Goodbye La Niña, it’s been a heckuva ride!
To be fair, she brought Ouray two normal snow years (178.4 inches in 2020-21, 149.9 inches so far in 2022-23) and one dry stinker (128.9 inches in 2021-22).
Come hither, spring — we humans and our wild friends need warm, sunny days and gardening weather.
The first 10 days of March brought lamblike gray skies and two very welcome 50-degree days. Scant precipitation was offset by good snow ground cover.
February, however, was an endurance run — cold, wet weather, 8.4-inch average snow depth,and street corner snow mounds best measured in meters.
Days (36.5 degrees) and nights (14.4) were 4 degrees below normal.
In addition, February’s nights were 2-plus degrees colder than January’s (16.5).
As of Tuesday, March days averaged 38.3 degrees, a whopping 8.9 below normal; nights 19.8 degrees, 4.8 below normal.
March’s 3.28 inches of precipitation is now 133% of normal, 2.47. Thanks to sev- eral atmospheric rivers and some rain/sleet episodes, the month’s snow totals are just 24.4 inches, 89% of normal, 27.4.
A friend in Ridgway noticed that the snow water equivalent (SWE) measured at the SNOTEL Red Mountain site is 29.3 inches. I wondered if this was a record. It isn’t. The highest SWE at Red Mountain since 1980 is 44.5” on May 16, 1984.
But I sure don’t want to see a snowy Uncompahgre spring like 1984. For the snow year 1983-84, 227.4 inches accumulated in Ouray, and 87.5 inches of that fell from March through June. Brrrr.
So, what can winter weary gardeners expect next month? NOAA predicts that, unlike the past three months, April will have near normal temperatures (days 54.4 degrees, nights 29.8) and slightly below normal precipitation (2.49 inches) and snow (22.6). The forecast for April 2-10, however, includes below normal temps and above average precipitation.
If the overall prediction for April comes true, we might soon swap snow boots for rubber duckies, winter coats for sweatshirts, fuzzy hats and gloves for shady garden wear. Already, my raised beds are soaking up sunshine between storms, the grass is green and growing whenever the continuing snow melts, the first crocus are blooming and daffodils are aching to do likewise.
A wet March is a good time to sow seeds indoors for tender crops like tomatoes and peppers. It’s also imperative to think about how to protect them once they are set into the garden or planted in big pots on sunny decks. If you’ve never used water-filled plastic protection devices, now’s the time to seek them out at garden shops or online.
They act like miniature greenhouses when placed around a tomato or pepper plant with their tubes filled with water. Water absorbs sunlight, heats up and provides tender plants with warmth at night as well as protection from wind. Once the last frost has passed, summer weather is established, and the plants happily poke out of the top, the device is removed.
When the garden dries out a bit (that may take a while this year!), try dressing those beds with good compost and then plant hardy spring vegetables. Scallions, carrots, radishes, spinach, peas and lettuce are planted well before summer’s heat arrives. Spinach and radishes provide an early harvest as well, yielding more space for warm weather crops.
Rhubarb, asparagus, raspberries and strawberries – lovely, hardy spring perennials — will provide fruit for many years if fertilized and watered. Potatoes, grown by the early miners, also thrive here. They are planted two to three weeks before the last frost (June 16 in Ridgway, May 29 in Ouray) since the green growing tops are not especially hardy.
If you grow squashes, cucumbers or pumpkins, try sowing seeds indoors around May 1 (large yogurt containers work well for these big seeds). By early June their leggy seedlings will be ready for a warm patch outdoors. Give them some early protection at night and they will reward you with fruit by summer’s end.
For those who long for sweet stuff, planting a suitable fruit tree rewards your work for years to come. Apples grow well in both Ridgway and Ouray. Montmorency cherry trees produce fine sour cherries, perfect for summer pies and winter cobblers. Plums, pears, hardy table grapes and apricots also do well in established gardens. In Ouray, peaches produce in protected spots.
Don’t forget a good, comfortable chair under a shade tree for summer relaxing after the day’s garden chores are finished. Warm weather snoozing may be just what we all need after this rather brutal, gray winter. Until then, remember this childhood rhyme:
Spring is sprung,
The grass is riz
I wonder where
The flowers is.
– Spring ditty
Karen Risch gardens, records weather for NOAA and CoCoRahs, writes and hikes in Ouray. Her Wunderground weather station ID is KCOOURAY3, transmitting weather from latitude N38 1’ 34”, longitude W107 40’21”, Elevation 7,736’. A purpleair.com air quality monitor RISCH operates at the same location.
