April showers bring May flowers. Or so goes the old saying – one likely invented by an Easterner.
Here in the Central Valley, everything starts and ends two months earlier than most everywhere.
April showers? We’ll be lucky to get even a few raindrops by then.
That makes March a pivotal month for farmers and backyard gardeners. For those of us who toil the soil, it’s a month of high risk and high reward.
Farmers especially.
As of the last survey, the Sierra snowpack was close to normal. If it keeps storming through March and into April, most farmers can be assured of healthy water allotments – enough to get them through the growing season. They can take chances in the amount of acreage they can plant and not worry so much about pumping groundwater.
Yet March is a fickle month. It can unleash torrential rains, hailstorms and deep freezes, or it can bring spring weather like that of recent days. It can also be a month when Mother Nature turns off the spigot, turning a healthy water year into a dry one.
For backyard gardeners, the financial risks are minuscule compared with those of farmers.
Yet nonetheless, we have our own bets to be waged.
Consider the tomato. I like to eat tomatoes in June, and maybe even late May. If I plant now, I have a chance of wowing my friends with sumptuous BLTs before summer officially arrives.
That’s why I spent last Sunday stooped over my plot at the community garden, planting a pair of young tomato seedlings – an Early Girl and a Sweet Gold.
I only planted two, wanting to hedge my gamble against a late frost or hailstorm.
The plot next to mine is worked by a young couple who recently moved here from Tennessee. As I planted my tomatoes, they looked at me with a mixture of alarm and curiosity.
Tomato planting in March? Undoubtedly I was affirming their view that Californians are a reckless bunch.
There was nothing scientific about my decision. I hadn’t consulted an almanac or extension agent.
All I knew was that it felt like spring, and the weatherman had predicted a week of warm weather.
I wonder how many farmers operate similarly on instinct. Probably a few.
As a farmer once told me, planting crops is like proposing marriage. It’s a leap of faith, and you know when the time is right.