I just read where hail is actually formed when rain that is released from clouds goes up instead of down. How bizarre.
From the Old Farmer’s Almanac Online:
When a cloud releases rain, the rain can be forced upward, where it freezes into tiny ice pellets. If updrafts keep buffeting the pellets, layer upon layer of frozen water will be added to the pellets until, finally, hailstones are released.
The bulk of yesterday was spent in bed with a migraine so not much got done. I forced myself to pick the blackberries and beans before the afternoon thunderstorm hit.
On a techie note – I was feeling a little better last night and was able to work on the coding for a page I am doing. I have several years worth of local weather stats that I’ve imported into a database. I am not exactly sure whatI want to do with it but so far I have written code to output the next months worth of weather history starting from the current day. If you are interested you can see it here. I think ultimately I’d like to use it as a reminder type service to drop me an email when the temps are right for planting this or that crop. Ok… way too much time on my hands.
Back to the harvests. This morning I was back to my old self and decided to try to attack some of the weeds that have begun to compete with the veggies. Let em grow, cut em down. I used to remove them to compost but find that if I leave them in place (as long as I haven’t let them go to seed) they make a nice mulch in the rows. The microflora break em down and the goodies become available to a future crop. In place composting I call it. While I was weeding I noticed my potato onions were ready to pull. I planted 15 in early April and dug 54 today thats almost a 4:1 return. Most were fairly uniform size. Small if compared to what you would get in the grocery but I like the fact that they multiply. If I play my cards right in a couple of years I will never need to buy onions again. Most of these I will save and plant out either this fall or next spring. I may try planting some in both the fall and spring to see which works best.