Here’s hoping for an abnormal year. To clarify that, what I am actually hoping for is an abnormal farming season. I would love to experience a season so out of the ordinary that everything runs… like clockwork, so to speak.
As three and a half feet of snow lingered into March, the thought for such an out of the ordinary situation seemed impossible. But the snow melted, quickly, and despite getting a late start tilling the soil, most of the next couple of months went… rather abnormally. But allow me to explain.

My farming experience extends roughly, and I mean ROUGHLY, ten years. The memory of one of my first years comes to mind where rain fell almost daily upon the small rows of peppers and tomatoes in what was then just named Field 4 for Organic Certification purposes. Oh, it rained that year. Weird diseases appeared on some of the plants, diseases that I was completely unfamiliar with at the time. Indeed, they were not even diagnosed as diseases. Nonetheless, I gauged farming along that particular meteorological time line. Precipitation was not an issue.

Then, the following year fell like the air above the Sahara. Fell might not be a good term, because it seemed as though nothing at all fell from the air that year. Without any means of irrigation, I quickly discovered that growing vegetables in a desert without liquid nourishment is, well, impossible. It was at that time that the realization settled into my naïve brain that ulterior means will often be necessary to overcome what nature provides.

It was only after that year that mental notes were able to be taken on the weather patterns in the mid-Atlantic region in which I farmed. If those notes were to have been scribbled down somewhere, they would make as much sense as a first grader’s doctoral thesis. That is to say, that without many years of experience, any judgments made would be gibberish at best. But at this point, a decade has passed before my farming eyes, and the following is how they passed (allowing for failing human memory of course).
In the next seven years, drought was experienced numerous times. And these droughts were the worst recorded in the region’s history, judging, of course, from the standpoint that no rain is a bad thing. This may be misleading, because in one year the drought was in April, when rain is rumored to fall relentlessly. Another year there was no rain in September, etc. One of those years did not see rain in over fifty straight days. And then there was another year when rain fell almost every day.

Ah, how predictable the weather can be! Then, toward the middle of the decade, two consecutive years passed without a “spring”. Instead of a gradual rise in daily temperature, the cold freeze of winter passed into the scorching heat of summer seemingly over night. Spinach produced few leaves before going to seed. Peas dried out, and the lettuce also bolted before being harvestable.
And then there was last year. Over the entire season, only four days registered a temperature above 90 degrees Fahrenheit. It is the mid-Maryland, mid-Atlantic weather at issue here. Only four days above 90 is inconceivable. At least it was before last year, a year in which fellow farmer’s watched as pepper plants, tomatoes and squash refused to grow as expected. Unknown diseases developed and pests, such as cucumber beetles, flourished to such an extent that entire crops withered before producing any fruit. You see, last year, there was no summer.

So, it is early June. The deep, incredibly deep snow has long melted. The soil was tilled months ago. The myriad of plants have been planted. Up to this point, after the snow melt, it has been a strange year, I mean an abnormal year. And I hope the season continues in that fashion. The temperature rise over the past months has been relatively gradual, and the rainfall has been sufficient. Again, now it is June. We have experienced a spring. The spinach leaves and lettuce leaves are large and succulent. The pea plants are thriving. And the temperature continues to rise as summer approaches. Pepper plants, tomato plants, squash and melon plants, beans and basil all appear to be thriving in the rising heat.

And here I will pause to restate that I am hoping for an abnormal year. If only this trend continues, that is the gradual passing from season to season in this region that is described by planting suggestion charts and such, which have by no means been accurate in the ten years of my endeavor. What a year it would be if the spring continues for a couple more weeks, then summer sets in for about three months, only to subside into a mellow fall, eventually setting to rest in early winter.
Yes, I crave earnestly for such an abnormal year to occur! How completely strange it would be not to experience fifty degree weather in August, or a month with no rain! And I look forward to it eagerly! Just for once, after the ten years of constant struggle, if one season would cooperate with the supposed historical trend, I would be incredibly grateful! Yes, here’s to a completely abnormal farming season!