Seasons A Little Confused

6

Tuesday 05 November, 2013 by Uncle Spike

So it’s early November. Even for southern Turkey, this is well into autumn, and whilst we are used to seeing a fair amount of sun, I gotta ask, where is the rain?

For us, rains normally start from 20th September; or rather that is when the first storm normally hits after 4-5 months of drought. We would then normally expect a big electrical storm every 7-10 days, with more regular rain by November.

.

THIS WOULD BE ‘NORMAL’

.

However, I watered the garden last night. Seriously, what was that all about? I had to dig around ground cover and plants in order to irrigate them as they were starting to wilt in the sun. Sure, it’s not over 40 degrees (110) like our summers, but with just two storms since May, and sunny days still over 25 (77F) for the past few weeks, the old hosepipe was back in action this weekend.

.

BUT THIS IS WHAT WE HAVE

.

I even had to crank up the artesian, or flick the timer switch in actuality. The main orchard was starting to dry out, and having just secured the sale of 3 tonnes (6,600 lbs) of clementines and oranges (first sale for 2 years so at least we break even, just, for last year and this year for tractoring costs and goat-poo – my time is ‘free’, yay), I didn’t want to risk losing or damaging the crop. So on Saturday night, my 50mm (2″) artesian pumped up 60 metric tonnes (66 US tons) of fresh mountain water from the river 121 metres (400′) below the farm. What made matters worse, is that I had only just started to roll up the drip pipes – coz it’s November! – only to have to roll them back out again. And that entails lots of walking up and down tree lines wrestling with non-compliant irrigation pipes that are only pliable and well-behaved when the temperatures are over 30-35.

.

.

The seasons are a tad confused me thinks.

We have roses that are still growing new flowers. The first of the winter fruit, clementines, are almost ripe, but at the same time, we have summer crops of peppers and aubergines still growing strong. Meanwhile, winter seeds (carrots, cabbage, cauliflower etc) are struggling to germinate as it’s too hot.

The ever-shortened ‘winter’ season will no doubt result in virtually no winter veggies apart from peas and broad beans I suspect – there just won’t be enough time before it heats back up again in March.

Hey ho, as they say, can’t have it all ways 🙂

This is a photo of some quick pickings yesterday. We have winter fruit ripened a month early, and summer veggies still producing. Weird.

.

.