch and table scraps composted well, giving me colonies of earthworms around the yard I never had before. The crape myrtle was cleaned up, and it's old age it'd grown alongside unwanted Japanese Privet. It's currently happily flowering, feeding local species of bees and butterflies.
Sure, we didn't hike as much as we'd like, and produce prices may spike for now, but this is indicative of change. We need to be able to roll with the weather, and where we don't have tomatoes I do have potatoes - and lots of happy ecosystem stuff. Suck it, weather.
