In March, we started recurring Monday afternoon workdays in the LPH Community Gardens. Workdays are not only open opportunities for neighbors to come together to help till, plant, weed, or otherwise tend to our collective growing spaces, but they are also days for home garden growers to share resources, ideas, and challenges.

Unfortunately, Mother Nature has been one early challenge we’ve already faced together. All 3 of our workdays have been rained, snowed, or severe wind-advisoried out! While not as bad as 2019, the Cincinnati area is on trend with the Farmers’ Alamac predictions of an above-average amount of rain with slightly cooler temperatures this spring.

We will miss the extra moisture mid-summer, so we’re trying hard not to be too grumpy. Still, here is a snapshot of our current week’s weather forecast. If you aren’t familiar with graupel, it’s one of the most remarkable types of precipitation (second only to thundersnow). Neither is much fun for accomplishing your outdoor garden chores, but at least the brassicas are happy.

Screenshot of a Facebook post from a local meteorologist named Nick that shares the forecast for Cincinnati over the next week. It will be cold and rainy a lot with a chance of snow.

We are hopeful that those 70s predicted for next week will also mean some dry days are in our future.

In the meantime, we’ve stayed busy placing seed orders, preparing for the delivery of compost and other soil amendments, recruiting new volunteers, and preparing for our first Garden Party on April 22nd!