Rain, Rain, Go Away

After last week’s proverbial  April showers, we were hoping not only for May flowers, but for drier days propitious to planting.  So far, though, May has been a disappointment: a short sunny break (four days), followed by diluvial rains since Tuesday noon. For farmers with loamy soils, a few days without rain will not suffice to dry things out – what we need is a real dry spell (a week or more) before returning to the fields. While we did manage to plant our first broccolis, cabbages and beets during last weekend’s sunny interlude, we will now have to bide our time, waiting for the sun to return.  Too much rain is not good for agriculture: it carries everything away, washes out soil nutrients and floods the fields. And so we find ourselves, bowing to the sun gods instead of doing a rain dance…praying for sunshine – a lot of it, and fast.