Rain, Rain Glorious Rain

Thanks Mom Nature!

As any farmer and indeed any gardener knows, it doesn’t matter how much time and effort you’ve put into the soil preparation, fertilization, and planting of your crop or garden, it can be all for naught if Mother Nature isn’t cooperating by sending down precious rain!

As I write this little musing on my favorite subject (gardening of course) I’m watching a nice gentle rain soaking everything in our backyard, and it’s a great sight to see.

We’ve just come through a long, hard winter, that was extremely cold so had not produced a huge amount of snow cover. The lack of snow meant our soils were pretty dry and though there was enough moisture to certainly plant the garden and get everything germinating, there certainly wasn’t enough to carry much growth beyond the seedling stage.

As well, our lawns were getting pretty sad looking, greening up, but not all that evenly, lot’s of big ugly pee patches from our little English Bulldog lady, and tons of dandelions looking really healthy right off the bat, as I missed my fall herbicide application last year when winter set in early and took me by surprise!

Though I’d done my normal fertilizer spreading job with my lawn broadcast spreader, without some moisture the granules just sit there and do no good whatsoever.

So today is a good day.

The rain started a day ago, and you can literally see the difference overnight. The fertilizer granules have all dissolved and will be right in the lawn grass’s root zone, the lawn is a definite greener shade, all the seedlings transplanted into the vegetable garden have perked up, and the hanging flower baskets are looking fuller and more colorful already.

There is no substitute

Sure, we can water everything with sprinklers and watering cans, but there is really nothing to match the results that come after a gentle warm spring rain. Mother nature always seems to do a better job than we can we try to duplicate her!

Plus, the rain somehow makes me a happier dude!