It's raining again here, and the temperature has dropped about 6 degrees since 9 a.m. when I reported for CoCoRaHS. It was 49 degrees then and I recorded .15 in. of precipitation. I'm waiting for a lull in the rain so I can go out and cover what's left of my vegetable garden before tonight's expected snow flurries or whatever is in store. I figure if I can get the garden through tonight and tomorrow ok, there will be a stretch of good weather on the other side that will let at least some of the rest of my tomatoes and cukes ripen off. The root veggies I don't worry about - some nice day in the middle of October I'll tackle them.

I began to wonder how we've done this year overall for rainfall, so I went back to my figures from May to present and the total this year was a whopping 41.85 in. Last year for the same months I recorded 21.25 in. That made me wonder what the the trend might be (as if this wasn't indication enough!) and went on line. I found this table: St.Johnsbury Weather

St. Johnsbury was about the closest I could come to Joe's Pond. We're always a few degrees cooler than in St. Johnsbury, but this table will give you an idea of what was reported in 2008. The total rainfall for the same five months was 17.9.

Last spring I read about growing potatoes in a container - plant them, keep adding soil as they grow and develop, and in the fall dump out the container and there will be a pile of potatoes revealed. Didn't work for me. I added soil, kept them happy, as near as I could tell, and when the tops died about two weeks ago, I figured either they got too much of something or not enough - or maybe they were just ready to harvest. So this week I dumped the container over. There were perhaps half a dozen 1 1/2-2 in. potatoes and a whole lot of pea sized ones. I'm guessing there just wasn't enough room for them to spread and mature like they do when planted normally. Perhaps I planted too many. I didn't keep track of how many pieces I put in, but I'm guessing half a dozen in a 2 x 3 ft. container. There was good drainage - holes in the bottom - and earth worms had found their way into the bin, so everything looked good except for the crop. Since I have plenty of garden space, I guess I'll go back to the usual way to raise a few potatoes next year. Lesson learned.