This crazy spring
The first (outside) flowers of the year are always apricot, narcissus (daffodil), anemone, and poppy followed shortly by tulips. This year, everything is 3 weeks early and things are blooming at the same time that we’ve never seen before, like forsythia and lilacs. That’s not ideal for me, as I planned my harvest to coincide with the farmers market, which is still a month away.
There were 8 days in March over 80 degrees. I cannot stress enough how insane that is. According to the instagram account bianchiweather, there were seven days above 80 degrees in March between all of 1972 and 2025. SEVEN DAYS IN 54 YEARS vs 8 days in one year. It’s not looking good folks. These temperatures are influenced by the la nina pattern in the Pacific Ocean, but I suspect that is linked to the warming atmosphere caused by greenhouse gas emissions.
Despite them blooming a month early, I do still love tulips. I will be cold storing them as long as possible to sell throughout April. With some reprieve from the heat, it’s looking like I will have to store the later-bloomers for about 3.5 weeks to make it to the first market date.
Farming is always unpredictable, so I think I've gotten used to it, but it's still shocking to see the weather THIS messed up with summer temps in March. I had to set up makeshift shades over many of my spring seedlings to hopefully lower the temperature by a few degrees. They don't prefer temperatures over 75F, and they will start to go dormant or produce poor-quality blooms. Normally, that doesn't happen until June when we've completely switched over from planting spring crops to summer ones. We can’t simply start doing that switch early now, because Coloradans also know that the threat of a post-Mother’s-day snow storm is very real.
I've also been watering to hopefully keep the soil cool for the spring crops. I believe the biggest water user in our state is agriculture. The low water in the reservoirs and record-breaking extremely early heat is shaping up to be another doozy year for farmers. I've had my personal yard converted to all vegetable and flower plots for many years, and the little Denver water audit thingy (technical term) they send out has always said I am still a lower water user than my neighbors with lawns. Pretty crazy, right? I collect rain water off my roof in rain barrels and use mulch, but my primary watering efficiency has to be my drip systems (along with areas I have planted with native plants and drought-tolerant perennials). Happy to answer questions about any of those any time.
Narcisuss harvest wrapped up before March even ended, which makes me so sad because I love them. I have a few stragglers, because it seems like the latest-planted crop (last November) always blooms later, which makes for a nice succession as long as I plant more every year. Narcissus are an underrated perennial, and I wish they stuck around longer. There's always next year that maybe we'll not go straight from 15 degrees to 80 degrees in one week.
